“Oh, you can’t hide this sort of thing from me,” Mom said. “A mother always knows these things.”
Bullshit, you hag. Something had happened. Something that had made her interested.
“Mom,” I said, trying for the right balance of gentle and firm, leaning more towards gentle to be safe. “I’m not going out with Irwin Collier. Seriously, what gave you that idea?”
“Lusitania, you can’t keep this under wraps anymore,” she said, tone chiding.
Under wraps? There were a lot of things I didn’t tell my parents. More than a few secrets now, but who I went out with wasn’t one of those things, if for no other reason than the fact that I didn’t date. I wasn’t about to put anyone else through the kind of crap I went through, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to give Daddy another lever to use against me.
“He called your father to ask for his blessing,” Mom went on. She could never contain herself for very long. “Said he wanted to be open about your relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship, Mom,” I replied. I curled up on my bed and found myself weirdly grateful that I was still wearing my school clothes. Somehow, the thought of having this conversation in my sleepwear was nauseating. Which was stupid, since what I wore to bed wasn’t all that different. Maybe it was the idea that it was worn for bed?
“I really don’t know him that well.” And I really didn’t want to.
“That’s the point of dating, silly,” Mom said. “Besides, he’s got your father’s blessing.”
That changed everything didn’t it? Joy.
“And you thought he didn’t like you because he slipped something into your drink at the fundraiser,” she went on.
The fundraiser you abandoned me at, you vapid bitch? What the hell had given me the impression that Mom would be even the least bit supportive? There was something wrong with her. Deeply wrong. I mean, I’m all kinds of fucked up, but this? How the hell is some bastard trying to date rape me in any way, shape, or form flattering?
It still felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. Or maybe hollowed out. Cored, that’s the word. My mother’s words cored me.
“Yeah, but he hasn’t asked me,” I said with a disappointed sigh. It was technically true. He’d told me, blackmailed me, and he was working his way into an even stronger position over me.
I’d make him pay for it.
I didn’t know how, but I would.
In the meantime, if I gave Mom what she wanted the sooner she’d go away.
Mom gasped. “I’m so sorry! I must have misunderstood. I didn’t mean to ruin the surprise.”
Surprise? “What surprise, Mom?”
“He must be getting ready to ask you out,” she said in a rush with a tone that said quite plainly that I was being a silly girl. “Oh my God, when do you think he’s going to do it?”
I tasted bile. “Yeah, I’ve got to study, Mom.”
“Again?” She seemed genuinely shocked. “But honey, a boy wants to ask you out. A young man. A young man your father approves of. When was the last time you even had a date?”
“I’ve got to hang up now, Mom. There’s a test on this chapter.”
“Lusitania Church, what is the matter with you? This young man could be your future husband. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Oh, it meant something. “Bye, Mom.” I said it as lovingly and sweetly teasing as I could manage before hanging up.
I waited a few heartbeats, then leapt to my feet and hurled the phone as hard as I could into my pillow. It hit with a disappointing whumf.
“What happened?”
Isabella stood in my doorway, leaning against the frame, arms crossed. I hadn’t heard it open. Had she been there long?
“Get out,” I said, my voice low in my throat.
She raised an eyebrow. “You going to make me?”
I took a step forward, intending to do just that, when I realized how utterly idiotic that would be. No matter how the game made me feel while I was playing it, I wasn’t actually Halira. Isabella fought for a living and had honed her body into an actual weapon. She’d snap me like a toothpick and toss me aside just as easily. Irwin never would have been able to do to her what he’d done to me.
It was that thought that made me come up short more than anything. As Halira I was powerful. Here, in the real world, I was helpless. Worse than helpless. I wanted to scream.
So, I did.
It had felt so empowering to roar in the game. The scream that tore from me wasn’t empowering, but it was a release. Everything that had been piled onto me came tearing out of my throat with so much force that it should have shredded everything in front of me. My mask shattered.
Next thing I knew, I was on my knees, wondering when I’d fallen and when Isabella had caught me. Her powerful arms were wrapped around my shaking shoulders.
“Let it out, chica,” Isabella said softly. “Let it out.”
There wasn’t anything else to let out. My throat was raw. My eyes stung. I felt like I’d run a marathon and my entire body ached worse than when I’d wrecked Irwin’s Ferrari.
“What is going on?” she asked, after a moment.
I didn’t have it in me to resist anymore. To keep things inside or to myself. I told her everything. I told her about the game. I told her about the rewards, the requirements, and the cathartic effects of playing. I told her about Irwin. About what he’d tried to do at Daddy’s fundraiser, how he was also playing the game, and what he was doing now. I told her about Mom. I told her about my plans to escape my parents’ control over my life and build something of my own through college, and now through the game. I cursed more than I’d ever allowed myself to, even in Kaiju Wars.
I felt lighter when it was over. Raw inside as well as out. A little like after you’ve thrown up. Burning and chaffed but better.
The whole time, she held me. She let me talk, visibly making an effort not to speak at certain points, and squeezing me so hard it hurt at others. But she kept her silence, nodding when appropriate, making little grunting sounds of acknowledgement.
She let the silence hang for a moment after I got it all out.
When she spoke, it wasn’t what I was expecting.
“Normally, I’d just listen and let you get all this shit out. That’s not what you need though, some I’m going to be straight with you,” she said. “You got three options. There’s no shame in any of them. Think you’re ready to hear them, or you need some more time?”
I blinked. I had options? It sure as hell didn’t feel like I did. When I answered, my voice was scratchy and hoarse. “Lay them out.”
“Option one. You can adapt and take it,” she said. “Try to get stronger or just survive. You been doing that already with your parents. Option two. You can run. Cut everything and run. Get away from everything and everyone from your old life.”
“Not an option,” I replied. “They’d find me.”
“So, option one until option two’s doable,” she said with a shrug.
She made it all sound so infuriatingly simple.
It must have shown on my face because she grinned. “Option three. You fight.”
“How?” I snarled. “This isn’t the game. I can’t just cut him to pieces.”
Isabella’s grin widened. It should have been unsettling. It wasn’t. “There’s always a couple of problems with blackmail or coercion.”
“And those are?” I asked. “More to the point, how do you know this?”
She shrugged. “I might have worked with a few girls who’ve been in situations like yours. Not exactly like. Close enough. This isn’t normally how the conversation goes, but I think you need things kept real.”
Yes. Oh, God yes, I did. “What are the problems?”
“One, the blackmail’s only as good as the material. You don’t care about it getting out or are willing to roll with that blow, they got no power.”
“But he does have
the power,” I replied. “I don’t want Daddy…I’m trapped.”
“Bitch please, who said anything about your Daddy? You just told me all about it, and you didn’t die. You’ve taken power from him. That’s another problem for him. You got help now. You’re not alone.”
I stared at her. I had told her. She knew. She didn’t have the power to show it to Daddy, but she did know about it, and she was helping me. That was it. I wasn’t alone in my opposition.
Slowly, I nodded. “Okay. Okay. Are there any other problems? Weaknesses that…we…can exploit?” I’d almost said I. Saying “we” felt awkward. Not bad, though. Not bad at all.
“You know what happens when you corner a wild animal? Back it so hard into a corner it’s got nowhere to go?”
I stared at her. “They fight?”
She laughed. “Oh, yes. They fight like hell.”
Chapter Eleven
It wasn’t hard to get Irwin to team up with me in the game before our upcoming “date.”
I told him I had a mission. One that promised lots of money. If I’d heard him correctly, he was now banking on the game providing him with everything he needed.
I was right. The temptation was too great for him to pass up.
He’d informed me in no uncertain terms that I was to tell the developers that the reward was to be transferred to his account. I pretended to and told him it was done. Keuketon gave a shrill shriek of pleasure. Now that I knew what to listen for, I could clearly recognize Irwin’s voice inside the noises his kaiju made.
Lying hadn’t been hard. He wanted to believe. I’d been more nervous convincing him of the mission’s legitimacy. There was no mission. I had reached out to the developers to ask for one. They’d politely told me they didn’t have anything for me yet. Fuckers.
So, I’d manufactured a mission. When Irwin asked, I told him it was a standard city smash. A race to destroy it as quickly as possible, and it didn’t have to be just me.
That was the trick of it. I needed him logged in with me if this was going to work.
My stomach clenched up into a knot when he told me to meet him back in the game in an hour, because he had something to do.
I logged out and felt mildly disoriented. My body was my own, but it wasn’t right. Too small, the posture and distribution of weight somehow off. Weird. I didn’t have time to worry about it, though.
I texted Isabella: Meeting in 1 hr.
She texted me back with a thumbs up.
I was in my room. Alone.
Isabella was stalking Irwin.
The plan was simple. I’d distract him in the game, and she would steal his phone and laptop. We could destroy the photos and recordings after that. As for what followed? I’d think of something. Unfortunately, this wasn’t something I could wait on. We had to act sooner rather than later, before he could cement his hold and gather more things to hurt me with.
Finding out where he was had been surprisingly easy. Oxford wasn’t exactly huge and an ass like Irwin wouldn’t stay at anything that wasn’t a luxury hotel. A few phone calls pretending to be a concerned family member, and we had him. Once we knew which hotel he was staying at, Isabella staked it out until she found out which room he was in.
I’d have liked to go, but that wasn’t an option. Thanks to his reward from the developers, he could track me. I wasn’t exactly sure how it worked, but he could. He’d shown up around campus at various points, deliberately intercepting me. Sitting out where I couldn’t help but notice him. Lording his control over me. I’d tried changing up my routine, taking different routes, and going to different stores. It didn’t work.
I figured it had to have something to do with our chips. He’d said he’d asked the developers for me as his reward. It stood to reason that they’d use the device they’d implanted in my hand to track me for him. The goat fuckers.
My being with Isabella would have just alerted him that something was up.
It was beyond weird, and more than frustrating to be relying on somebody else. I was still in a state of shock that I had somebody to rely on at all. The feeling was simultaneously gratifying and agitating. All the more so because I didn’t understand it.
Isabella and I had become friends, sure, but friends didn’t do stuff like this for each other. They exchanged small talk and platitudes over drinks and reassured one another that everything was okay. Maybe they even did a few fun activities together. They didn’t stalk their friend’s stalkers, let alone commit crimes like breaking and entering or theft.
There had to be an angle here that I was missing. It ate at me for the duration of the hour, and by the time I logged back in, I was grateful to have an outlet once more.
I found Keuketon in Monster Land. He wasn’t alone. Ursavore was with him.
“The fuck is fish-dick doing here?” I demanded.
Keuketon laughed.
Ursavore snarled. “Watch yourself, Sparkles.”
“Go spawn upstream and die,” I snapped back. “Seriously, why is this asshole here?”
“He’s going to help us with the mission,” Irwin said. “It’s a demolition race and you can accept outside help. Three kaiju are more destructive than two. We’re going to set a new record. The better we do, the bigger the reward.”
“And what do you get out of it?” I asked Ursavore.
His toothy jaw fell open in a grin that made me think of a dumb dog. It wasn’t hard to figure out what he’d been offered from that look. It made my stomach churn. Irwin saw me as a commodity every bit as much as Daddy did, only where Daddy wanted to preserve his investment, Irwin was ready to spend it. The bastard had offered me to Ursavore’s player.
I would kill him.
I’d had violent thoughts before. Horribly violent. This, however, was the first time that I’d realized I was actually capable of acting on those thoughts. Irwin wanted to sell me. If, or when, he tried, I’d kill him. Damn the consequences. With that realization came a new kind of calm. A weird sort of acceptance. I was going to be forced to spill blood. Real blood. It would suck, and bad things would follow. I would still do it.
This raised another question, though. What did Ursavore know? I sure as hell didn’t know who he was, and I doubted he actually knew who I was. Irwin wasn’t as smart as he thought he was, but he wasn’t a total dumbass. If he gave Ursavore too much information, it could lead to someone else trying to blackmail me.
I gritted my teeth and felt Halira’s beaked maw matching my reaction. I had to focus on the present. The problem at hand. With another kaiju, and one with Ursavore’s power set, would destroying a city be enough time for Isabella?
There was no way to tell her that her window had just been cut by at least a third. Probably less. Shit. I’d have to find a way to draw things out without making these bastards suspicious.
“Let’s do this,” Keuketon said, and together, the three of us left Monster Land to play the game proper.
I couldn’t help myself when the level showed up. I cursed.
Keukteon laughed, apparently misinterpreting my swearing for some kind of jubilation. “Easiest money ever!”
The city wasn’t a city. It was a town. A spread-out town with lots of low, rounded buildings. Destroying it would only take a few minutes.
“Go,” Keuketon said.
We attacked. There wasn’t much else to do.
I kept Halira to half speed, slicing the low buildings as I moved her at what amounted to a light jog through the town. It was still too fast.
Ursavore blasted away a good chunk with his purple energy bomb, and Keukton simply trampled everything in his path, lashing out with his stinger wings to catch the buildings that were just outside his immediate path. Sirens sounded. Aliens ran, screaming. Dying.
Where were the hover tanks? Hell, there weren’t even any alien police-analogs here. Nothing shot at us. Nothing attacked us. Where the hell was the challenge supposed to be in this?
W
hy had the developers decided to make everything so real? I spotted an alien family, little green people clutching littler green people, outside of what had to be some kind of shopping center I’d just destroyed. I could hear them crying. What kind of sadist thought that was a fun element to include?
I suddenly didn’t feel like destroying this city. None of it was real. I knew that. It just sucked. My own life was shitty enough without feeling like I was destroying other people’s. Not to mention, it was boring.
It was weird to consider that. I was here to create a diversion so that Isabella could steal Irwin’s blackmail material, and I was bored out of my mind. The challenge here was dragging everything out. Only, I didn’t want to. Weeping artificial intelligences had totally wrecked my day.
The town was destroyed an a few moments later. Completely.
All that was left was smoking husks. I was out of time.
Keuketon and Ursavore were laughing, talking about how easy it had been.
Halira’s rage meter flared.
They were close together and I let my Desiccation Ray fly. It caught Keuketon in the chest and I sprinted at him, claws extended. The distance between us vanished.
By confused accident rather than design, Ursavore stepped into my path at the last instant. My scything claws slashed him open and I darted away as he swung his powerful ursine claws in a counterattack.
He missed, and I had distance between us again.
“The fuck?” He demanded.
“You’re right,” I snarled. “That was too easy.”
Keuketon made a chuffing sound that somehow managed to be both amused and exasperated. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll beat your ass here, then we’ll beat it in the real world.”
Ursavore roared and let fly his purple energy bomb.
I leapt to the side in a blur of motion, too fast for him—and straight into a Venom Beam. Keuketon had blasted one in either direction from the tips of his twin stinger-wings. I hadn’t even considered that they might be able to fire in different directions. Considering how real the developers had made everything else, that had been a dumb mistake.
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