Chapter 2 Whiffed Shots and Bitter Defeat
“Rush B!” someone barked over the in-game channel.
The whole team funneled left down banana without another word.
Kai’s heart was already climbing. The familiar tight heat of a ranked round settled low in his stomach as his character sprinted past the sandbags.
Cole was right beside him on the minimap, both of them holding AKs that still carried the fresh shine of the skins they’d bought just to flex.
They hit the car at the same time as two CTs.
Cole’s crosshair snapped. Three rapid clicks.
The first CT dropped with a clean headshot, the kill feed flashing green.
A second later Cole’s own body crumpled as the remaining CT answered.
Kai was already swinging wide. He traded instantly, the spray of his AK chewing through the second guy, but not before a couple of rounds clipped his own health.
The impact registered as a sharp red flash across his screen and a quick jolt of adrenaline that made his real-life fingers tighten on the mouse.
He pushed the bombsite anyway, boots pounding across the wooden boards in-game. He never saw the third CT tucked in the back corner until the muzzle flash lit up. Kai’s screen went black. The death cam locked on the guy who had just deleted him.
“Fucking bitch,” he hissed into Discord only, voice still that high unbroken squeak. “She was supposed to be watching our backs. Useless.”
Cole just grunted agreement, already watching the rest of the round. The remaining Ts cleaned up, planted, and won it. First round in the bag.
That should have been the end of it.
It wasn’t.
Every single time Emmi’s name flashed in the kill feed after that—whether she whiffed a spray or got caught off-angle—Kai and Cole were on her. Only her. The rest of the team could miss shots all day and get a free pass. She got the full treatment.
“Girl, you’re so trash it’s actually impressive,” Kai laughed into the mic, leaning back just enough for the chair to creak. “I’d ask you to make me a sandwich but you’d probably fuck that up too. Drop the Twitch already so we can see if the only thing you can aim is your cleavage.”
Cole was right behind him, voice lower, meaner, the words rolling out like he’d been waiting for the chance.
“Yeah, you’re the reason we’re down three already, you dumb slut.
Maybe if you stopped leaning over the desk for a bunch of lonely horny dudes you could actually hit a shot.
Bet your chat’s getting more action than your crosshair. ”
Emmi’s reply came clipped and tight. “Whatever. Fuck you guys.”
One of their teammates finally snapped. “Would you two shut the hell up? For fuck’s sake. Get a room. You’re the reason we’re losing trades. Score shouldn’t be six to nine right now.”
Kai just smirked at his monitor. The heat under his skin had nothing to do with the match anymore.
Every time she died he felt that same low, dirty spark—power, irritation, and something that sat uncomfortably close to arousal.
He kept imagining her on the other side of the screen, headset on, maybe already tilted from the constant comments, maybe still trying to play while chat ate it up.
The thought made him shift in his chair.
They clawed back a few rounds after half-time. CT side. The score crept in their favor. Then the momentum flipped again. A lost retake here, a bad rotate there. Suddenly it was fourteen to fifteen. One round left. Win and they force overtime. Lose and the whole night was a waste.
Both boys were perched on the edge of their seats, shoulders tight, knees bouncing. The basement felt hotter. The RGB lights seemed too bright. Kai’s headset dug into the side of his head. He could hear Cole breathing harder through Discord.
The final round collapsed into chaos. Thirty seconds left. Emmi was the last one alive, staring down a 1v3. Somehow she cracked two of them. The kill feed lit up. It became a 1v1. Bomb planted on A. The timer was already bleeding out.
Kai mashed push-to-talk so hard the key nearly stuck. “Don’t fuck this up, bitch!”
She tried. The crosshair hovered. The shot never landed clean. Her screen went black a half-second before the defuse would have mattered.
Defeat.
The post-game screen slammed into place. Kai and Cole exploded at the same time, voices overlapping, raw and furious.
“You absolute waste of a slot—”
“How do you choke that? Are you actually braindead—”
Emmi tried to fire back, voice tight with anger, blaming them for the earlier throws, for the constant noise, for throwing her off. Neither of them listened. They just kept going until her name grayed out and the disconnect notification popped.
Silence for half a second.
Then the rank update window appeared. Both of them froze, eyes locked on the screen, fingers crossed under the desks like kids. No derank banner. The relief hit so hard Kai actually laughed, short and sharp.
They dropped from the server without another word.
Kai leaned all the way back in his chair until the mesh groaned, staring at the ceiling. The residual heat of the match still sat under his skin, mixed with something uglier and more restless. “I can’t believe she made us lose. Like, how do you fuck up that bad?”
Cole was already scrolling his second monitor, still half-hard from the adrenaline and the constant sexualized roasting. “Right? If I hadn’t died to that lucky-ass nade we had it. Whatever. Should we run it back?”
Kai’s hand was already moving toward the queue button, the same restless bounce returning to his knee. “Yeah. I’m down. One more. We’re still almost Global.”
Neither of them noticed the private message waiting in the Steam overlay. Neither of them had any idea the night was only getting started.