LEVEL 12

PLAYER ONE: REMY

Rollo plucked at guitar strings. “At least we have a major, life-changing, Earth-shattering gig tonight. That’ll take your mind off your soap opera of a love life.”

I tossed a rubber toy basketball in the air and caught it, over and over again, as I reclined on my friend’s fold out sofa. “My brother sneaking around with the girl I was dating stings, I’m not going to lie.”

“Weren’t you doing the same thing with his girl?”

“Yeah…and she lied to me. I can get over a lot of shit, but lying…” I sighed heavily. “I’m over it. This is all a fucking mess, man. My drums will probably sound like shit tonight.”

Rollo finished tuning his guitar and clicked at his desktop keyboard. After a moment, he hummed.

Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I asked, “What?”

“Oh, nothing. You’re over it.”

I cracked open one eye. “Tell me.”

“Pink Pony Club, Ms. Fauna Belrose, is not online. I didn’t know she ever stopped playing V for Valin.”

The lump in my throat intensified. I could have ignored the obvious bait my friend so knowingly laid, could have gone to my apartment and tried to talk to my brother. Mary Jane probably deserved an apology from me too. However, I chose none of those menu options. Instead, I chose my main quest, over and over again. “What do you know about Prue and Chet?”

Rollo knew almost everything about everyone, and not even for sneaky reasons. The guy was just so nice and friendly that everyone talked to him. They talked, he listened, and occasionally, he shared his gossip with the band. “Remy, Remy, Remy… Finally asking me for the tea. So I take it you’re not over it?”

I held the rubber basketball at forehead height. “You and I both know I’ll never be over it. Tell me what you know.”

My attempt at warm ups sucked. The band knew it, I knew it. Trevor’s game was the following morning, so he’d be warming up all night. Our twin sense wouldn’t let up—constantly pinging reminders of his schedule during the day. He was probably too busy kicking balls and fucking Mary Jane to give my show a second thought.

I looked out into the distracted and partying crowd, hoping for a beacon of pink. What adorable getup would Fauna have worn to watch me play an actual gig? Did she even care about me at all, or was I just another game to her?

Rollo gave me the rundown, the rumors, the tea. None of it painted little miss Fauna Belrose in a positive light. The whispering made her sound conniving, manipulative, cold. Was that who she truly was? Did she really use Prue and break her heart, ruthlessly leaving her in the dust? Could I have been so blind to the fact that she was doing the same to me—to Trevor too?

Using a fake relationship with Trevor to look cooler—dating the star soccer player—and to make Prue jealous, all the while seducing me and putting me through emotional torment over betraying my brother. She could have just told me and ended my misery. It always seemed on the tip of her tongue, didn’t it? Maybe she wanted to confess, and my horny fixation on her just wouldn’t allow it.

The spotlight shined its caustic light upon the band. Lennon glanced expectantly in my direction as Joss tapped her foot and Rollo worked the crowd. It was our time, our big moment. No working for pizza this time.

“We’re Mall Ratz!” Joss repeated into the mic, turning and shooting me a what the fuck glare. Oh, yeah, I should count us off. Raising my sticks, I tapped a one, two, three before hitting the skins. The band fell into the best fucking music of our lives. The crowd went absolutely nuts.

Dream venue.

Dream crowd.

Dream band.

The motions of my set vibrated through my arms, reminding me I could play in my sleep and still shred—even if my heart was someplace else. Something caught my attention in the crowd—a flash of faded purple hair. Prue.

She stared at me, clutching some sort of metal backpack. Weird. Chet joined her, and when he passed her a drink, she turned—revealing a clear window in her odd satchel. Three kittens pawed at the plexiglass, one with spots and floppy ear… Turnip.

Why the fuck did Prue have Fauna’s kittens?

Why would someone so wronged by Fauna be so eager to be in her space? To talk about her, follow her, follow me, talk shit, and now…she had her kittens. For someone rumored to be so conniving and fake, Fauna never had anything to say about Prue. Yet Prue, it seemed, couldn’t shut up about Fauna. Something wasn’t right. I knew my feelings for Fauna. If she was using Trevor, or even me, it was because she had no other choice. Those kittens, I knew for a fact, were her whole heart, and there was no way she’d hand them over to attend a rock concert with her enemy.

The song was reaching its crescendo. Joss belted the lyrics, Lennon zoned in on the keys, Rollo hit every note. Finally, finally , we were doing it. Everything we’d worked for. The hundreds, thousands of hours of practice in the tattoo shop, the twelve-year-olds’ birthday gigs. It all amounted to this—it was everything I wanted.

It was everything I’d wanted until Fauna.

Right or wrong, truth or lie, I’d known Fauna was mine from the moment I saw her. That was never going to change. Fauna Belrose was my girl, and she needed me.

My spin-stool fell back with a clatter as I stood abruptly, shoving my sticks into the back pocket of my jeans. The band looked to me in confusion as the beat stopped. They continued playing—fighting to recover from my exit as I jumped off the stage. Partiers gripped my shoulders and slapped my back, thinking this was all part of a bit or something, but I walked straight for Prue. Her face drained of color, and she took a step back, hiding behind Chet’s bulky arm.

I outstretched my palm. “Give them to me.”

“I’m going to go get another beer,” Chet announced before slipping back into the crowd like the coward he was.

Prue looked after him astonished before clearing her throat and crossing her arms. “Give you what?”

“The kittens. Fauna’s kittens.”

“Why do you care? Didn’t you hear? She was playing Trevor and you, just like she played me. Really, this is pathetic, Remy. Don’t let her destroy you like she has so many others.” Prue clutched the straps of her backpack-carrier. “I think your band is waiting for you. Don’t blow your big chance.”

I crossed my arms. “What do you have on her, Prue? Whatever it is, I don’t fucking care. She’s my girl, and you fuck with her, you fuck with me.”

The faded-purple-haired psycho scoffed. “You ever reach the end of V for Valin? You know there’s a community board for winners, right? I don’t know… Maybe your girl should be more careful who she ghosts…and who she sends nudes to.”

Then, it clicked.

Why had it taken so long to flip the switch in my brain to what was going on? Fauna was being bullied…and… “You’ve planted revenge porn at the end of the game? No, sorry, revenge porn is a fucked up phrase. It’s more like image-based sexual assault. That’s what you’re holding over her, huh?”

Prue shrugged and spun on her heel. I grabbed her shoulder; she shrieked, but it was too late for her to react. I pulled the backpack full of kittens off her shoulders. Chet returned, and Prue screeched that I’d stolen from her. He called over to me, and I shot him a middle finger. “I’m not done with either of you. But right now, I’ve got shit to do.”

Outside, I kicked down my skateboard, kittens meowing at my back, and skated in the direction of Fauna’s apartment.

An hour later, I pushed my key into the door of my apartment, surprised when it clicked open. My brother hadn’t changed the locks—not yet, at least.

Trevor paused, mid rummage through the refrigerator. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Look, I don’t like fighting with you. What I did with Mary Jane… It’s just as fucked up, if not more, than what you did with Fauna. Even though you didn’t know we weren’t really dating, I could tell you liked her—” He paused and looked over my shoulder. “Is something meowing behind you?”

With a sigh, I took off the backpack, knelt, and released the kittens. “Have you heard from her? From Fauna? I just went to her place, and she’s not there.”

Trevor inspected a jar of pickles before putting them back in the fridge. “No, not since the fiasco at Mom and Dad’s.”

“You fake-dated her to protect her, right? What do you know about that?”

“Look, I know it was lame, but I wanted to impress Dad into thinking I have my shit together, despite him thinking I’m kicking a no-future-ball around all day, and she was being fucking harassed by that chick. I think they had feelings, it went sideways, and ever since then, Prue has been on a rampage to ruin her.”

Turnip pawed at my jeans, and I scooped him up and scratched his ear. “I’ll forgive you for being an absolute bag of dicks if you help me with something.”

“Fuck you. I deserve an apology too.”

“I’ll order us pizzas.”

Trevor thrummed his fingers along the top of the fridge door. “Meat lovers? Beer too?”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s how much it takes to buy my twin’s forgiveness and help? A couple large pizzas and beer?”

“Six pack of beer.” Trevor crossed his arms. “What are we doing?”

Turnip purred into my chest, and all I could see in the whiskers and fur was Fauna’s soft green eyes, her freckles, the way she looked up at me. That was real. We were real—and I had to save her. “We, my brother, are beating V for Valin—tonight.”

Trevor arched an eyebrow. “Why?”

I pulled up the pizza delivery app on my phone and ordered enough food to feed an army—or just my brother and me—and began setting up our controllers in the game room. “Because I think there’s a reason she played so religiously, and it wasn’t for fun.” I passed him his controller and pulled up the game’s home screen.

“We played together too. She’d send me on quests to beat levels like it was her job. I knew it had something to do with her falling out with that girl, but I didn’t want to pry. I thought maybe she was just competitive.”

“It’s more than that.” We settled into our virtual characters and refreshed our memory of basic controls. “How’d your game go tonight?” I asked, breaking the silence.

“Postponed—lightning. How’d your show go?”

“So you did remember?”

Trevor snorted. “Twin-sense. Your schedule is engrained in my brain.”

“That’s really creepy, dude. But yeah, I abandoned the Mall Ratz mid-set to steal kittens from a cat-napper. Then, I went straight to Fauna’s, and she wasn’t there. I’m sure everyone fucking hates me now.”

Trevor’s beefy avatar took off a robot head with a giant hammer. “I know I do.”

“Fuck off, you do not.”

“You stole my girlfriend,” he huffed jokingly.

“Yeah, but I’m a better boyfriend to her than you were. And I bought you pizza.”

Trevor raised an eyebrow. “I really do like Mary Jane and her kids. It wasn’t like…a personal thing against you. Honestly, you didn’t even seem to like her that much.”

I shrugged a shoulder. He wasn’t wrong. “Can you email Fauna? She doesn’t text. By the way, why the fuck doesn’t she text?”

“I think after whatever onslaught of cyber-bullying she experienced from Prue, she went dark on everything. Got a dead flip phone, never goes out anymore—well, until we linked up and I was her bodyguard.”

“Yeah, well, I’m her bodyguard now.” I paused before taking a hit from a zombie. “Did you two ever…you know.”

Trevor arched an eyebrow. “No, like I said, it was an arrangement. Also, I’m pretty positive she’s as gay as you are.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It is a compliment. Maybe if I get a cool haircut, start skateboarding, drumming, and piercing and tattooing people like you, Dad will actually be proud of me for once.”

I paused the game. “This is a mind-fuck for me, Trevor. Dad has never given me any indication he gives a shit what I do. I always assumed he looked down on me. He always shakes his head when I show up at Christmas with more holes in my ears and ink on my arms. I’m really sorry I didn’t see that you felt the same way as me. And Dad’s a dick for what he said at dinner too.”

Trevor unpaused, and his avatar fell into a walk beside mine. I sat at the game chair as he reclined on a beanbag next to me. “Well, we put on a great show for Mom, at least,” he said, his tone still melancholy. “Our drama will be a broadway play soon, I bet.”

I chuckled softly as our neon LED lights faded from pink to blue. “Hey, it’s like when we were kids, gaming together after a fight or to avoid Mom and Dad.”

Trevor quirked a grin. “Yeah, look us. Haven’t changed a bit.”

My phone buzzed on the desk with a text, and I groaned. “I just know it’s the band. They’re probably pissed at me for bailing.”

“I can just imagine you jumping off stage to steal some freaking kittens—but why is beating this game so urgent?”

It was urgent, but how could I beat the game in time to get whatever shit Prue had on Fauna taken down? Even if Trevor and I gamed all night straight, we likely couldn’t beat the game. There were nerds who dedicated their life to this shit who still hadn’t mastered V for Valin. There was a knock at the door. “Pizza. I’ll get it.”

I fished cash out of my pockets for a tip and swung open the door, expecting food and beer—instead an onslaught of people pushed through and into the apartment. Rollo held cat litter, Joss had a bag of cat food, and Lennon immediately got on their hands and knees to coax a kitty out from under the table.

“What the fuck is this?” I asked. “I bailed on the show. You guys, I’m really sorry?—”

“We know,” Rollo said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “If you jumped off the stage mid-set, so we knew it had to have been life and death.”

Joss scooped up Turnip. “I saw you wrestle a backpack of kittens away from that bitch. This has to do with Fauna, doesn’t it?”

I nodded, swallowing the pressing emotions in my throat. “I just need to reiterate that I fucking destroyed our show. Are you guys okay? Like, someone punch me or something, please.”

Rollo rifled through the fridge. “It’s like the fridge in Fight Club over here. Someone order food.”

“Look, this is what’s up,” I said when Trevor appeared in the kitchen. “Fauna’s ops, Prue, and probably that meathead Chet, have posted bullying revenge shit at the end of V for Valin. We have to beat the game and take it down before other people do.”

Joss raised an eyebrow. “That’s diabolical. Who the fuck does that?”

Rollo poured cat food in a bowl and sat it down for the kittens. “V for Valin is, like, impossible to beat, and you think we could do this in a day?”

I ran a hand through my hair. “We have to try. I have to do this. I-I?—”

Trevor wrapped his arm around me. “Remy’s got it bad. Also, we’re going to need more pizzas if we’re pulling a nerd all-nighter.”

Lennon rigged our monitors, adding our television to the mix and rounding up multiple controllers. “I really am sorry, guys,” I said again once we were all stationed in our digital party.

Joss equipped her avatar with nunchucks. “I really hate mean girl shit. Also, they invited us to play again next week. We still rocked—and with you jumping off stage like that, now we have lore .”

“Lore?” Rollo laughed. “Ah, rumors! Fauna is our Yoko, breaking up the band.”

“We’re never breaking up the Mall Ratz. Now, let’s kick some ass in this goddamn game and save my girl.”