Page 4 of Stream Heat
A sound came then, wet and desperate, like a moan half-strangled in her throat. Then–
Nothing.
Static.
Her screen cut to black.
Overlay flickered, the emergency loop fighting to buffer, but all I could picture was the afterimage burned in behind my eyes. Kara’s face had gone deathly pale, eyes glazed, sweat pouring down her brow. She looked like she’d stared into hell.
My stomach plummeted straight through the floor.
“Guys,” I said. Slow, careful, like the words themselves might break if I lost my grip. “We need to help her.”
“How?” Theo shot back. “We don’t even know where she lives.”
“I do,” Ash said. Quieter than the rest of us, but steady. “Tournament registration forms.”
“That’s stalker shit,” Malik growled. “We can’t just show up at her place.”
“She’s in a dangerous heat crash,” Jace cut in, tone flat and ruthless. “That’s not a regular suppressant fail. That’s industrial-grade suppression, and she could be in medical danger. I’m not kidding.”
Malik ripped off his headset and was up, moving, but I had no clue what he was doing. He was usually the calm one, butsomething about this had set him off and it was like he couldn’t sit still.
A groan drifted through the open comms line. Kara. She hadn’t managed to cut her mic on the backend. I knew she wasn’t streaming anymore, that no one but us and any moderators that were still around would be listening. My hand clenched tight on the desk.
“Quinn?” Jace tried. Even-keeled, objectively calm and soothing, but his words landed like a bomb in the streaming room. “You still there? Can you hear us?”
Pause.
We were all frozen, even Malik. Waiting. Listening like our lives depended on it.
“Yes,” she rasped. “Don’t… don’t come here. I’m fine.”
You’re not fine, I wanted to say, but what came out was steadier. “That’s a suppressant crash. How long were you even on them?”
Silence.
“Quinn?” I softened my voice, though it took everything in me to do so. “Kara? Talk to us.”
Another pause.
Then I heard it. So faint I almost missed it. “Eight years,” she whispered. “I’ve been on them for eight years.”
Theo inhaled, like someone had stabbed him in the ribs. “That… Kara, that could fucking kill you.”
“I know what I’m doing,” she tried to say, but each word was bent double with pain. Another wave must have gripped her, because she didn’t even try to fight the sound that came with it.
“Clearly not,” I barked. “We’re coming over. Whether you want us to or not.”
“Don’t you fucking dare–” She broke. The words died in her throat.
“Kara.” I called her name again, but gentler, softer, trying to break through the haze of pain she was probably in without resorting to my Alpha tone. “We’re not coming to take advantage. We’re coming to help. You need a doctor. You need help.”
And then something inside her must have changed because her defenses were completely gone in a way that I could almost hear the snap. “Please, Reid,” she said. Just a breath. “Please hurry.”
Then the line went dead.
No comms. No video. Not even static. The world emptied out.
