Page 113 of Reflections of Peonies
“Her handle is ElvenEdgeLord69.” He buried his face in his hands. “She’s had a lot of free time.”
“She’sElvenEdgeLord69?” Brayden covered his mouth. “But he’s one of the top ten players in the country. All this time, I thought it was you.”
“Does it looklike I have time to play video games?” Finn glared at him. “No, I just let her use my information for her account. She needed an outlet. I disabled chat and the microphones.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. What chats? What could there possibly be to discuss in these games? The only objective was to go in and kill people. But as he pursed his lips, I waved my hand. I probably wouldn’t like the answer anyway.
“Never mind. Listen, can we add my account to this system?” I asked. “I really miss my custom skins.” There were all manner of items I needed. Hopefully, this edition would have the same downloadable attachments. MyHello KittyVPAR was greatly missed. “ElvenEdgeLord69 has all the cool stuff.”
“Okay, everyone needs to stop saying ‘ElvenEdgeLord69’.”Julian held out his hands. “How did you even come up with that handle?” he asked, looking at me. “Why the…” He hesitated only briefly. “Sixty-nine?”
Wasn’t itobvious?
“The yin-yang symbol!” How could they not know this? Why did everyone seem so confused? “Think about it. They fit together so perfectly. And the bubble-part of the number holds the dot, and they wrap around each other…” My words trailed off at Julian’s look of confusion. “Do I need to draw it out for you?”
“No!” Julian sounded alarmed, and his eyes widened. “Please don’t.”
Now, I was confused, and my gaze narrowed. I was missing something. Perhaps I had been misled.
“Fine.” I pulled out my phone. “Just give me a moment.”
“Don’t look it up,” Damen interrupted, pulling the phone out of my hands. He glared at Finn. “What did you do?”
“Don’t ask me!” Finn was staring at me in horror. “I had nothing to do with this one.”
“What is it?” I asked, my face burned. I loathed the uncomfortable looks of pity on their faces. And my heart twisted painfully at the knowledge that I, surely, sounded so stupid to them right now.
“I had no idea it was this bad.” Bryce was rubbing his temples. “Someone should have warned me.”
“Why would anyone have told you?” I rounded on him, my pulse roaring in my ears. The stress of the week pulled at me, and exhaustion shredded my final hold on restraint. Distantly, I caught Julian reaching for me. I saw his mouth move, but his words didn’t register.
“You guys are the ones who didn’t want me!” The words tore from me. “You sent me away to become like this!”
The moment seemed to freeze in time, and my awarenessshifted. There was only Bryce, pale but still slightly black and blue, staring at me with eyes that matched mine.
He was usually so annoying, so smug. But not anymore.
I witnessed the exact second his expression broke, and the first hint of real, genuine emotion—other than fury—filled his features.
Pain.
It was masked over within an instant, but I had seen it. My breath caught, and guilt washed over me.
What was I doing? I was the most horrible person in the world.
“Fine.” Bryce got to his feet, brushing off his pants. He would no longer meet my eyes. “I’ll just get out of your way then.”
And before I could protest, he stalked from the room.
The heaviness in the room lifted, and I sucked in a breath. “I’m terrible.”
Julian wrapped his arms around me, and as I pressed my face into his chest, the comforting blanket of his presence washed over me.
“No, you’re not,” he said.
“And you’re not wrong.” Damen was glaring at the place where Bryce had retreated. “Let him wallow.”
“Itwaskind of harsh. Whether you believe it or not, hedoescare.” Brayden stood between me and the door, glancing at it and me nervously. “I should probably—”
