Chapter 27: The Mic

For one second, nobody in the arena knew what to do.

The back row started to laugh.

It died almost right away, because nobody else joined in.

Carver kept going.

"Ask her what she looked like!" he yelled. "Ask her! I've got the pictures! She lied to me for a year!"

I took a step toward the casters' desk.

Beck's hand found my wrist.

He didn't hold me back.

He just held on, so I'd know he was there.

Then I heard a chair scrape behind me.

The grad student had pulled his laptop out of his backpack.

He plugged it into his station with one cable, the way he'd plugged it in for every scouting session on that stage for a week.

The giant screen behind Carver flickered.

Then it filled with a screenshot from the Ashfall guild chat.

June ninth.

A post offering me away.

My fair photo, under it.

Carver's username, ashfall, in the header.

Six hundred people turned from Carver to the screen and back to Carver.

"I'm sorry," the grad student said into his headset mic, which still went to the speakers. "Wrong tab. I'll fix it."

He clicked.

The next one came up.

"lmao enjoy."

"That's the login," he said. "That's him handing her over. Still the wrong tab, apparently."

Somebody in the fourth floor section laughed, high and shocked.

Carver turned around and saw his own words three stories tall.

"That's fake," he said into the microphone. "That's edited."

The senior stood up.

He walked across the stage, past Carver, to the casters' desk.

The second caster had a backup microphone.

The senior held out his hand for it, and she gave it to him.

He didn't look at Carver.

He looked at the seats.

"I played on varsity for four years," he said. "I got cut in August so he could start. Most of you know that."

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