She hasn’t even told Lily where she’s gone to ground, only that there’s a professional nurse she trusts there, and she doesn’t think anyone who isn’t a friend will try to come in. “Those that come to this place are safe,” she said, and Lily suspects there are vigilantes involved.
“Well,” she says, “if you ever want to write for Proxy, just say the word.”
“Careful, I might just take you up on that offer,” she hears Karen chuckle, just as there’s a loud knock on her door, and a voice it takes her a moment to place calling, “Mrs. Ellison? Lily? Are you in there? Please, I’ve got two kids with me and one of them’s hurt!”
“Sounds like you’ve got trouble over there?” Now Karen sounds upset. “Is there another riot going on?”
“No, it’s pretty quiet right outside the house. I think it’s just someone who needs help. Call me back if anything more happens?”
Peering out through the spyhole confirms it’s Roger Harrington. She and Mitchell saw more of him back before he split from his wife, but they’ve definitely still been friends. He’s got a pair of teenagers with him, a very angry-looking girl and a barechested boy who’s limping and holding what looks like his bunched up shirt to his leg.
“Hi, we were at the protests,” Roger says when she opens the door. “These are Michelle Jones and Ned Leeds. His leg’s cut up something awful; we’re not even sure how.”
“They went after all of us!” Michelle adds, slamming the door when they’ve rushed Ned through it. “One of those Secret Service assholes called us delinquents and threatened to put us where he said we belonged. I still think they threw the first punch.”
“Was there a first punch, really?” Ned faintly wonders out loud.
Lily leaves them to debate it as she runs for her first aid kit. For the first time since she arrived home, having gotten the dreaded phone call, her house doesn’t feel too empty, though, thanks to their loud voices. By the time she’s returned, it’s devolved into her speculating about whether Ned will have the guts to come with her again “next time,” to which Ned just sighs, “Oh, please say that asshole won’t ever come back to this city. I don’t want to ever see him again.”
“That’s too much to hope for, I’m afraid,” says Roger. He’s helped Ned lie down on the floor with his leg levitated and rested on top of two of Mitchell’s old encyclopedia volumes. Lily determinedly pushes thoughts of teenage Jason away to focus on binding this young man up. The wound’s not too bad, nothing life-threatening so long as he didn’t lose too much blood.
Michelle’s looking anxiously out the window. “They won’t come after us now, will they, Mr. Harrington?”
“Don’t think so. They probably haven’t chased us all the way up here, anyway. I think the biggest thing I might have to worry about now is getting fired.”
“Oh, if they try to do that…” Michelle growls, as Ned anxiously asks, “You really think that might happen?”
“Do you?” Lily herself asks. “I could get the Bulletin to write about it.” It’ll be harder if they fire Karen, but for a story like that, she’ll find someone. “Or at the very least, I could definitely get Proxy to, though I don’t know if that’s worth it.” She finishes tying the last bandage on Ned. “That’ll do for now, Ned, but you’ll have to be careful, and make sure this doesn’t get infected. I can try to get you to a professional nurse, if you want.” She’d have to get Karen to say where she is, but she has no doubt she would if Lily explained the situation.
“He didn’t hurt anything vital, did he?” Michelle asks. “I know how to deal with leg gashes. I’ll take care of him. And you should get Mr. Harrington to write a guest column for your newspaper, or at least for your tabloid magazine, if that’s what’ll take him.” She doesn’t hide her disdain for the latter, but Lily can just let that go. “He’s written a couple in the past.”
“That was years ago,” says Roger doubtfully. Mitchell did mention something about that to Lily, and described his writing as “okay.” Which, really, is not all that unlike the position his and Ben’s final protégé started from.
“If you do get fired,” she says, “give it another try. Hopefully you won’t be, though.”