CHAPTER 3
SIERRA
“I’m heading straight to the loot,” I said through the microphone, my eyes laser-focused on the screen.
My fingers clashed with the keyboard at a maddening pace as I dodged the next attack and maneuvered to the chest. “Tank me from the right,” I muttered, crouching behind a boulder as I healed, switching to my beloved spellcaster dagger.
“Roger that,” Tin replied, his character (a huge giant in a Viking mask) stumbled to my right, covering me as he took damage from the enemy.
“Ambush to the left,” Kiki shrieked, and I watched her pink-haired, leather-clad character sidestep the beams targeted at her while she pulled her crossbow and fired off toward the enemy.
Fuck, this wasn’t looking good for the team.
But that was why they had me.
I was the sixth-best player in Fantasy Legends for a reason.
My head snapped into action as a strategy formulated. I was going to win this no matter what. “Ken cover Kiki, Tin lose the tank and watch my six, Freddy you too. I’m going straight to the tower.”
With Ken and Kiki fending off the enemies, I leaped over, blasting my dagger at full speed at the minions guarding the fort, and ran straight toward the jungle instead.
I had exactly two minutes to dodge the enemies before they figured out my plan to capture the tower.
The enemies were busy taking down the boss, thinking they had the game, but it was mine.
It was always going to be mine.
“Sierra.” My heart almost jumped out of my chest when my door burst open, and I almost missed a step.
One minute and thirty seconds.
“Sierra.” My stupid brother hovered behind my chair, shouting in my ear. “Did you hear me?”
“I’m in the middle of something,” I bit out.
With the enemies distracted by the boss, I wiped out an opening and went all in.
One minute.
“Come on! Can you fucking hear me? Sierra. Sierrraaa. Sierrrraaa,” Raphael screeched in my ears like a pest. I wanted to smack the living crap out of him, but I focused all my effort on the game.
I shot a beam blast at the enemy in rapid succession while I tried to take minimal damage.
“The boss is in low health. Go all in, boys,” I muttered.
Thirty seconds.
With the enemies surrounded, the team attacked them from all ends, and I skirted around them, heading to the boss. Pulling out my dagger, I landed a critical attack with my last special move that swiped the boss with a single blow.
“SIERRA!”
The enemy base collapsed, bursting into specks of light.
Victory!
My team rejoiced in the chat, but I didn’t have the time to comprehend an answer because my annoying excuse of a brother was pulling on my arm. “SIERRA. Come on, I need to tell you something. You won’t believe what happened today.”
Gritting my teeth, I flung my headphones away and jumped to my feet. “This better be so fucking good, Raphy. Or else I am going to wring your neck and feed it to the crabs.”
A cocky grin curved his lips. “There are no crabs in Iona, sweet sister.” He bounced on top of my bed, folding his arms behind his head.
“Well?” I tapped my foot, running on my last nerve.
“Good things come to those who wait,” he insisted with a smirk. He fished around the inside of his jacket and retrieved what seemed to be a plain white card and waved it proudly in the air.
“What is that?”
“Why don’t you take a look for yourself?”
I narrowed my eyes, taking a skeptical step toward him. I dashed out my arm and grabbed the card from him.
“Careful,” he hissed.
I ignored him and studied the card. My heart thundered in my rib cage when my eyes landed on the name—MATT EVANS—which stood stark against the thick cardstock. “What is this?” I whispered.
“What do you think it is?” My brother still didn’t lose his smirk.
It had the name in a simple, bold font and a number, and an email printed on the bottom. It couldn’t possibly be his , could it? It did feel quite expensive, but even so, how the hell would my brother get his hands on something like this? “Who gave you this?”
“Who do you think?”
“I don’t have time for your stupid games, Raphy.”
“Fine.” He rolled his eyes. “Matt Evans gave me that.”
And once again, my heart thundered at that name. “And I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Even I didn’t at first.” He shrugged. “But there he was in the flesh, praising what an incredible talent I was. So talented that he wants to sign me on his label.”
“He doesn’t have a label.”
The glint in his eyes deepened. “It’s not public news yet.”
“I don’t know from which hole you dug up this load of crap from, but I’m not buying it,” I said, flicking the card toward his face.
“Si,” he whined, jerking upright. “I’m really not lying. I was busking like I usually was, and out of nowhere, this big giant approaches me, and to my surprise, guess who it was? The Matt Evans.”
“In Iona?” Doesn’t he live in LA?
“Yes. Do you really think I have the brains to even fake this card?”
Hmm, my brother did have zero brain cells. “Okay,” I said hesitantly. “Tell me everything.”
As he reiterated the story, the more bizarre it sounded, but aside from the usual smugness in his face, he also had an excited gleam in his eyes.
And I just knew he was telling the fucking truth.
My brother got to meet Matty fucking Evans before I did.
How in the world was that fair?
Not fair. At all.
I had two obsessions in my life: one was gaming, which I lived, breathed, and burned for.
And the other was rock music, or more particularly, a certain rock star with brooding eyes and effortless rhythm.
MATT EVANS.
The man of my wildest fantasies who haunted my dreams.
His music soothed the ache in my heart and healed the weight in my soul.
Unlike the other members, with their flashy smiles and theatrical performances, something raw and real about Matt conjured an undeniable desire in me.
I didn’t care what anyone said. I was his number-one fucking fangirl.
I knew every inch of his life there was to know, to simply say I was obsessed with an untouchable God, or so I thought.
Maybe sharing the same air as Matthew Evans wouldn’t be so hard after all.
“You have to say yes,” I blurted.
“Oh, do I?” He cast me an arrogant grin. “I’ll have to think about it.”
I glared at him. “What’s there to think about?”
“Plenty.” He flicked invisible dust from his jacket. “I’m the prize here, so I have to know my options.”
My fingernails mooned my palms. “Seriously?”
“Very,” he drawled, his tone dipping with pompous pretentiousness.
This wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t going to let my dumb-shit brother be in the way of me and Matt Evans.
I was going to see him one way or another.
I plastered a saccharine smile on my face. “But isn’t this your biggest dream, Raphy? Your talent deserves to be seen.” I laid a soft hand on his shoulder, squeezing hard.
He gave me a blank look. “I know what you’re doing. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
Asshole.
I slapped his arm hard. “But you can’t possibly be saying no, right?”
“Of course, I’m not.” An unusual seriousness clouded his eyes. “But I have to think about it, Si. You might be his crazy fan, but I don’t trust him. I don’t want to end up in a ditch or be used.”
I sighed. He was right. “Okay.”
“Just give me a week.” He flashed me a smile. “I’ll try my best to make sure he gets to meet his lunatic fan and the entire closet she dedicated for him.”
Pink tinged my cheeks. “No, you won’t.” Even if meeting Matt Evans was still a dream, there was no possible way I would ever let him see that. Plastered with shirtless images of him, Matt Closet, as I liked to call it, was my fan dedication to him. I tried to make it pretty by adding his signed CDs and merch so it didn’t look like a stalker’s den. But who was I kidding? It probably was.
I grabbed the card back from him and held it carefully, tracing a finger along the edge. “So you’re telling me that Matt Evans touched this card?”
“Yep.”
“Then it’s mine,” I breathed, pressing it to my chest.
His nose wrinkled in disgust. “Please don’t call yourself my sister in public. I fucking need that—he gave it to me .”
“Pretty please.” I batted my lashes.
“Fine.” He huffed out a breath. “Let me take a picture at least,” he mumbled.
“Raphael, Sierra, time for dinner,” called out a voice that made us both jump.
“Coming, Ma,” Raphy shouted back.
We both were on our feet and already halfway out the door.
Denying Victoria Chan’s commands came with serious repercussions that both Raphy and I didn’t want to face.
Raphy and I helped Mom set the table while Abuela and Dad settled themselves in their seats.
“Thanks, kiddo,” my dad, Jen, said with a smile as I placed a plate in front of him.
Soon, dinner in the Chan family commenced. It was an affair, to put it mildly. It was where we discussed our day in a structured fashion while we stated the plan for the next day and what goal we sought to achieve by the end of the week.
In other words, it was a pain.
“Jen, you go first.” My mother’s peculiar brown eyes slid toward him while she meticulously sliced her chicken into one-inch squares that looked too perfect to eat. Even for a casual dinner, my mother was impeccably dressed in a flowing dress and tight bun—her skin glowing and clear.
My father’s words breezed through my ears like they always did. Hearing what an accountant did for the day, your entire life would do that to you.
Why can’t dinners ever be normal in our family?
But then, my family was as unconventional as they got.
Even then, that’s what I loved about my family.
My father was half Mexican and half Chinese, and my mother was a Chinese immigrant who moved to the US with her parents when she was young, with big hopes and dreams, none of which she got to fulfill when she became a housewife.
So her plan switched to force them upon me and Raphy, me more so than him. And now it fell upon us to add meaning and pride to the Chan name.
“Raphael, have you thought about your options for college?” My mother turned to her next victim.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m thinking chemistry,” he stated, flashing her a charming smile. His blatant lie somehow seemed to suffice her, like they always did.
And I had to suppress the urge to laugh. I was pretty sure the only thing about chemistry my brother knew was that OH meant alcohol.
“Good. I hear chemical engineering is a competitive field. But it’s wise not to put all your eggs in a single basket. You need to have a solid plan. You only have two years left,” my mother replied without catching onto the fact that fucker was lying.
His only dream was to become a musician. Raphy adored to sing and play guitar so much that he went busking on the streets. Mother wouldn’t allow him to play at our house beyond the scheduled hours because it was loud and uncharacteristic of a gentleman. I secretly hoped that Matt Evans really did want to work with my brother because, aside from my selfish needs, seeing my brother succeed would make me the proudest sister on earth. Although I would never admit that aloud to him.
And yes, he had two years left. Two freaking years . He was only sixteen. He was supposed to be hanging out with his friends and making out with girls, not worrying about college. But my mother wasn’t going to let it go, I knew, because I went through the same roster not too long ago.
“Sierra, how was your day?” Mother’s sharp voice jolted me out of my musings. I was always the last one on her list because daughter dearest was the anomaly who couldn’t act like her obnoxious brother and always ended up putting her foot in her mouth.
“Great, Ma. I spent the day researching possible summer classes I could take. I want to be at the top of my game before I start,” I mustered a confident voice. What I was really doing was eating copious amounts of Cheetos and winning twenty-two matches in a row.
My brother snorted, jerking his knee with mine, and my mother watched me with squinted eyes.
She didn’t buy it, did she?
“I thought I heard gaming sounds coming from your room?” Her voice lowered a decibel.
Fuck. “Just one game, Ma.” I let out a shaky laugh. “Tin needed an extra player.”
Her lips pursed in a thin line. “I don’t know when you’ll ever grow up, Sierra. I told you, games aren’t going to put food on your plate. You’re going to start college soon. You need to be serious.”
“Yes, Ma,” I muttered, averting my gaze to my plate.
According to my mother, a lady was supposed to be driven, disciplined, and elegant.
And the perfect career for a lady was to become a doctor.
Sometimes I wondered if she even knew me. If she truly did, she would know what a terrible idea it was to leave a patient’s life in my hands.
I was messy, loud, and gauche.
The opposite of what a lady should be, and my mother never failed to correct it every time.
“Not everyone gets the opportunity to go to an Ivy League, Sierra. I want you to focus all your energy on that.”
Something heavy sat in my heart at her words.
My family thought I was going to Columbia for biology as my pre-med. A goal my mother spent the past three years forcing on me, but with the grades I got, the only email I could get from Columbia was a big no and a lengthy request for me to go back to school again.
So I lied.
It was a simple lie at first, which soon turned into the biggest lie I had ever pulled.
I didn’t know if it made me proud or terrified.
Only Raphy knew the truth.
“Let the kiddo be, Vicky. It’s her last summer before college,” Dad said, his warm brown eyes sliding to me. “It’s her time to have fun.”
“Fine.” My mother relented, her gaze softening.
As strict as my mother was, she loved us, and she loved Dad even more. One word from him and she would become an unrecognizable person.
The conversation changed to more mundane topics like Abuela’s bingo addiction and teas that helped with headaches.
But the heaviness in my heart intensified as my eyes darted to my dad. I hated lying to him; he was my superhero and always on my side. I was a daddy’s girl, and it killed me to lie to him. But I had no other choice.
If I told him I wanted to be a professional gamer, he would support it a hundred percent, but he would also share it with my mom. Then that would be the end of me. I could already see the flashes of my headstone—In the memory of SIERRA CHAN: daughter, sister, friend, died bravely in the pursuit of her dreams.
I shuddered at that thought.
So I had the next three months to cook up something spectacular for the reason I can’t go to Colombia.
“I swear dinner makes me lose more calories than I gain any,” I complained, later that night to Matt, dripping with sweat, with his drumsticks paused midair, the picture captured right when he was about to smash them. It was my favorite poster of him. It even had his signature printed on the bottom, only I wish it was real.
“What was I going to do?” I mumbled, sighing as his morose green eyes stared at me. “You can’t really answer me, can you?”
I blew out a breath as I crashed into my bed, and my eyes landed on the ceiling.
Gaming was the one thing I was good at; I knew it like the back of my hand.
Nothing sparked the drive in me like my games did, and I wanted to be the best at it.
It wasn’t for the faint-hearted; it was a highly competitive field, and despite what my mother thought, it required an exceptional level of strategic problem-solving and hand-eye coordination that takes years to ace.
I just wish she could see how amazing I was. Maybe one day she could.
“She would, wouldn’t she, Matt?” I leaned on my elbows and asked him.
The same blank look greeted me.
“Ah,” I groaned, flopping back.
I was so fucking screwed.