Accidentally His Player Two

Somebody put a bullet through my head 25 times tonight. Zero kills. Zero assists.

Two words lit up the screen, bright enough to sting: ELIMINATED.

A voice ripped through my headset, out of patience. You're so bad my grandma's dirty gym socks play better than you.

That night I snuck onto my brother's account again.

His status was sitting right there at the top of my feed.

ColdBloodedLizard: [i should just die. (this is a cry for help)]

One month from now, the guy who called me trash was going to tell my brother he was in love with him.

And then sell that trophy-stuffed account of his and walk away from it forever.

Chapter 1

"Three. Go camp A site."

A nice voice. Male, low, calm.

My character spun in a slow circle. Just spun.

A site. A site was... where, exactly?

I was still squinting at the map when the screen went dark.

ELIMINATED.

Headshot. Again.

I checked my stats. 0/25/0.

Not even an assist.

"Bro. Are you a spy? Did the other team send you?"

"You're so bad my grandma's dirty gym socks play better than you."

The headset kept going.

I bit down on my lip. Twenty-five deaths. Four strangers in the dirt because of me.

I pressed the mic key and said it small. "Sorry..."

The silence that came back was total.

Then a player named ColdBloodedLizard cut his mic and left the room.

Great. I'd chased them all off.

After dinner I sat on the couch working through a bowl of fruit. Gunfire leaked out from under my brother's door, and with it a very familiar voice.

"Three, there's a med kit over there. I'll grab it for you."

"That gun's nasty. Three, I'm pinging you, come take it."

"Anybody touches Three, they're touching me."

My brother is insane at this game.

So good he's the one handing out med kits.

That's Bodie for you.

"Cal, take your brother his cold medicine." Mom, from the kitchen.

I swallowed my fruit, said okay, and carried the pills down the hall.

The door swung open and the gunfire tripled in volume.

I set the medicine on his desk. "Bodie. Mom says take these."

He'd gone out drinking two nights ago and come home with a cold. He woke up with no voice at all.

He pointed at the desk. Put it there.

I put it there and backed out without a word.

The door was almost shut when I heard ColdBloodedLizard again.

"Three. For what it's worth, you're not bad. My grandma's socks got nothing on you."

My hand was still on the doorknob.

I took it off.

I closed the door very quietly.

Two months until the SATs. My parents had put the games on lockdown.

All I could do was pray my brother didn't catch on before then.

Bodie took the medicine and went to bed early.

My practice test was already done. So I crept onto his account.

The second I logged in, ColdBloodedLizard sent an invite.

I'm terrible. He didn't deserve that twice.

I declined, and then I clicked into his profile.

Trophies. A whole wall of them, badge after badge, all the way down.

If he'd been on the other team he would have taken my head off with his eyes closed.

Then my cursor drifted to his status feed, and I stopped.

ColdBloodedLizard: [i should just die. (this is a cry for help)]

I laughed out loud before I could stop myself.

A message popped up in the corner. From the Lizard.

ColdBloodedLizard: [Queue up. I'll carry you.]

I checked the time.

Me: [Don't yell at me when I feed.]

Top right corner of my screen, my brother's ID sat there in white letters.

I didn't tell him the person behind it wasn't my brother.

Chapter 2

ColdBloodedLizard: [I won't. And anybody who does, I'll yell at them for you.]

Six weeks until the SATs.

The day Bodie had to run back to campus for something, he brought me along.

His dream girl was on the quad filming a promo video for the school.

He crossed his arms and pointed at the girl in the white dress. "See her? Your future sister-in-law."

I gave him a look. "And what makes you think she'd want you?"

"Excuse me?" He gave me the same look back, then pointed at the guy standing next to her, white button-down, sleeves pushed up. "That one. Your brother's mortal enemy. Silas Vance."

"He gets to stand next to our Vee? Him?"

I followed his eyes.

The guy in the white shirt was standing in full sun, holding up a trophy.

Clean-cut. The kind of face you look at once and then have to look at again.

"Bodie. You got his number? Your sister would love to go yell at him for you."

"No. Who'd want to talk to that guy?"

Silas was still at the mic, saying something into the crowd, smiling like none of this cost him anything.

It was just his voice.

I'd heard it somewhere.

In... a headset?

Someone shouted from the crowd. "Silas! You're a junior now. Are you seeing anyone?"

He shook his head. "No."

I, Callie Rowe, was going to get Silas Vance.

The SATs were close. My practice test was done and I'd earned ten minutes off.

Bodie had been buried in a term paper for over a month, and it looked like he'd finally clawed his way out.

I was on the couch, working through another bowl of fruit, when a sound came out of his room that I can only describe as a kettle screaming.

"WHAT. I am the straightest man who has ever lived."

"You're saying you like me?"

"Dude. Dude, are you okay?"

I stood up. My hands were shaking. I made it to his doorway and found him hunched over his mic, going to war.

"I did not get hacked."

"You're the girl, man, I've got a whole situation down here. You want a picture?"

Something in my stomach turned over.

I leaned around the doorframe. "Bodie? What's... what's going on?"

He threw a hand up. "Some guy on my friends list. Calls himself the Lizard. He's decided I'm a woman and now he's telling me he's in love with me."

I stood there for a while.

Then I backed out of the room without a sound.

Lizard. I'm so sorry.

When the SATs are over, I will get on my knees and apologize.

The day the SATs ended, my parents took me out and bought me a new laptop and a new phone.

I got the laptop home and downloaded the game before I even took the box to the trash. Logged into my brother's account. Clicked ColdBloodedLizard's profile.

He hadn't been online in over two weeks.

His last status was still the one from that night. Two in the morning.

He'd posted twice.

ColdBloodedLizard: [Got hacked earlier. Sorry about that.]

Ten minutes later:

ColdBloodedLizard: [Account's sold.]

I scrolled. Then I stopped scrolling.

He didn't even want the account anymore.

That wall of trophies. Badge after badge, all the way down.

It belonged to somebody else now.

But he'd sold it. So how was I supposed to explain?

Yeah. Better to let that one die.

I never logged onto my brother's account again. I made my own.

The registration page asked me for a name.

I thought about it for three seconds. Then I typed it in, letter by letter.

UrGrandmasSocks.

The day scores came back, I held my laptop against my chest and made a sound my mother had never heard before.

They were good. Better than good.

I got into Halston. Silas Vance's school.

Coming for you, Silas Vance.

To make sure of it, I signed up for his exact major. Pre-law.

What I didn't know yet:

ColdBloodedLizard. The one I'd driven off the game. The one who sold his account and vanished.

Next month, he'd be sitting in my classroom.

Chapter 3

Zadie poked me across the dining hall table. "Cal. Hey. Your man."

I looked up, saw Silas Vance, and nearly launched a mouthful of rice across the room.

"My what? How do you know I like him?"

It had been one month of school. One.

Zadie's voice got smaller with every word. "You were talking in your sleep last night..."

"..."

I looked up again. He had a tray in his hands and no seat to put it in. Plain gray hoodie, and he still stood out in that room like somebody had lit him from a different angle.

Zadie had to say my name three times to get me back.

"Cal! The department's running a Glory Strike tournament and Silas signed up!" She was scrolling like her thumb was on fire. "So I registered you!"

"Zadie, don't"

Halfway through the word, she flipped her phone around.

Big letters across the screen. REGISTRATION CONFIRMED.

Two months until the tournament.

Perfect.

Now a whole new set of strangers could tell me his grandma's socks play better than me.

The day they seeded us, the department ran a free-for-all first. Play the round, then pick your own squad. Five to a team.

Two weeks queueing with the Lizard had done something for me. I actually knew the map now.

I was planting the bomb at B when the shooting started behind my back.

Dead.

3/18/1.

A kill. An assist. And a very generous number of gifts to the other team.

When the free-for-all ended, everybody started pairing off.

With a stat line like mine, I achieved something rare. Nobody wanted me at all.

I wondered how Silas had done.

Then a DM slid onto my screen.

Team Captain: [Hey, UrGrandmasSocks. We're one short. You in?]

Somebody was finally using that name.

It looked even better in someone else's hands.

My eyes lit up. Then I hesitated.

Me: [I'm really bad. As long as you don't mind.]

Team Captain: [How bad can you be. And we've got a monster on our team, feed all you want.]

People are good, actually.

The five of us squadded up, added each other, and the captain queued us into a match.

Everybody said hi.

Everybody except one player called HappyThinCrust, who did not type a single word from start to finish.

Social anxiety, probably.

I get it.

The match started.

Round one, my line was 0/17/4.

Everyone was very understanding.

Round two, 2/15/3. One of those kills I stole. The other one was already at four health.

Round three, 0/19/6.

I looked at the scoreboard. Still nothing next to my name.

Then I typed into team chat.

Me: [Guys, I'm so sorry. If you're really that mad... you can report me...]

I had no other way to make it up to them.

And then HappyThinCrust, who had said nothing all afternoon, typed.

HappyThinCrust: [No.]

What a guy. I was genuinely touched.

HappyThinCrust: [In this game you can't report friends.]

Me: [...]

My heart, which had been hanging on, quietly passed away.

A guy named RedButtMonkey jumped in.

RedButtMonkey: [Dude, ignore him. What year are you? What's your major? What's your name? We should scrim in person sometime.]

I looked at the roster.

Four of them had talked to me.

The fifth one hadn't typed a single letter all afternoon. HappyThinCrust.

Tomorrow. Noon. The coffee shop off campus.

Chapter 4

Scrim in person?

Sure. Why not.

Me: [Freshman, pre-law, Callie Rowe. My weekends are pretty much open.]

RedButtMonkey: [A pre-law dude! Welcome aboard, man.]

Me: [I'm a girl.]

RedButtMonkey: [A GIRL?!]

The chat box sat there for a long, long moment.

RedButtMonkey: [Tomorrow. Saturday, noon, Redline Coffee, right off campus. I'll be in a navy tee.]

I typed OK and logged off.

I carried my laptop into Redline the next day at noon.

Three guys were parked at a corner table behind three laptops, working on three coffees. One of them was wearing a navy tee.

I walked over with my laptop against my chest. "Hi."

Navy Tee was mid sip. He looked up and nearly choked on it.

"Holy... no way. You're UrGrandmasSocks?"

I smiled at him very sweetly. "That's me."

"I did not expect a total..." He set the cup down and stood up so fast his chair squealed. "Sit, sit, sit. Let me get you something."

They went around and introduced themselves.

Navy Tee was RedButtMonkey. In real life, Deacon Marsh.

The four of them lived in the same suite, which is why the squad was exactly one person short.

Except we were still one person short.

"Where's the last guy?"

"Oh, that's HappyThinCrust. No idea what happened to him to make him pick a name like that. He had something this morning. He'll be here."

"Ah."

We talked for a bit, then queued a round.

The map was too big and I got lost in it, wandering, carrying a live bomb with absolutely nowhere to be.

By then everyone else on my team was dead.

Okay. Okay. What do I

"Plant at B. Get in the B alley, hold your angle. The little window at your three o'clock."

Three sentences, cool as tile, drifting over my shoulder from somewhere behind me.

My finger stopped moving on the mouse.

That voice was close.

Close enough to be coming out of a headset.

I didn't blink. I didn't turn around. I just did what he said.

"Shoot."

The word landed and I let go of the mouse.

Headshot.

I had a kill. I had an actual kill.

"Switch to your pistol. Footsteps. Behind you."

I dragged the mouse around and there he was. Two shots. Second kill.

"Someone's defusing. Swap to the rifle. Aim at the bomb."

I did what he said.

Triple kill.

Round over. We won, obviously.

I nearly came out of my chair.

"Silas? We've been waiting on you forever."

My hand was still on the mouse. It stopped being mine