After my outburst, Dan holds me in his arms. My body is shaking. I'm not crying. I'm done with that. A pufferfish would be jealous of my eyes right now. If I never have to say a thing again, it will be too soon. I want to stand here in his safe embrace and forget everything that happened to me today.

Scratch that.

I want to forget everything that ever happened to me, drown the memories that haunt me.

But I can't.

How could things go so wrong? When I close my eyes I still see the flashes of the photographers, the cold eyes of Morgenstern, and that dreaded picture. And for the last, I don't have to close my eyes. 

Of all the people who could have sent me those letters I never expected Joey to be behind it. To be honest, I hadn't talked to him in years, not since he had dropped that bomb on me. I had thought we had this silent agreement; I keep my mouth shut and he won't publish those pictures.

There's only a certain amount of time you can stay silent in someone's arms before it gets awkward. After several minutes I feel Dan shuffle and then he releases me. He takes my hand and leads me to our couch. With one hand he shoves the pile of books aside. This place starts to look more and more like a library since he moved in.

He sits down and pulls me on the spot next to him. For a couple of seconds, he stares at me with those blue eyes of him.

"And now you're going to talk, Elise," Dan finally says, "talk until you feel better."

"I don't know where to start." My voice sounds soft, croaked if you want.

"Start with that picture. What am I looking at exactly?" The look he gives me makes me almost feel like I'm talking with a police officer. 

"You're not going to like this," I say.

When I stay quiet too long, he gives me a 'get on with it' look. I sigh. 

"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you." I huff once more. "I think I told you that when I was sixteen, I was a pretty decent gamer. I was pretty good actually. I went to tournaments with my clan and we won a lot. I guess you can say I was famous."

Dan looks at me with one raised eyebrow.

 "Not your kind of famous. People knew my name, but I never had to fight off paparazzi." I fidget with a pillow. "I got an offer of a gaming company. They offered me a lot of money and asked me to create a professional team and lead it."

"You already told me that. So what has that to do with that picture?" Dan asks. "I know you told me you chose another career, but right now I'm not buying that anymore."

"Well," I say, "I was still a sixteen-year-old girl. And sixteen-year-old girls fall in love and so did I. With one of my teammates, Joey. He was a bit older than me, but not much. It was a typical teen romance, holding hands under the dinner table and everything."

Dan takes my hand in his.

"Joey was my first boyfriend and I did a lot of things the first time with him. He was the first boy I had sex with. But what I didn't know, that he was filming us." My cheeks burn right now, I can't look Dan in the eye. The more I think about it, the angrier I become.

"He manipulated those videos so you could only see me. He said he would make them public if I accepted the offer."

Carefully Dan tries to pry his hand from my tight grasp. My knuckles are white and by the look of it, I was crushing his hand.

"I gave in and he took my job," I say.

"Bastard," he says while he rubs his hand. "And what are you going to do now?"

I shrug. "I don't know. There's not much I can do. I don't even know if he wants this time."

Actually I know exactly what I want to do. I want to crawl in a hole, hide until everything is over and forgotten.

He crinkles his forehead. "Are you going to wait until this creep is going to push you around again?"

I stare blankly at him.

"Come on, Elise, there must be something you can do."

 I shake my head. "He will publish those videos, I will never get a job again."

"Is that what you're afraid of?" There's a sharp edge in his voice. "He better thinks twice if he's going to make those videos public because my lawyers will eat him alive."

I want to protest, but he isn't done yet.

"And tomorrow we're going to talk to that Morgenstern guy. I can't believe he can make a decision like this on his own, or did you do something else that got you in trouble?"

Speechless I shake my head.

"I thought so. Good. I'm going to call Johnathan. He will sort things out with the press." Dan grabs his phone. "And we're going to order Chinese food, watch a crappy movie and eat a lot of sweets and popcorn."

Overwhelmed I watch Dan walk through the house, his phone clenched to his ear. It's like all the bad things that happened today propelled him into becoming Super Dan, taking care of everything. The more things Dan is taking care of, the more I feel like I'm Captain Useless.

After listening several minutes to Dan talking to Johnathan, I realize this phone call is going to take a while. The screen of my computer stares seductively at me and I can't remember the last time I played a game. The idea of smashing some virtual enemies sounds like a good distraction and I switch my computer on.

Most of my friends are online, but they're all busy. Some of them send me a quick 'hello' or something similar. They're all preparing for the upcoming tournament. I decide to do some random battlegrounds, but it doesn't give me the satisfaction I need. I know I'm a bit rusty, but my random team members are terrible. One of them even tries to kill me, while others argue with each other how to play a certain class.

After two battlegrounds, I've had enough and I ask my friends if I can join them. All those weeks of practicing improved their gameplay a lot and I can barely keep up with them. I actually have to pay attention to what's going on and I get the feeling I'm the one holding them back.

After we finished one battleground, they take a five-minute break. Some of them start to chat with me, asking me where I've been. It's just idle chat, about the tournament and their progression, about my internship. They talk about new strategies, about upcoming changes to the game, about their favorite classes and speculations about the tournament.

There are some rumors going on who's participating, that the organization announced some hidden prices, whatever that may be, and about the identity of the mysterious winner of last year. The wildest things about this mysterious player are going around on the internet. Almost every legendary player is said to be him, even my name was coming up now and then.

That last rumor gives me an idea. What if Joey is afraid I will make a comeback in the gaming world? Is that what set him off? Are those letters meant as a warning?

"Did anyone hear if Joey is going to participate?" I try to sound as casual as possible.

No one knows. They have heard his team will join, but no one saw his name on the list of participants.

Which is weird. Joey is one of the best players in the world. This tournament is one of the biggest events this year, if anyone should be there, it would be Joey.

It takes us all a couple of seconds to do the math. Then someone says it out loud.

"That stupid motherfucker was last year's winner."

A private message appears on my screen. It's from Al who was obviously following the whole conversation.

"Are you going to play?" it says.

Quickly I go over all the possibilities. The tournament is in two weeks. Tomorrow Dan and I are going to talk with Morgenstern, but chances are small I get back at work immediately. The board has been informed, but it will take at least three or four weeks before they make a decision.

I look at Dan who's on the tenth phone call. His words ring in my head: "There must be something you can do".

"Count me in," I send back to him.

It's time to beat Joey at his own game.

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AN: Thanks for reading! If you liked the chapter, please vote for it by pressing the little star :)