I try to even out my breathing, crack my neck, adjust the way I’m sitting. It doesn’t help, nothing helps. His gamer tag loads across from mine like a flashing warning sign.
Behind me, I hear Tate start to wake, the sheets dragging as he rolls over and blinks himself into the day. His yawn cracks the quiet just as Carter’s coming back from the kitchen from making what has to be his fourth cup of coffee. Neither of them says a word when they see the bracket refresh on my monitor but I hear the shift in energy instantly.
“Hey,” Carter says gently, stepping closer. “You got this.”
I nod once and then again like it’ll trick my body into believing it. Tate just mutters under his breath. “Fucking finally.”
The match is absolute chaos, Dylan’s always been fast but I’m faster.
He starts the round with a taunt over comms, the stupid smug voice that used to get under my skin and crawl there like rot.“Bet it’s been boring without someone keeping you sharp.”
Fuck him.I move like I’ve got fire in my blood. I dodge and duck, reload faster than I ever have. I throw myself into the fight because if I hesitate, I lose. And I am not losing to him, not again.
The map feels like it’s closing in on me, tight corridors, sharp turns, shadows where anything could be waiting. Every step is a risk, every breath too loud in my own ears. My cross hair wavers, the nerves showing in the first few rounds, and I hate it. Hate the tremor in my hands, the drag in my lungs.Get it together.
I lock in, I’ve done this a thousand times. Hours stacked on hours, clawing my way toward this exact moment. My body remembers what my head tries to forget. Fingers settle, movements smooth out, and then I’m not thinking anymore I’m just doing.
He tags me, close enough that my screen flashes, the sound buzzing sharp in my ears. But I don’t fold. I track him clean through the chaos, center mass, one after another, and this time he’s the one scrambling. I outplay him, I take it.
When the final round snaps to black, I don’t say a single word. I don’t even smile. Just a ragged exhale leaves me, dragged from the pit of my chest. He’s out, I’m through— it’s over, or at least it should be.
He’s been dropped to losers bracket reset, double elimination. He’s one round away from being done for good, but he only has to outplay two people to claw his way back into finals. Two, and after what he did to the last three? That won’t be a problem, not for him.
He’s playing mean now, reckless in a way I hate to admit that works. He doesn’t care about rules, he doesn’t care about clean. That scares me more than I want to admit.
Dylan neverneededto be better than me. He just needed toget in my head, he’s always been good at that.
Carter appears beside me with a bottle of water cracked open and presses it into my hand.
“You did it,” he says, voice gentle, grounding. I nod, but I can’t speak.
Tate paces a slow loop beside me. His jaw is clenched and his eyes track every movement on the screen like he’s hunting something. The look on his face says if Dylan were here in person, he’d already be in the hospital. “I swear to god,” he mutters. “If he said anything off-mic—“
“He didn’t,” I manage. “Just… snide stuff. Typical.”
Carter gently guides me up out of the chair, wraps a blanket around my shoulders like he’s been waiting to do it all day. He steers me toward my bed, I sink into it without protest. My entire body feels like a worn-out wire, frayed, sparking at the ends.
I drop my head onto Carter’s chest, he instantly holds me steady. Tate sits down beside me, shoulder pressing into mine, fingers twitching on his thigh like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. “Next time,” he shakes his head, “I want him in person.”
Carter doesn’t say anything and just presses a kiss the side of my head. I close my eyes, nestled between them, soaking in the tension they don’t know how to let go of.
I won, I beat him, fuck I Iburiedhim. But all I feel is tired, I don’t even realize I’m crying until Carter’s thumb brushes my cheek. A single drop sliding down, hot and bitter and unexpected
Carter doesn’t say anything about it. He shifts beside me, pulling me closer, burying his face in my hair like holding me tighter might stitch me back together. “You were incredible,” he whispers. “You always are Haven.”
I don’t feel incredible. I feel scraped raw, hollowed out. Like all the adrenaline burned straight through me and left ash in its place. “I didn’t want to fall apart on stream,” I manage, voice thin.
“You didn’t.” Tate’s now sitting beside me, his knee is pressed against mine. His hand finds my thigh, not in a teasing way just anchoring.
“You didn’t break,” he says, voice lower now. “You fucking obliterated him.”
I turn my head slightly, looking at him. “I wanted to hurt him,” I whisper. “I wanted him to feel what it was like to lose to me.”
Tate exhales. “He did.”
Laying back fully across the bed my head is in Carter’s lap, my legs brushing Tate’s. The blanket’s wrapped around me, but it’s not enough. I feel cold inside.
Carter runs his fingers gently through my hair. Tate’s hand slides up under the blanket, his fingers pressing into the inside of my knee, spreading heat and tension as they drift slowly higher.