12. Chapter 12
Wren
I actually did it. I really sent those invitations. ObsidianWolf and NeedleAndVice—two subscribers I've never met—will be joining me this weekend for the calendar shoot.
What the fuck was I thinking?
Laying back against the hotel pillows, I let out a long, silent sigh. The room is nicer than I expected—plush bedding, decent art on the walls, a bathroom with actual water pressure. Lorna insisted I stay here until I feel safe enough to go home, and right now, that feels like never.
My phone buzzes with a text from Maya: Still worried about you. Let me know you're okay?
I send back a quick reply: I'm fine. Staying at a hotel for now. Don't worry.
Another text follows immediately: Too late. Already worrying. Message me if you need ANYTHING.
I smile despite everything. Having someone who cares is still new territory for me. Terrifying, but nice.
Marcus texted earlier to confirm my shift tomorrow.
Three days a week is all he'll give me—the asshole—which is why I started looking for more work in the first place.
How Behind the Lens became that "more work" still sometimes surprises me.
The money from camming is better anyway.
I could quit the café tomorrow and live comfortably just on what I make as Vanta.
But I won't.
There's something about Grounded that keeps me tethered. Maybe it's the routine. Maybe it's Maya. Maybe it's the strange comfort of normalcy—of being just another barista who makes a decent latte. No masks. No performances. Just coffee and the occasional smile.
Or maybe it's the regulars. Theo with his ridiculous drink orders and newly attempted sign language. Jace with his black coffee and quiet intensity.
I roll onto my side, trying not to let thoughts of flowers in my apartment and pendants with my real name creep back into my mind.
Focus on something else. Anything else.
The calendar shoot. I need to prepare.
I pull my laptop back toward me and open it again. If I'm going to recreate Wasteland Chronicles for the shoot, I should probably refresh my memory of the game's details. Plus, a few hours of digital violence sounds exactly like what I need right now.
I dig through my bag and pull out my spare headset—the ones with ridiculous cat ears that Maya bought me as a joke last Christmas. They're silly but comfortable, and right now, I need all the comfort I can get. Plus they light up while plugged in.
The game loads with familiar music—haunting, post-apocalyptic strings that always make my spine tingle. I check the team roster and see that WrathSpawn and HexedOut are already online, mid-match. I'll have to wait until they finish.
While I wait, I scroll through the game environments, taking screenshots of locations that might help for the shoot. The abandoned subway station with its eerie blue lighting. The overgrown botanical gardens where nature has reclaimed concrete. The military bunker with its utilitarian aesthetic.
The game notification pings: Match ended. WrathSpawn and HexedOut are now available.
WrathSpawn. HexedOut. Digital chaos with headsets.
The second I log on, the party chat ignites. The audio distortion is even worse with this headset and it makes me miss the one I left at home.
“There she is,” HexedOut crows. “I was about to launch a rescue mission. You ghost us again and I’m filing a missing person’s report.”
“She was probably avoiding you,” WrathSpawn says, dry as ever. “Can’t blame her.”
I type: Some of us have lives outside the apocalypse.
HexedOut laughs. “Oh, she lives! Kind of. Keyboard counts.”
I settle back in my chair, the tension in my shoulders easing for the first time all day. This space—this weird, chaotic trio we’ve built—feels like a pressure release valve.
The queue pops. We drop into a mission. Familiar terrain—cracked pavement, rusted overpasses, rain falling in steady sheets. We know this map like the back of our hands.
Or so I thought.
We’re ten minutes in when things start to go sideways.
Visual flicker. A half-second stutter on my screen. The world seems to… shudder. Textures warp. Sound cuts out, then snaps back too loud, too fast.
“Whoa,” HexedOut says. “Did anyone else just glitch?”
“Hold,” WrathSpawn snaps. “That’s not server-side lag.”
Then the sky shifts—just for a breath. A dark cloud moves unnaturally fast overhead. Static bleeds across the screen. My HUD flickers.
And in the top left corner, letters form briefly:
HELLO, LILLIANA.
I freeze. I don’t breathe. I don’t move. No one else says anything, like it only appeared for me.
The message vanishes like it was never there.
“What the hell,” WrathSpawn mutters, rapid-typing something I can’t see. “This shouldn’t even be possible. I wrote the damn—”
He cuts off sharply.
I blink. My mind replays the words slowly.
I wrote the damn software.
My brain clicks. One plus one finally adding up inside my head. WrathSpawn is Jace. The realization tightens around my chest, panic skittering along my nerves.
I don’t say anything. Can’t. Not yet. My heart’s pounding too hard, and that flicker—that message—still pulses behind my eyes.
“False alarm,” WrathSpawn says after a beat, his voice forced-casual. “We’re clean again.”
“Spooky,” HexedOut mutters. “Like poltergeist spooky.”
“It was nothing,” WrathSpawn insists, sharper now. “Some script kiddie thought they were clever.”
Maybe. But my hands tremble slightly on the mouse.
HexedOut tries to reel us back in. “Okay, team, let’s pretend we didn’t just witness a minor digital exorcism and finish the damn mission.”
We continue, and I watch WrathSpawn—no, Jace—closer than I ever have.
Every callout, every direction he gives, suddenly feels more vivid, more personal.
How did I not notice the familiar rhythm of his speech before?
The quiet authority in his tone, identical to the gentle but firm way that he had coaxed me through my panic attack.
My stomach knots. Could he be the stalker? The thought slithers coldly through my mind, but I immediately push back. I remember his eyes—dark, sincere, concerned—as he signed gently to ground me. That wasn’t faked. I know sincerity when I see it, don’t I?
Still, my paranoia has teeth, gnawing persistently at my certainty. Each clipped command from WrathSpawn triggers fresh suspicion. Each sarcastic remark makes me question why he'd never revealed himself. Had he known all along who I was? Had he been watching me longer than I realized?
Another mission loads, and I play on autopilot, dissecting his every interaction.
WrathSpawn is methodical. Careful. Strategic.
Traits I now see align perfectly with the Jace I know from the café—the man who orders ginger scones, who hesitates before speaking, who blushes when our eyes meet unexpectedly.
The man who looked genuinely concerned for me. Protective, even.
“Silence, you good?” HexedOut’s voice jolts me from my spiral. “You’re quieter than usual, which is impressive.”
Fine, I type back quickly. Just tired.
“Or traumatized by WrathSpawn’s personality,” HexedOut quips.
“Better mine than yours,” WrathSpawn replies evenly, but I can hear the tension behind his words. Does he sense something off?
I try to shake off my unease. The missions roll on, the familiar rhythm of gameplay easing my breathing. The glitch doesn’t reappear. WrathSpawn—Jace—does nothing suspicious. Just leads, supports, covers our backs as he always has.
Eventually, my paranoia begins to fade. They’re the same as always: reliable, steady, safe. I let their familiar banter wash over me, soothing frayed nerves.
“Last one?” HexedOut asks after another victory.
I type: One more.
If WrathSpawn is Jace, then who is HexedOut?
I start analyzing HexedOut's voice, his mannerisms, the way he jokes and teases. The constant flirtation. The easy confidence. The relentless charm that never quite crosses the line.
Oh my god. It's Theo.
It has to be. The sarcastic humor. The borderline inappropriate comments. The way he always pushes just enough to get a reaction but backs off before it becomes truly annoying.
I've spent months gaming with both of them, and never once realized they were the same guys who order coffee from me almost every day. How is that even possible? Have I really been that oblivious?
Wait—do they know each other outside the game? I've never seen them acknowledge each other at the café. They never come in together. Never speak to each other. They're like ships passing in the night, one leaving as the other arrives.
But then again, maybe I haven't been paying enough attention. Maybe they're better at compartmentalizing than I am. Maybe they're work colleagues who keep their gaming lives separate from their real lives.
This final mission passes without incident. The glitch becomes a distant memory, the message just pixels and paranoia. I exhale slowly, tension gradually leaving my shoulders. Safe, I remind myself. These men aren’t the threat. These digital shadows have never hurt me.
“Good game,” WrathSpawn says, a soft edge to his tone I now associate strongly with Jace’s tentative smiles at Grounded.
“Glad to have you back, Silence,” HexedOut adds.
I type: Same.
We log out. The screen goes dark, headset silent.
I’m alone again, my hotel room suddenly colder, emptier. I lean back, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes. As much as I want to forget it, nothing feels as safe as it once did. Not the game, not my home, not even my own skin.
But tonight, at least, I know one thing: Jace isn’t my stalker. He can’t be. Because stalkers don’t look at you the way he looked at me. Stalkers don’t ground you through panic attacks.
Stalkers don’t make you feel safe, even if only for a moment.
Right?
My heartbeat finally settles, slow and steady.
For now, that’ll have to be enough.
I stretch, working out the kinks in my shoulders from hunching over the laptop for hours.
The game was a good distraction, but reality comes flooding back as soon as I close the laptop.
In less than 72 hours, I'll be stepping into a fantasy version of Wasteland Chronicles with two strangers who only know me as Vanta.
I'll be wearing a mask and a wig, playing a role, creating an illusion.
Just like I do every day as Wren. Just like I do every night as Silence.
But now I'm not so sure the shoot was the right call. Inviting two strangers into a carefully constructed fantasy—one where I have little control—suddenly feels reckless. Especially when I’m starting to form real connections here, in my real life, for the first time in forever.
There's Jace, with his quiet intensity, sincere eyes, and unexpected gentleness—the man who saw me at my worst and didn't look away.
And Theo, whose playful charm and newfound efforts to communicate keep surprising me with warmth I didn't expect.
They feel...important. Like people I want to know better.
Like people I might actually trust enough someday to tell the full truth.
They don’t know I’m Silence, don’t know I’m anything beyond a pink-haired barista who doesn’t speak. And they certainly don’t know that some nights, when I’m not gaming with them, I become Vanta—masked and alluring in a world they've probably never considered.
But maybe it's time to change that. Maybe after this shoot—after I navigate whatever chaos I’ve invited—I’ll gather enough courage to finally tell them everything.
To show them all the parts of me, even the hidden, darker sides, and hope desperately that they’ll still look at me the same way afterward.
That they’ll still want me around when the masks finally come off.
Different masks for different audiences. Different versions of myself, each carefully constructed to reveal nothing of the truth underneath.
But for the first time, these worlds are about to collide. The gaming fantasy bleeding into the cam girl reality. And I'm the one who made it happen.
I glance at my phone and see a notification from Behind the Lens. The final details for the shoot have been confirmed. Both subscribers have accepted the invitation and completed their paperwork. The set design is almost done. The costumes are being prepared.
It's really happening. Too late to back out now.
I curl up under the hotel covers, pulling them tight around me like armor. Outside, the city continues its nocturnal hum—traffic and distant sirens and the occasional burst of laughter from late-night revelers. Inside, I am still. Waiting. Planning.
Saturday night, I'll step into Wasteland Chronicles for real. I'll meet ObsidianWolf and NeedleAndVice face to face—or at least, mask to mask. I'll be Vanta playing Silence, a performance within a performance.
Then after that, I will be honest with Jace and Theo.
And maybe, just maybe, I'll feel a little less alone in my silent world.
I close my eyes, but sleep is a long time coming.