She purses her lips together tightly and shakes her head. “No, I was not aware of Monkey Man either.”

I search her face for a glimmer of something, anything, but she’s stone-faced. My Brooke has left the building.

“Brooke.” Arnold suddenly speaks, his voice cracking. “Please, tell me honestly…you really didn’t know about this?”

She turns and faces him square on. “I promise you, Arnauld, I did not know we were in his comic.”

His face softens. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry he did this to you…to us.”

She drops her face and closes her eyes again. I notice that her fingers are white as they dig into the upholstery of the chair’s arm.

“Okay, that’s all we needed to talk to you about, Ms. Tobin,” the lawyer announces.

She slowly opens her eyes and for a moment they rest on the document the lawyer pulled out of the folder when this discussion began. Her eyes suddenly fill with fear and I see them shift to Arnauld, before shooting back to the document.

“What are you going to do?” she asks in a tense tone to no one in particular.

I’m trying to not fall to my knees as I realize that there’s a horror lurking I don’t yet understand.

“I’ll explain at dinner, baby. Don’t worry. We have it all under control.”

“I want to know now,” she demands, her voice haunting.

“We must ask you to leave now, Brooke,” Ruiz insists in a tone that says everything. Arnold might think he has her back, but the lawyer’s not an idiot. He knows her loyalty can’t be assured.

“I’m not leaving,” she says loudly, digging in her heels. “I want to know what’s going on here.”

“Brooke, we must insist you leave. Please don’t make us call in security,” the suit says firmly, making it clear he means business.

“That won’t be necessary,” Arnauld says smoothly.

“Brooke, don’t make him bring in security,” the Monkey says gently. “I’ll explain everything later.”

She curls over in her chair with her eyes closed, and we all sit silently waiting. It kills me that she looks so broken. It’s all hitting me that I’m the one who’s put her in this position. I am just as bad for her as the Monkey. I just didn’t see it.

HR lady stands and gestures to Brooke. “Come on, Brooke, there’s another issue we need to discuss over in my office. They’re waiting for us.”

Brooke finally looks up, her expression completely blank. She slowly rises and moves towards her as they head for the door.

I’m overcome, it feels like everything is shattered, as if I’ve fallen into the center of the earth and I’m not coming back out. “Brooke,” I call out right before they reach the door. The devastation in my tone surprises even me. I almost don’t recognize my voice.

She stops suddenly to my cry and pauses. I hold my breath as the seconds pass, praying for her to turn and face me, but instead she never turns. She just keeps moving, out the door, away from me.

Away from us… and that’s when I die inside.

For most of the rest of the interrogation I am Charlie Brown with a bunch of adults surrounding me going, “wa,wa,wa,…wa,wa…wa,wa,wa.” I’m not sure what they’re saying and I really fucking don’t care. But finally something catches my attention, and snaps me out of my stupor.

“To be clear, we own B-Girl, as stated in your employment agreement.”

What in THE FUCK are they talking about? Employment fucking agreement? Own B-Girl?

This must be about the document Brooke noticed before she left. It finally hits me. My mind recalls the standard form I’ve signed for Sketch Republic and other freelance work I’ve done before I start their projects. It maintains their ownership while I work on their properties.

“That’s for stuff I do here at work, not on my own time at home,” I insist. I ball my hands into tight fists.

“I’m afraid you have misinterpreted the agreement if that’s what you think,” Ruiz says calmly.

“B-Girl is mine,” I state clearly.

“Not anymore,” Arnold says smugly.

“Over my dead body,” I assure him. “I will fight this as long as it takes, no matter the cost.”

“Well I hope you’re a very wealthy man, Mr. Evans. Because these cases are extremely expensive, and Arnauld’s prepared to take this all the way.”

I think of dad and my family…my creation and my dignity are what I have to fight for. They wouldn’t let me back down.

“I have the resources,” I insist. “I’ll fight it all the way too.”

“Good, I love a fight when I know I’ll win,” Arnold says casually. “Meanwhile, we’ve contacted Sharper Edge Comics and given them the details. So be aware that your deal is now on indefinite hold until our potentially long case is finished. But I’m sure that they’ll be more than happy to deal with us directly when we’ve won…we’re professionals after all.”

I glare at him, wishing his fur would burst into flames, and he’d die a slow painful death.

“And while we have fun in court, I think I’ll use someone on staff to start redesigning B-Girl to my liking so that we can hit the ground running after we win. Maybe I’ll get your old team involved.”

“Arnauld,” Ruiz warns. He must be able to tell that I’m about to snap.

“Is there anything else?” I ask, trying to neutralize my voice.

“Nope, that’s all. Right, Ruiz?”

“We’re done for now. Have your lawyer contact me directly so we can discuss how we’re going to proceed.”

When I go to stand my knees almost give out on me. I falter for a moment, but somewhere inside I find the strength to stand tall and gather myself. I turn towards the Monkey.

“I know I have what you want, but you’re fooling yourself if you think money and lawyers are going to make what’s mine, yours. You have underestimated me before, and I assure you, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

I don’t wait to see his reaction or hear his response. I’m done. I try to remember to breathe as I head out the door. I need to pass the threshold before it does an Alice in Wonderland and the doorway suddenly shrinks to a tiny size or turns sideways.

I’m so stunned that I just start walking down the hallway…so disoriented that I’m not even sure where the elevators are. I wish someone, any one of my friends, was nearby so that they could help me.

“Mr. Evans, you need to stop.” I turn to see Cathy, the HR woman that assisted me once with straightening out vacation days, rushing after me, a security guard only a step behind her.

“I need to get out of here,” I say out loud, not specifically to her but more to myself.

“Yes, yes, the guard will walk you out. But do you need to gather any personal items from your cubicle? We can make arrangements another time for you to do it, if that would be better.”

I think of my iPod, books and my figurines. I fear they’ll all disappear by Mojo’s mandate if I don’t take them now.

I turn towards her. “No, I want to get my stuff.” I’m right on the edge of my sanity, but I need to keep it together. Once I get the hell out of this building I can have my breakdown…but not now. I try to shift into autopilot, pushing all my devastation and panic behind a closed door in my mind.

“Okay, I’ll come downstairs with you. The guard will need to be there as well. When you’re done, he’ll escort you out.”

“Is that really necessary? I’m not going to do anything. I swear; I’ll just leave.”

“I’m sorry, Nathan. It’s policy,” she confirms pointing towards the elevators.

During the ride down I wonder where Brooke is and how I’m going to reach her. They said they were going to interrogate her. She’s probably in there right now hearing the horror of it all. I think I’ll go mad if I don’t get to talk to her soon and understand how she’s feeling. I couldn’t get a clear read on her at all in Arnold’s office. Was she upset and angry about B-Girl, or trying to pretend that it didn’t matter to deflect the situation from me? Why didn’t she even look at me after she heard the news?