Fake Game (The System #3)

Chapter Thrity-Four

THIRTY-FOUR

DEER

I throw up, for real this time, and Jackson all but shoves Phoebe out of the hospital room. He tells her she isn’t to come back until I’m feeling better. She wasn’t all that thrilled about him telling her what to do, but Parker stepped in to back him up. I feel a little bad because, while she kinda sets me on edge, I could tell she didn’t mean any harm.

Now, eight hours, two panic attacks, and one mandatory therapy session later, we’re on our way to the airport to get on the Covington jet. Since Phoebe’s been waiting to talk to me since last night, she offered to take us all back to California.

I’m secretly grateful because the idea of going to an airport and being around people…

Nope. Not going there.

Dammit.

I grip my seat belt harder.

Just when things were starting to look up. Just when I was all excited and ready to get back out there, this just had to happen. It’s like the universe wants me to be a recluse.

Maybe I should just move back to Ireland, visit dear old Da in all of his retirement.

Shit.

He is going to kill me once he finds out about this. The only good thing is that my da hates social media, fame, and the like. It’s why he stepped down as CEO once Gods League really took off and moved back to Ireland with my mam. He loves the game, loves what he created, but he doesn’t want that to get mixed up with all the stuff online. It’s also how I was able to become Deer without anyone really knowing who I am unless they gain access to my legal name. He kept me out of the limelight; just a few baby pictures turn up on search engines if you really know where to look.

I ended up having to put Sydney in contact with my moderators. She’s working with them to deal with my social media while everyone is still speculating about why Parker and I went to the hospital. In return, Sydney put me in contact with her therapist. I’m not exactly looking forward to it. I’ve been dealing fine on my own.

Kind of.

Not really.

“You’re sighing an awful lot over there. You okay?” Jackson rubs my knee as we pull onto the tarmac and drive up to the coveted Covington jet.

“Yeah, I’m just ready to be home.”

“I know.”

Jackson holds his hand out to help me out of the car. I don’t know why they make Escalades so high off the ground.

There’s ruckus from the other vehicle. My gaze strays to Parker as he leaps out of the car and throws his arm around Aleks, giving him a noogie, to which Aleks elbows him in the gut and tries to push him off. Syd rushes forward to break them apart, but the two boys just start laughing at one another.

I don’t get how he is handling this so much better than me.

The truth is, if Parker hadn’t drunk half my drink…I would have been in way worse condition.

“You’ll sit opposite me, right?” Lee comes up on my left as we walk to the stairs.

She’s still upset she wasn’t at the hospital when I woke up even though I know she had been there the entire day.

“You can sit next to me.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want to spend the entire flight with the Hulk glaring daggers at me.” Lee’s gaze flits to the man beside me.

“Fair,” I chuckle.

I clock Phoebe the second we enter the jet. She sits on a seat in the back right corner, a man in a black suit next to her. She looks up briefly, glancing over me before returning to her laptop. Her stoic expression never shifts.

I’m terrified about what she wants to talk about.

It’s bad enough that, at this point, I’m pretty sure everyone knows that I’ve been keeping more than a few secrets from them. Something tells me that my cauldron has been bubbling too long and that everything is on the verge of spilling over.

I take the seat farthest from Phoebe that faces away from her. I know if I have to look at her throughout the flight, I’ll drive myself to an early grave.

Jackson takes up the seat next to me, and Lee, true to her word, sits opposite me. Parker, Syd, and Aleks mimic our seating arrangement on the opposite aisle.

I try to distract myself, pulling my Switch and headphones from my handbag. I allow the music to drown everything out as I start up Moonstone Valley . I’ve been practically glued to my comfort game since I woke up, losing myself in another world is the only way to prevent my mind from overthinking everything that’s happened to me.

I vaguely feel the jostling of the jet as it rolls down the runway, and my stomach does a little flip when we go airborne.

I’m so focused on trying to woo this damn village doctor to marry me that it takes a second for me to realize Lee is nudging me with her foot. I look up and raise one of my brows at her. She makes a drinking motion with her hands and then points to her right.

The stewardess stands there with a couple of water glasses and champagne flutes on a platter.

My stomach drops again, and not from the altitude.

Jackson must notice me tense up in his periphery because he looks up from his laptop. I’m not sure what he sees in my face, but he lifts one side of his headphones and says something to the stewardess that makes her blanch.

She comes back with a water bottle, which Jackson inspects before cracking it open and taking a sip. He then holds it out to me, and I can’t help feeling a little embarrassed. But that embarrassment doesn’t overshadow my relief at his gesture. I mouth “thank you” to him as I tentatively accept the bottle.

I know now that the reason why I couldn’t detect the roofies was because the damn sports drink was blue, which hides the way the tasteless little pill tinges drinks a blue color.

Everyone keeps saying it’s not my fault, but I can’t help feeling like I should’ve known better. I mean, come on, you don’t just accept drinks from people—not if you’re someone in my position, especially with everything that’s been happening. Sure, she seemed official because she was a volunteer with the expo…

I take a sip of the water, and my nerves scream at me even after I’ve gulped it down. Out of everywhere, this is one of the last places my drink could be spiked, but my brain doesn’t seem to understand that. It makes the liquid feel like fire clogging my throat, but I try my best to push past it.

I return my attention back to my game, forcing myself to forget everything.

Until Lee nudges me again.

I glare up at her. I had just died in the mines, and—even though I am dating the town doctor—he is still charging me a thousand gold to revive me. Asshat.

Lee bites her lip and points.

I follow the direction of her finger to where Phoebe has slipped into the seat next to Lee. She has her legs crossed at the ankles and is fiddling with her gold watch. My annoyance dissipates, turning into a cloud of ugly dread.

I pause my game and slip off my headphones, the deep whooshing hum of the airplane coming back into focus. The anticipation in the air crackles around us like electricity, setting everyone on edge as we wait for Phoebe to speak. All I want is to put my headphones back on, to drown out the ambient noise and return to my little mind palace.

Phoebe opens her mouth, but when her eyes finally rise to meet mine, I see something shocking: a flash of sympathy. I don’t think anyone else notices because she quickly steels her resolve, her shoulders straightening just a little bit more.

“I have my contacts looking into your case, Miss Malloy, since I doubt it’s something the local detectives will be able to piece together when they don’t have the full story to go off of.”

“I’d prefer if you called me Deer.”

“I can, but I think, for the purposes of this conversation, it is a little moot.”

I press my lips together.

She tilts her head. “We can continue our chat somewhere more private, but considering the situation, you’re going to have to tell everyone here sooner or later. You pose a security threat to them all until this is sorted.”

I kind of hate her.

And I definitely hate that what she’s saying makes sense.

Everything is getting so messy, and I am having trouble keeping track of all the webs I have woven. Jackson already knows everything, Parker will find out from his sister, and Sydney knows my eyes aren’t blue. There are hundreds of little cracks in my armor. Do I really want to continue wasting my energy keeping it together when it is so obviously about to crumble?

“We can talk to her in the bedroom?” Jackson rests his hands on mine.

I let out a sigh. “No. She’s right. It’s a pointless fight.”

My gamer identity was supposed to be my safety blanket, keeping me warm and protected. But all the threats around me are like someone throwing gasoline on the fabric, and at any moment it could go up in flames. It is no longer shielding me; it is putting me in more danger.

I maneuver my hands, so they’re clasped with Jackson’s, and raise my gaze to Phoebe, not shying away from her arctic eyes.

“What do you want to know?”

The smile she gives me is borderline villainous as she raises a hand and motions behind me. The man who had been sitting next to her comes forward and slips into the spare seat next to Aleks, pulling out a tablet and keyboard.

“Let’s start with the beginning. When were you first approached by the Deer Hunters?”

This is going to be a long flight.

I take my time, explaining to her how they were just spam comments initially. That the group seemed like just a bunch of trolls until the comments started getting a little more aggressive. That they hadn’t done anything outright threatening for the first couple of months, so I’d brushed it under the rug. They’d made me uncomfortable, sure, but a lot of comments and DMs made me uncomfortable, and at least these hadn’t been sexual in nature. And that my moderator took charge of fielding it all once it became apparent that they were set on me.

When I tell her that they started to insinuate they had my address, I feel Jackson tense up beside me. There was a scare at Halloween a few months earlier that had me worried they were stalking me. I explain that I’d begun taking a few more precautions after all that, that I stopped going out so much or posting where I was until after I’d already been somewhere. The more I speak, the more I realize that it was a mistake to keep this hidden for so long.

Phoebe asks for the details of all my moderators so she can fact check, wary that they might have hidden details from me to keep from making me even more worried. It’s that realization that causes a chill to break over my body, puckering my skin.

I gloss over the swatting, knowing that all she has to do is look my stream up online to see how that went. I don’t need to choke myself up with that again.

When I tell her about the message before the expo and the odd comments that cropped up during it, I find myself wincing. It was such a clear sign, I’d known that, and yet I’d refused to fully acknowledge it.

Phoebe’s gaze never strays, not once. And what first seemed like a cold and emotionless stare I’m learning is actually her version of determined and calculating. It almost becomes comforting because she is so unwavering and there is no hint of judgement or pity.

“I just don’t get it. What have I done to warrant all this?” My throat is dry from all the talking.

Phoebe sighs. “I don’t like to make speculations.”

“But if you had to?”

“If I had to, I’d say someone’s obsessed with you. It’s not unheard of when it comes to public figures.”

Obsessed.

“Look, honestly, Deer, I’m not sure I understand why you don’t just come clean?”

“You mean dox myself?” My voice pitches higher.

“Yes.” She holds her hand out like she’s holding a platter, gesturing across the aisle to Aleks and Parker. “It worked for them.”

“Because they were being blackmailed.”

“And it made the blackmail go away.”

“I’m not being blackmailed! I’m being stalked.” The words wrench themselves from my throat with the sting of a thousand razorblades.

Phoebe must be nuts. The Deer Hunters have clearly veered from online trolls into stalker territory—revealing who I truly am would just put me in more danger, and that makes me want to throw up. Actually, it makes me want to buy a private island and escape off the grid.

The last thing I want is to make myself more of an available target for them.

“We would take measures to keep you safe.”

“No.”

“It’s going to come out someday.”

“How? My parents don’t live in this country anymore. I have no family here they could track me to. I went to an extremely private and prestigious high school and never went to college.” I check each point off on my fingers. “My entire look is different to how I was three years ago. No one would see me and go, ‘Oh, lookie here, that’s Deirdre Malloy.’”

“Your legal name is still your legal name.”

“So? I rarely travel, and if I do, I use private companies. My car is registered under Rick, and my new apartment is under your family’s name.”

Phoebe’s eyes flick to her brother. “I know.”

“I’m careful, Phoebe.”

“Fine.” The word is curt, cut with glass through slightly clenched teeth. “Fine. We’ll do this the hard way. I’ll work to make sure your life continues as it is and try to root out this poison, but just remember I advised you otherwise.”

She’s giving me what I want but makes it feel like she’s handing me a death sentence.

I can only hope she is wrong.