“Wait a minute,” one of the hosts continued. “This is why Rooke failed a drug test? He couldn’t handle seeing her with another guy? How long has this been going on?”
“Does that mean he relapsed because she left him, or did she leave because of the drugs?”
“Either way, she’s a bitch.”
My hands morphed into trembling fists. Hannah hit the PAUSE button before I could hear more.
“Maybe it’ll be okay,” she said, making a calming motion with her hand. “They still have another scandal. It could trump yours.”
“It’ll probably be about us, too,” I said. “The media has latched on, and they’re not letting us go anytime soon. They’re bleeding us dry and loving every minute of it.”
Hannah frowned at me. “How could the next scandal be about us? It’s a European player who’s the heir to a billion-dollar fortune. Is that you?”
I scowled at her. “Fine.”
Hannah tapped the screen a few times. “A new feed just popped up. Looks like the announcement.”
She hit the PLAY button again. The traditional hosts of Hypnotized cut out, and were replaced by a breaking news segment by the same network. Celebrity gossip as breaking news. Oh, how far we’ve come. A single man sat behind a news desk. After introducing himself, he got right down to business.
“We’ve just confirmed this, so we’re bringing it to you live. So, who is this disenchanted heiress worth a cool thirty billion? That would be Defiance’s Lily Collins.”
WHAT?
I nearly jumped out of my chair, and everything inside went numb. No, that had to be a mistake. They were just making things up now. Had to be. My gaze flicked up to Hannah. I’d never seen the expression of someone being shell-shocked before, but it was the only way to describe the look on her face. My eyes fell shut. Holy shit. Either it was bullshit, and she couldn’t believe it, or it was true, and she had no idea. On cue, Lily walked into the room and started grabbing her breakfast from the counter. Hannah slammed her tablet down on the table.
“You’re an heiress?”
• • •
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“So I find out in front of Kali and Derek?”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
I sat in my office, pretending I couldn’t hear them shouting through the walls as I hunched over my computer, investigating Lily’s background. Apparently, she’d moved to the States and changed her surname a few years ago. But given that I had no idea what her original name was, I was having trouble tracking down who her family really was.
As for me, the death threats had already started, mostly directed through the team’s online sites. People saying things like they’d kill my mother, or cut out my uterus—all because I might or might not have been dating another gamer. Lovely.
A door slammed upstairs. Heavy footsteps pounded through the house, heading straight for my office. Hannah stormed into the room, and I quickly closed out the information on my computer.
“She holed up in her room,” Hannah said, sitting down in a huff. “She doesn’t want to talk to anybody. Even me. I knew her family was a real sore spot for her and that she’d changed her last name.”
“But you didn’t know—”
“About the money and who her family really is? No. I didn’t have a clue.”
Who her family really is? Looks like Hannah knew now. I nearly asked, and bit my lip to keep the question from slipping out.
“I feel like I don’t even know her,” she said. “Am I being selfish about this?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think you should have to tell each other everything, but the big stuff, yeah. And that was pretty big.” I rested my arms on my desk and leaned toward her. “Look, I have a favor to ask you.”
She nodded. “Yeah?”
“It’s just . . . first Rooke’s relapse, then Derek’s controversy, and everything else that’s happened, we can’t afford to look any more broken than we already are. Can you just pretend that everything is okay between you two until the end of the tournament?”
She tensed and narrowed her eyes at me.
“Sure,” she said slowly. “Do you want us to kiss in the middle of a match?”
I bit my tongue. It was something Rooke and I had done in our first tournament, to prove to the media that we were a couple, when we actually weren’t.
“That’s not the same thing,” I told her.
She frowned. “It’s exactly the same thing.”
“I’m just asking—”
She stood up from her chair and stomped toward the door.
“I’ll be in the training room,” she muttered.
She slammed my door shut, too.
Damn it.
I let my head roll back against the chair and drew in a slow, careful breath. There had to be a way to fix this. She wouldn’t talk to Hannah, but maybe she’d talk to me.
I made my way to Lily’s room and knocked on the door. No answer. I pressed an ear against the door and heard the faint, muffled sounds of techno-metal music. She was wearing headphones.
I tried the knob. It wasn’t locked, so I nudged it open a little.
“Lil?” I called through the crack.
I edged the door open a bit more and peeked around the room. The walls of Lily’s bedroom were painted a deep, dark blue, like the depths of the ocean. Every so many feet the deep blue was interrupted by oversized, spray-painted depictions of blossoming flowers, graffiti-art style. Lily had done the artwork.
Speaking of, the artist herself stood on the far side of the room, facing away from me, head bobbing to the death-tech metal blasting out of her cordless headphones. Brush in hand, she swiped across a canvas propped up on an easel.
I walked up behind her.
“Hey,” I said, tapping her on the shoulder.
She jumped and whirled around, brandishing her brush like a sword. Still, she would have looked fierce if it weren’t for the paint smudged on her nose. I grabbed her wrist.
“It’s me.”
She blinked, and her face softened as she recognized me. She pulled her earphones out, and the techno metal cut off.
“I’ll be down for practice in a little bit. I just need time. I swear.”
I sat down on her bed. “I came to talk if you want.”
“Oh.” Her face fell. She set her paintbrush down and sat on her bed. “Yeah, not really. I just want to be alone.”
“Look, Lil,” I pressed, “it’s none of my business what’s going on with you and Hannah and your family, but just make sure it’s worth it.”
Stoic, little Lily just looked at me and blinked.
“I won’t let it affect the team,” she finally said.
My heart twisted. Relationship troubles, and she was worried about the team. “Let me worry about the team. You just take care of yourself. Did you want to talk?”
“I really want to be alone. I just need a little time.”
I understood that. Lily was deeply introverted and needed space to process her feelings.
“Okay,” I said, standing from her bed. I walked up beside her. “But first, I’m doing this.”
I wrapped my arm around her back and pulled her into a side hug, until her head rested against my shoulder. She chuckled.
“Thanks.”
As we stood there, her head resting on my shoulder, my sights landed on her half-finished work of art, a sugar-skull painting of a woman wearing a hood. Purple flowers outlined the woman’s eyes while black curlicues adorned her nose, mouth, and cheeks. A hood pulled low on her forehead cast dark shadows down her face, transforming the colorful painting into something both gothic and eerily beautiful. The curls of her hair and texture of her skin looked so real, like I could have reached out and touched her. I half expected her to wink
at me.
“Damn, Lil. You really have a talent there.”
“Thanks, but it’s not about that,” she said, lifting her head from my shoulder. “I do it because I enjoy it. I think art does the same thing for me as meditation does for you. I lose myself in it. But, somehow, I find myself in it, too.”
“Lily,” I began, “whatever you do, don’t quit painting.” I glanced between her and the artwork a few times. “I’ll give you space.”
I started to cross the room, but she called out to me when I reached the door.
“Kali?”
I turned and found her standing in front of the painting again.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
I smiled. “Of course.” I watched her for a minute, as her brush stroked and curled around the canvas. There was something mesmerizing about watching an artist at work. It really did have a meditative quality to it.
“Hey.” I took a step back into the room. “I’ve been meaning to ask. You froze up during the last match.”
Her paintbrush quivered against the canvas. She slowly lowered it to rest in the tray below the painting.
“I don’t like machines,” she admitted.
I sputtered. “But, Lil, they’re everywhere. Machines mow people’s lawns, they clean their houses, they—”
She held up a hand. “I know. My family had an army of them. But, when I was a kid, I just always had this fear that one would attack me. I even had nightmares about it. And strangely . . .” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes grew a little distant.
I leaned into her point of view and waved a hand. “And strangely?”
“This one reoccurring dream, the worst one of them all, had a machine that looked a lot like the one in the game. So, when I saw it, it was like I was living inside my own worst nightmare. That’s why I locked up.”
A chill shot through my veins and up the back of my neck. Living your own worst nightmare. Having it brought to life in a simulation that feels anything but fake. That was terrifying. Truly terrifying. No wonder Lily had locked up.
“I’ll be in the training room,” I told her. “Just come down when you’re ready.”
She nodded, picked up her brush, and turned back to her painting. I closed the door, and the muffled sound of her music started up again.
Lily. I doubted I’d ever truly know her, and that was okay. Some people wore their hearts on their sleeves, and some people were Russian nesting dolls. As soon as you opened one, there was another hiding more of what was inside. And Lily was a Russian nesting doll, inside a safe, inside a bank vault. Still, it added a certain harmony to the team. Out of all of us, Lily and Rooke were the most alike. Both were quiet and stoic. Both kept to themselves more than they shared. Derek and Hannah were the outgoing ones. Loved the spotlight. Loved talking with anyone. I was somewhere in the middle. Together, we were balanced.
I lingered outside Lily’s door for a moment and rested my head against the frame. The relationship between Lily and Hannah wasn’t the only one on the rocks. Rooke and I hadn’t been an item for months, and things between us had been tempestuous at best. There were moments when I felt close to him, like during the matchup the previous night, after we’d scored and shared a laugh. For the most part, he’d been cold and distant. But I hadn’t been the greatest friend, either, and he was going through a hard time. I couldn’t entirely blame him for our current friendship status or lack of one. On top of it all, I wasn’t sure how he’d react to the news of me and Kim Jae even though it was a lie.
I went straight to the training room and saw him at the bench press, standing behind it as he adjusted the weights. I crossed the room to his side.
“It’s not true,” I said, cutting right to the chase. “I’m not with him.”
With his back turned, Rooke paused for a second and started adjusting the weights again. He didn’t look at me. “Who?”
“Kim Jae.”
He shrugged. “I don’t care. Be with whoever you want.”
“I will,” I told him. “But it’s not him. I wanted you to know.”
Rooke paused again for so long I wondered if I should just leave. Then he turned to face me, and my mouth hit the floor. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes were dark, and his skin was so pale he looked like he’d just crawled out of a cave.
My heart pounded so loudly the trainers across the room should have plugged their ears. Then my throat grew thick, and tears stung my eyes. I never thought I’d break down just from the sight of one of my friends looking so unwell, but I knew Rooke wasn’t just under the weather.
Please don’t tell me he relapsed again.
I forced my mouth to move and eventually convinced it to form words.
“Are you okay?”
I wasn’t sure what to say. If I straight out asked him about anything to do with drugs, I doubted he’d open up.
“My drug test will be fine,” he said, “if that’s what you’re asking.”
Or he might tell me directly.
I stood there blinking for several beats. I wasn’t sure if I was shocked that he’d been so uncharacteristically blunt or if it was because I wasn’t sure if I could trust his answer.
I moved closer to him and lowered my voice. “If you’re lying, I need to know right now. For the team.”
He snorted and shook his head. “I’m not lying, Kali, but how am I supposed to prove it?” He flashed me the insides of his elbows, which were clean of any marks. “Do you want to look up my nose next? Or search my room?”
“Okay, okay,” I said, holding up a hand. “I believe you.” A flash of heat crawled up the back of my neck, and I turned my gaze to the floor. I shouldn’t have doubted him, and I was embarrassed that I had.
“What do you need?” I asked, forcing myself to meet his gaze again.
He pushed past me and headed for the door, but not before uttering a single word.
“Space.”
My heart sunk as I watched him walk out the door and disappear into the house. I started after him, but a hand grabbed my arm and held me back.
“Let him go,” Hannah said, dropping her grip. “He doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Nobody wanted to talk to me. I was surprised Hannah had at all. I turned to her. “It doesn’t matter if he wants to talk or not. He can’t be alone right now.”
She glanced between me and the door a few times. “I’ll talk to him.”
She headed for the exit, following Rooke’s path.
“I don’t get it,” I called out to her as she walked away. “Aren’t you mad at me?”
She turned back.
“Yes,” she said simply. One word, and it still stung. “But we’re a team, and one of my teammates needs me.”
“Hannah, you don’t have to—”
She stepped up to me again and lowered her voice. “You talked to Lily for me. You looked after someone I care about. Now it’s my turn. Okay?”
Eventually, I nodded. “Okay.”
Hannah left the room, and I watched her go. As strange as it sounded, the way we were sticking together despite the fights and setbacks made me feel like the team was becoming something more. More than a team. More than just friends.
I surveyed the training room. Derek was running on a treadmill, and the trainers were gathered in the corner, planning out today’s exercises. Might as well warm up. I climbed onto the treadmill next to Derek, but before I could start my run, my cell buzzed. I glanced at it.
Digital Revolution Apparel
Another sponsor, this one specializing in athletic clothing for gamers. I sighed. Maybe it was good news.
I pulled the cell from my wrist and pressed it to my ear. “This is Kali Ling speaking.”
“Ms. Ling, we need to talk.”
That’s usually why people call. Somehow, I managed to keep
my lips pressed together to prevent that little comment from escaping.
“What can I do for you?” I asked, trying on my best professional voice.
“This is Suzanne Lockhart, CEO of Digital Revolution.” She paused. “We believe you’re in breach of contract.”
I went numb. You’ve got to be kidding me.
I forced an even tone to my voice. “How’s that?”
“Your sponsorship was for the coming RAGE tournament, but that’s not the tournament you’re participating in.”
“Yes. We were invited to play in the all-stars. I figured—”
“You figured?” She scoffed. “But you never discussed this with us. We never agreed to sponsor you in this tournament.”
“But the opportunity here—”
“Are you saying you spent the funds we provided on the all-stars instead of the RAGE tournaments? Because that would violate our terms. The terms you yourself agreed upon.”
“This tournament is giving your brand worldwide attention—”
“Attention that needs to be managed and monitored. We weren’t prepared to deal with a worldwide backlash if the athletes sporting our brand perform poorly.”
I scoffed. “Did you not see our last matchup? The crowd loved it.”
“You barely survived. How many more are you going to make it through?”
Did the whole world think we weren’t ready for this level of competition?
“And what’s this nonsense in the media? Drug relapses. One-night stands and pregnancy rumors. Can’t you control your team, Ms. Ling?”
Derek slowed in his run and looked over at me. I tried to ignore his stare and attempted to salvage the conversation.
“My team is fine, and we can make it through all the matches. We wouldn’t have been invited into this competition if we didn’t stand a chance. And if we win, you’ll be dealing with a different kind of worldwide attention.”
“Then you’d better hope you win, or you’ll be sued for the full amount.”
Gauntlet Page 21
