Page 2 of Cyber Revenge

TWO

LYDIA

I ’m not streaming tonight.

No camera. No makeup. No performative moaning into the mic for tips. Just me, in a pair of booty shorts and a worn hoodie, legs curled up on my gaming chair and controller in hand, ready to annihilate whoever crosses my path in Call of Duty .

Sometimes, I like the quiet. The chaos without the comments.

I drop into a match and immediately regret not muting everyone. Some mouth-breather with a cheap mic starts yapping as soon as he realizes I’m a girl.

“Oh look, a bitch on the mic. Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen or bouncing on OnlyFans?”

Classic.

“Bet she sucks harder on here than she does on her OnlyFans,” another voice cackles.

I roll my eyes, already reaching to mute the lobby when another voice comes through. Deep. Calm. Dangerous.

“Shut the fuck up.”

It was like being slapped, in a good way. His voice cut through everything. Sharp and low and full of heat.

“You couldn’t hit a shot if she tied herself to your barrel, you limp-dicked loser.”

The entire lobby goes dead silent.

I choke on a laugh and cover my mouth with the back of my hand, grinning like an idiot. The trolls shut up. Game on.

Who the hell was that?

I caught his username, TripsterGuy . No fucking way. It can’t be . Let’s just pretend it’s not because I can’t fucking handle that level of turned on right now. I think to myself as I ignore the thought of the sexy masked man on TikTok.

I watch closely as he takes out a whole squad with precision and zero commentary. He wasn’t flashy. No screaming into the mic, no flexing. He played clean, tight, deadly.

And for the rest of the match, he stayed close. Not obvious. But every time I went left, he was already watching my flank. Every time someone tried to sneak up on me, he was there, cleaning them up with surgical headshots.

Okay, stalker.

But like… the hot kind.

Between rounds, I send him a friend request on impulse.

He accepts, and before I can second-guess it, I invite him to my party.

We end up in a 1v1 lobby next. No words. Just action. Him versus me, and I can’t stop smiling.

He is good . Like, sweaty good. Smart. Predictive. He moves like he knows how I’d play before I did. It makes me hyper-focused, makes my hands clench on the controller, makes something way too warm and tingly build low in my belly.

Mid-match, I find myself whispering, “You’re good,” under my breath.

His mic crackled on.

“So are you.”

God, his voice. That voice could ruin a girl. It was smooth and rough at the same time, like gravel dipped in whiskey. It made me squeeze my thighs together.

We play again. Then again. Hours pass. I lose track of time completely.

I didn’t want it to end. Not because I want to win. I just didn’t want him to log off.

When my controller finally dies and the screen goes black, I sit there, a little breathless, a lot flushed, staring at my reflection in the blank monitor like, What the hell just happened?

Then his message pops up.

[TripsterGuy]: Same time tomorrow, Killstreak?

I bite my lip, fingers hovering over the controller before I type back.

[LydieLIVE]: Oooh, I get a nickname already?

It’s been one game….

You'd better show up.

I don’t know who he is. I don’t even know what he looks like.

Okayyyy, I have a thought, but I could be totally wrong, and there have to be other people with that name in the world, right?

Something about him makes my pulse spike.

Makes me curious.

Makes me want to lose.