Page 27 of Control

CHAPTER 9 - EVERYONE

I STARED AT Reyna for a solid minute. I could feel Dutch’s tired and slightly drunk eyes watching over us as we stood there. She stayed quiet and stared at me the same way she used to back before she left. I stared right back as if nothing inside me had been changed by her absence. I could feel the beat of her heart through her palm as it covered my hand. The longer we stood there the more other players took notice and looked our way. I didn’t care though. I had never cared that people would stop and stare at Reyna and I no matter where we were in Aurora. I knew it bothered her though and would often try to shield her from it when I could.

“Why are you here?” I asked as I watched her move closer to me. It did feel strange to see her not only back in Aurora, but also in the very same room I was in. Given the thousands of locations, it would have be an insane coincidence that she just happened to come into the room I was in at the exact same time.

“I was hoping I could see you,” Reyna said to me. She was still good at holding back her emotion, but I could see something glimmering in her eyes. Something in her had changed.

“You searched for me,” I said, referencing the search function in the game UI accessible through our HUDs.

“Yes,” she said to me, confirming my belief that this wasn’t just a coincidence. All I could think of was why had she chosen to search for me now. I’d searched for her for so long after she’d left. I had to make myself stop after a time or I would have driven myself crazy. I had to get in through my head that she was gone and would probably never return. I fought the urge to search for her each time I logged in. This went on for months.

“So,” I said, trying my best to play things calmly to not work myself up. “I guess you’re back then?”

“I have been,” she said. “I came back about 2 days ago.”

“2 days,” I said back to her. “Just laying low, I guess?”

“Yeah. When I left I cleared my friends list so when I came back no one noticed I was online. I reached out to Shazzy and asked them to my place. His first thought was I would want to talk to you, but I asked him not to say anything to anyone.”

“Could always trust Shazz,” I said. “I haven’t spoken to him in a while.”

“He said you stopped doing the role play,” she said.

“I did. It was something you and I did and I couldn’t see myself doing it without you.” Reyna gave me a pained smile. “It would have felt all wrong.”

“I understand,” she said. “I haven’t done any role play since I got back, especially not the things we used to do.”

“It really did feel like it was just our thing,” I said to her.

“It was,’ she replied. “Started as a me thing and ended up as we.” I could feel that catching up wasn’t really the reason Reyna had come looking for me.

“That’s not why you’re here though,” I said. Reyna was caught off guard by my redirection. She paused a moment and took a deep breath as if trying to remember the other reason she came looking for me.

“You’re right,” she said, carefully releasing my hand from her chest and composing herself. This turn in behavior caused her to look away from me. I took the moment to look over her shoulder and to her right to see that we had in fact attracted some attention which I was sure was already making waves through the forum and chat boards. After all, we were in The House of Flies.

“It’s not safe for us here,” I said, motioning to her with my eyes that we had drawn a lot of attention. “It’ll only take them a moment to figure out who you are and then all hell could break loose.”

“Shit,” she said as she realized as I did that people were staring. She turned her head behind her and noticed the same crowd that I had.

“Come on,” I said, taking her by the hand and requesting to pair with her. She hesitated and I looked up at her to see why. It was apparent that she was still thinking about how things ended between us and was uncertain of where we stood. After a few seconds, she accepted and I whisked us away to a location I knew most people would never go.

I took us to a small neighborhood on the outskirts of the general “city” where most of the players setup and opened their rooms. It was a location I’d spent some time in back when the game was still in Alpha. Back then it was more of a testing area but was left in the game even after, and most players that weren’t around for the Alpha had no idea it even existed. Using an application I had in my HUD that most others didn’t have access to, I hid our location just in case anyone from The House of Flies was trying to follow. I held tight to Reyna’s hand and led her to an old, dilapidated house where I used to stay when I visited the area. I opened the weathered, sun-baked door and led her inside.

“Where are we?” she asked as I closed the door behind us and walked further inside. “What is this place?”

“It’s a house I use sometimes,” I replied, her hand still in mine. “Not been here in a while, but I’m sure we won’t be bothered.”

“Couldn’t we just go to your place?” she asked as I led her further inside.

“No,” I said as I dropped her hand and headed over to the front windows of the house to close the curtains. I walked over to the others in the living room and drew those curtains as well, making sure no one could see inside. I looked back to her. “Taking you to my place probably wouldn’t be a great idea right now.” She paused for a moment before picking up on my reasoning.

“I understand,” she said. I stood before her, but kept my distance, knowing that being too close to her would trigger more of my emotions to spill out.

“Why did you need to see me?” I asked, folding my arms in front of me. “Beyond what may be the obvious, I mean.”

“Right,” she said as she set her hand on the back of a dusted-covered chair in the living room and took a breath. “I need to talk to you about a rumor we’ve been hearing.”

“The hack,” I said. She’d probably figured that was why I was in The House of Flies to begin with since she knew I never went there, at least back when we were friends.

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