Page 85 of Stripping Bare

“It was more convoluted than you might think,” hegrumbled.

“That’s just because you didn’t have the right woman working on the job.” She settled into one of the chairs and pulled a keyboard towardher.

Jonah did the same, and before Tessa’s eyes, they seemed to disappear into their own world. Miss Joan patted Tessa’s arm. “Don’t be concerned. Those two have been like that since the day they were born, somehow able to communicate, work in tandem, and block out everything aroundthem.”

Reid snorted. “They used that superpower more than once to run roughshod over the grading system inschool.”

Miss Joan’s mouth puckered up. “I don’t want to hear aboutit.”

“Gives you plausible deniability,” Tessamurmured.

“Exactly.”

Britt shoved his hands into the front pocket of his jeans. “Watching those two do their Wonder Twins act always makes me feel like some kinda weird voyeur. Maybe we should letthem—”

“Fuck me.” The soft but heartfelt words came from Jonah. He slid a quick glance toward his mother. “Sorry,Mom.”

“What’s up?” Mickiasked.

“Dickh…ah…dude sent me another modded game file viaOnionShare.”

“Ooooh, let’splay.”

“Not sure I trust a file sent through the darkweb.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t have an air-gapped machine you can use to install it on thephones.”

Now they were talking their ownlanguage.

Micki waved an arm at everyone standing around the room. “Peanut gallery needs to move along so Jonah and I canconcentrate.”

The rest of the family began to shuffle out of the room, but Tessa hesitated. She liked Jonah’s sister—a great deal—but a sudden jealousy came over her. Being pushed out of something that had begun with her didn’t sitwell.

“Not Tessa.” Jonah caught her by the wrist. “This is her gig,too.”

That eased the spot of envy in Tessa’schest.

He fiddled with the goggles, doing whatever had to be done to run the game, while Tessa looked into them over his shoulder. The starting credits scrolled inside the goggles as they had before, but instead of launching the game itself, the character in the blue coat walked on-screen. His arms were crossed and he took a wide stance. Both defensive andaggressive.

Like last time, his face continued to morph—cycling through each person in the Steele clan and ending with Tessa’s head on the stocky male body, nothing like Carson Grimes’s lankyframe.

S/he smiled and it was the most gruesome thing Tessa had ever seen on her own face. “Today starts a new game in a newworld.”

Jonah grabbed a gauntlet, desperately stabbing at the buttons like a new player who had no idea which controlled the gamefunctions.

Meanwhile, the on-screen charactersaid,

“As destructive aslife,

As healing asdeath,

An arrow ofstrife.

Just as prone tobless.

It is all that isgood,

Yet with an eviltrend.