Ronan walked the NBS hallway a little after half past nine, Riley at his side. Five days since he’d first slipped into the half-immersion and started learning Elijah from the inside — not long, and he knew it.
"So... You solid on this, kid? Walk in there and you’re Elijah, no daylight showing?" Riley asked, careful about it — he couldn’t read it off the kid from the outside. "’Cause make no mistake, this one counts. They want you for the lead, sure. You turned Henry and Jenny’s heads, and that’s the only reason that door up there opens for you at all. But wanting and having aren’t the same thing. You gotta go in and land it today. You come up short, and this whole contract we’ve been building slides right back out from under us."
"Don’t worry about me." Ronan kept his voice level. "It’s been a short window, I know that. Five days isn’t a lot of time. But I’ve got him. I can play Elijah, and I can play him well."
"Good. That’s the kind of talk I like hearing out of you." Riley clapped his shoulder. "I got high hopes on you, boy, and I’m not shy about it. You go in, you pull this off, and we get your name on that paper that much quicker. Then the money starts moving. I already put your whole situation to ’em: your fee, and an advance up front to tide you over, long as today lands the way I’m betting it does."
Ronan dipped his head. A few more steps, then: "You really didn’t have to come all this way down here with me. I’d have managed alright on my own."
"Man, ’course I came." Riley said it like the question barely made sense. "This is the first job you’re booking with me in your corner. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than right here."
"I guess I’m just not used to it. My old agent never once showed up to one of these."
"Yeah, well, there’s your difference right there." His agent shook his head. "That man’s behind you now, so put him clean out of your head. You get used to me instead, the agent who actually turns up. The contracts, the negotiating, sitting across from those tight-fisted suits, all of it, that’s mine to carry. You? You’ve got one job." He nodded down the corridor. "Walk in there and be the best damn Elijah those people have ever laid eyes on."
They reached the office door at the end of the hall. Ronan looked to him, and Riley gave back an easy nod. "I’ll be right here waiting on you. Go on, get in there."
Ronan drew a breath, knocked, and stepped through when a staffer opened it.
* * *
Inside, three people had been waiting on him the better part of five minutes. Morning light came flat through the windows, Henry and Jenny easy in it, their talk circling the same subject — the kid they were about to put in front of the man beside them.
That man was Mark Kelly, and Mark was running short on patience. The producer glanced at the time and had just opened his mouth to say so when the knock landed and the door swung in.
A young man stepped inside. Mark looked him over, slow and unconvinced — jeans, a faded Nirvana shirt — then caught the face. Handsome, clear-skinned, dark hair, deep ocean-blue eyes.
The young man bowed, deep from the waist. "It’s a real pleasure to meet you all. My name’s Ronan Mercer, and I’m the one who’s been cast as Elijah. I hope I’ve come at the right time."
Henry huffed a laugh at the formality. "Right on time, matter of fact. Not a minute early, not a minute late." His eyes went to the bow. "And would you look at that bow. Deep as they come. Very Japanese of you." He waved a hand between himself and Jenny. "Me and Jenny, you know us already, no need for the song and dance. But this fella beside me?" A nod at Mark. "This is your big shot. Mark Kelly, producer on the whole thing, straight out of NBS."
Mark’s mouth went flat. "You didn’t have to go and lay it on that thick, Henry."
But when he turned back to Ronan, the tired eyes had sharpened. "I’ve been hearing an awful lot about you, kid. From these two here, mostly. The pair of them will not stop telling me you’ve got something special in you. Me, though? I’m not sold yet, not on their word alone. So you’re gonna have to show me the thing yourself. Walk in here and make me believe you’re Elijah."
Henry’s grin stayed good-natured. "So don’t go making us look bad in here, kid."
Jenny leaned in, warmer than either of them. "I trust you, Ronan. You carried Thomas’s whole death right in front of us. Cold, no warning, nobody across from you to feed off of. I’ve got no doubt in my mind you can do this one too."
Warmth moved through Ronan, and it carried into his voice. "I won’t let any of you down. You have my word."
Mark took the kid’s confidence for plain cockiness, and kept the sneer behind his teeth. "Alright. Felix, run the read with him." His eyes stayed on Ronan. "I want to see for myself just how good this kid really is. Good enough that I tore up my own casting and knocked Johnny Miller off the lead to make room for him."
Off to the side, Felix cleared his throat and stepped up quick. "You set, Ronan?"
Ronan gave a small nod. Quietly, without a word to any of them, he slipped into the half-immersion and let it pull him down into Elijah.
Felix saw him settle, and started the read across from him.
And Elijah came up through him. Sweat beaded along his hairline; his breath pulled short and ragged. He held himself like a man who’d spent too long waiting for the ground to open under him: wound tight, flinching at the smallest sound in the room. But when he spoke, the words came clipped and exact, an order snapped off on reflex. Whatever the war had done to the rest of him, the discipline was still bolted down.
Henry, Jenny, and Mark watched it unfold, and the minutes did the work.
Mark went from doubtful to something a good deal closer to disbelief.
His eyes widened. ’Jesus. This kid got all the way inside Elijah in a matter of days?’ He couldn’t make it sit right.
And it wasn’t only Mark. Henry and Jenny had walked in expecting a strong read out of the kid, and even they hadn’t braced for this. He’d gone clean past the bar they’d set for him.
Jenny kept her face still, but the thought ran warm through her. ’Just what I figured. He’s a better Elijah than he ever was a Thomas. I called this one right.’
Felix, feeding him the lines, was quietly rattled himself. He’d known the kid could do Elijah after what he’d watched him pull off as Thomas. He just hadn’t figured it would come together this fast.
It took a while, but Ronan brought the read home, and the half-immersion let go of him.
He came back to the office and looked to the three of them, hope sitting plain in his eyes. ’Please let that have landed. I need this part.’ He’d poured hours into the half-immersion getting Elijah down, and the whole of it rode on the next few seconds.
But Henry, Jenny, and Mark only sat there, quiet. The longer it held, the tighter the worry wound in him.
’Oh no. Did I blow it somehow?’
He was still spiraling on it when Mark broke, clapping hard, half stunned at himself.
"That was something else, kid. Something else." Mark shook his head. "That performance? Bravo."
For a second Ronan had nothing. "I... thank you." He honestly didn’t know what to do with it.
"Well, that clears out every last doubt I brought in here with me." Mark turned his hands over. "No mistaking it now. You’re the one for this part, exactly like these two kept swearing to me you’d be. I want you in the role." He pressed on before Ronan could get a word up. "I’m having business affairs draw the contract up today. You’re signing this thing before you walk out of the building."
Ronan couldn’t have said how happy that landed on him. A smile broke loose. "Thank you. For trusting me on it."
Mark chuckled, plainly pleased, and leaned toward Henry with his voice low. "You found yourself a real one here, Henry. I’ll give you that much."
"Told you, didn’t I?" Henry said.
Jenny’s mouth pulled into a pout. "Hey. I’m the one who called him for the lead first. Let’s keep that part straight."
Mark laughed. "Yeah, yeah. Of course you did."
Then he turned back to Ronan. "Anyway. Go on and give your agent a call, get him down here. He ought to be at the table with business affairs to walk you through the signing."
"Actually..." Ronan said. "He’s already here. Came in with me."
That, none of them had expected.