Page 37 of Stream Heat
But the day kept happening, and I kept tracking them through the house. Jace’s ASMR block went quiet. Theo’s chaos stream roared to life. The comforting drone of Ash’s tools through the floor as he built whatever. Malik chatting with someone in Discord.
The worst part? I didn’t hate it.
Theo “accidentally” ordered my favorite Thai place for lunch, no one else could’ve known except someone who’d been stalking my old socials. He left it outside my door with a sticky note.
Brain fuel for the Queen.
I laughed out loud, real and unguarded.
Jace brought me a perfect coffee at 3 PM sharp, like he’d studied my slump patterns. I was grateful, not suspicious.
Ash texted me a link to an article about optimizing stream setups for people with sensory processing issues, exactly what I'd been struggling with since the withdrawal began, I saved it immediately instead of dismissing it.
Malik came by with tea after my stream, classic Malik, with gentle, specific questions about symptoms. I answered honestly. No point hiding what they could all sense anyway.
When Reid knocked on my door that night, tactical stream energy still clinging to him, he offered the hoodie I’d mentioned liking and said, “Thought you might be cold. This room gets it worse than the rest.” There was nothing weird about it. He just handed it over and walked away. I didn’t argue. I buried myself in the soft fabric and let the scent chase off the chill I hadn’t realized I had.
It was just adaptation, I told myself as the house wound down, noises softening, routines slotting in. Just my body getting used to a new set of variables. Just my brain recalibrating after too many years numbed out on industrial-grade suppression.
It had nothing to do with how I noticed their voices even when I was supposed to be focused. Nothing to do with how somewhere deep inside, my hindbrain filed all these scents and sounds under “home.” Nothing to do with the feral, mindlesscomfort I got from knowing who was in the house, where they were, what they were doing.
Business. That was all it was. Survival.
I ran the words over and over again through my mind. Adaptation, adaptation, adaptation. Finally, as I curled up with my laptop prepping for tomorrow’s stream, hoodie still wrapped around me, exhaustion finally catching up, I almost believed it. Almost.
But as sleep dragged me under, even with the mantras and the careful compartmentalizing, there was a traitor thought in my head, soft and sly:
Pack.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Kara
I stared at myself in the monitor and waited for my hands to steady, but they just got worse, shakier, clammy, twitching so badly I could barely keep them on the mouse. I was scheduled to go live in two minutes, but I couldn’t even breathe right, let alone keep up the act. This wasn’t the usual “showtime” adrenaline. It was flat-out malfunction.
Withdrawal, maybe. Dr. Patel had warned me it would be ugly, said legal suppressants didn’t work the same way, that my body would have to claw its way out of the chemical swamp I’d lived in for years, but I’d hoped I was done feeling like melting plastic. No such luck.
“You’ve got this,” I muttered at my own reflection. A lie, but maybe I could fake it. Two more hours, that was all I needed to buy right then.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t done this before. I’d played through flu, broken bones, fevers high enough to fry my damn brain. I’d survived a charity speedrun with a splint on my shooting hand and enough cold meds in my system to kill a small dog. This should have been easy compared to that.
I counted down in my head like always, five, four, three, two…
My finger stabbed the “Go Live” button at exactly zero. A tremor ripped through me, violent enough to pixelate my vision, but I forced a smile. The intro animation blared, loud and annoyingly cheerful.
“What’s up, chat? Queen’s back in the game.” I squinted at the right corner, the viewer count was already pushing past twenty thousand. They must have camped my notifications. “Appreciate the fast turnout. Solo stream today, no Alpha entourage.”
The chat exploded with hellos and “where’s Pack Wrecked” spam. I pretended not to see it and booted up the battle royale. I didn’t want anything about them tonight. I didn’t want anything but to prove I could do this without breaking.
“Back to basics today,” I said, settling the headset. The movement stung all down my neck and temples, but I kept my voice even. “No collabs. No drama. Just your girl clearing lobbies like it’s my actual job.”
The first match wasn’t terrible. I latched onto muscle memory, drop, loot, rotate, keep the banter flowing. The old habits almost carried me.
“Corner camper at your three o’clock,” I called to my random teammates. “Imagine thinking that works on me. I eat corner campers for breakfast.”
I lined up my shot.
Except my hand jolted, wild. The bullet went wide. Total whiff.
