Loud: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Male Romance) (36 page)

I focused in on
the arcade at the MGM Grand. Beyond the normal kid games, they had interactive
and full-sized gaming consoles where you could actually feel like you were
inside the game. I wanted to step inside one and let everything else fade away.

Still, my daydream
was not holding. Sienna was right. Tonight, Las Vegas was not far enough away
and I had 15 minutes to escape. I put my head on my arms as I leaned on the
counter and tried again.

This time my
daydream city was a foreign land. Dark plains that held pockets of fog, black
granite cliffs that jutted up before shadowy mountains, dim forest glens and
silent stands of towering pine trees.
 

I had enough time
to at least cue up
Dark Flag
and take
a look around. I headed downstairs to the basement. There, I brushed aside the
items Owen had returned and settled in on the worn leather sofa. Our wide
screen television buzzed to life on the home screen of the video game and I
quickly booted up my character.

Dark
Flag
was the perfect daydream city. Sienna would have scoffed at it, but it made
sense to me. She planned trips to Paris in her head, I was jumping into the
virtual rendering of the place I wanted to escape to. The game started with a
dark screen full of black thunderclouds. Lightning flashed across the screen
and the surrounded sound exploded. The game then dropped you through the
thunderstorm and deposited you on the starting grid, a rainy road outside the
walls of a looming city.

I thought for a
moment about entering the city walls. It was easy to wander around there and
people watch. The multi-player online game attracted millions of people from
around the globe. Walking through the virtual city was what a lot of new
players did. It was a chance to see what other people had done with their
avatars. You could also purchase weapons, charms, and spells, instead of
earning them in the field. Or you could head to one of the many taverns and
interact with other avatars, as Owen had explained.

I turned away from
the city. The whole point of my daydream was to escape from people, even
virtual people. I knew Owen had been playing the Black Fields with his clan, so
I turned in the opposite direction. I had never been inside the Pitch Forest
and I had just enough time to explore before my father expected me to join him
in the car.

The Pitch Forest
was a massive landscape of huge pine trees and redwoods. My human avatar was
tiny in comparison. The animation was amazing and for a while, I was perfectly
content to look around and admire the quality of the game. Here and there the
trees had carvings on them – signs from other players about which way the
wayside inn was located and where the ogre caves could be found. The players
themselves had created an entire language of symbols that I had just begun to
unlock.

"My next
victim," an underling player said.

All new players to
Dark Flag
started off as underlings.
The lower evolved humans scuttled along on hands and feet like hairless dogs.
Players stayed in that form until they fought others and earned their
evolution.
Dark Flag
did not make it
easy to sit down and start playing.

It had taken me
three days to evolve into an avatar I wanted to play. "Wrong,
newbie," I said.

The underling
jumped at me and I knocked it back with an easy sequence. I could have killed
it, causing the other player to have to wait an hour before rejoining the game,
but the hand-to-hand combat was a good distraction.

The underling
found its footing again and picked up a rock. "I'm not helpless," it
said.

"You're not
smart either," I sent my avatar forward with a sharp kick.

The rock slipped
out of the underling’s hand and we grappled again. Underlings used teeth and
nails to fight, but my leather jacket and pants, purchased in Black Wall City,
kept me safe. I punched it back and we circled around again.

Just when I
thought it was going to attack again, the underling spotted a Green Elf and
decided to go after easier prey than me.

All in all, it was
five minutes of distraction. I still had enough time to wander to the high
cliffs and look down on the Black Fields, or I could finally accept a quest and
start playing the game in earnest.

The redwood tree
nearest me had a carving of a sideways “S.” The symbol meant a Soothsayer was
near. Soothsayers could be fought for Fate spells. Or, if you found them and
asked, they would assign you a quest.

I searched amongst
the tall trees for the telltale glow of a Soothsayer's trail. Their footprints
glittered before fading and after a quick search, I found some that still
sparkled. I followed the trail until the Soothsayer appeared.

"Will you
fight for your Fate, human?" it asked me.

"I wish a
quest," I said. I knelt in front of the Soothsayer. The first time I had
encountered one, I did not kneel and it knocked me out for ten minutes for
being rude.

"Your quest
will not be easy. It is far beyond the Black Fields, far beyond the capability
of a mere human," the Soothsayer said.

"I want to
try."

"Then you
must travel far and find the warlock that will lead the Southern clan. He holds
a Portal Key. Use that key to enter the dragon's cave. It has been too long
since it flew. The Black Fields must be scorched, you must release the dragon,"
the Soothsayer said.

The game was
evolving based on the players that dominated. The creators had certain ways of
leveling the playing field such as plagues, natural disasters, and dragons. It
was my quest to activate one of those levelers. That also meant I had the power
to warn people or lure them to the Black Fields and eliminate my enemies.

My first instinct
was to find Owen and tell him about my quest, but before I could leave the
Pitch Forest, I was stopped by another player. The Green Witch was unnaturally
voluptuous, as most female avatars were. Her iridescent green dress clung hard
to her curvaceous frame and even as she spoke to me, her avatar struck several
sexy poses.

"Don't go
that way. Clansmen are all over the trail. It’s not safe," the Green Witch
said. "Unless you have something to trade."

I did not dare ask
what she had traded for safe passage. "Thanks, but I think I know some of
them."

"This isn't
the Light Clan. It’s new, started by a Thief King. They play dirty," the
Green Witch said. "They have Thrall Spells. You can lose two lives or be
stuck watching them play for a full 24 hours."

I thanked her and
made my way cautiously through the Pitch Forest. I needed to follow the trail
out to the Black Fields, but I barely knew how to play, much less how to play
dirty.

I heard the
chatter the closer I got to the trail. The Thief King was building a camp among
the redwoods. Once avatars were well-established, they could actually create
dwellings. Base camps or homes allowed a player to recharge without leaving the
game.

I stopped and
studied the command menu. I needed to know how to walk silently. I also needed
to know how to hide. I wanted to hear what they were talking about.

"I know
there's a way to make the Thralls do what we want," the Thief King was
saying. "I read about the possibility of a Thrall army. We can do that and
take on the Light Slayer."

I recognized
Owen's player name. He was called Light Slayer because early on he had found
the Sun Sword. It was part of the reason he was able to become
Dark
Flag
's
first clan leader. Too bad others were catching on fast. I did not like the
sound of a Thrall army.

I made it past the
camp and crossed the trail without being seen. Once I was amongst the redwoods
and pines again, I relaxed.

It was a big
mistake since out of nowhere, a Cloaked Corpse appeared. Cloaked Corpses traded
the ability to speak for unlimited lives. They were not able to work together
with other players so they were often alone. But because of the unlimited
lives, they were impossible to kill.

I had no spells,
only a Frost Sword. The Cloaked Corpse attacked and before I could think of a
plan, I had to fight. If I did not avoid its razor sharp nails, there was a
possibility my avatar would also become a Cloaked Corpse. They were the
Dark Flag
version of zombies.

I was about to
give up and try to run when a bright flash of light obliterated the screen.

"Don't worry,
Quinn, I got you," a voice said.

Light Slayer
appeared, his Sun Sword sending out solar flares that blinded the Cloaked
Corpse. He did not even have to fight to chase off the other player.

"Stop,
don't," I told him. "There's a new clan nearby. A Thief King."

"His name's
Balon," Owen said. "If we let him get more established, there will be
bigger rewards when his clan falls." Still, he sheathed his Sun Sword and
told his clan members to go and spy on the rival clan.

We were alone in
the Pitch Forest.

It was strange to
stand facing Owen's avatar. When he removed his helmet, I saw his avatar looked
exactly like him. Not many people chose to be themselves in the game, but there
we were, animated versions of ourselves.

"I'm glad
you're here," Owen said.

"Me,
too." I was about to tell him my quest when I saw his avatar pause.

"Sorry,
Quinn, I gotta go," Owen said. He exited the game and Light Slayer
disappeared.

I stood by myself
in the Pitch Forest.

"Quinn? Can
you go get the pizza by yourself?" my mother asked from the top of the
stairs. "Your father had to make a phone call."

He would have gone
with Sienna, but I was used to being sent off on my own.

#

I
got in the car, my head full of
Dark Flag
.
It was easier than thinking about anything else.

Owen's avatar
moved differently than any other player. He knew the commands and sequences so
well that his avatar moved fluidly. I was impressed – and more than flattered
that he had arrived just in time to save me. The game had notifications so a
message could be sent when certain players logged on. Owen must have added me.
Dark Flag
's first clan leader saving
some novice human; there was going to be talk.

I smiled to
myself. It was nice that there was a whole other world where rumors like that
were thrilling instead of awkward. I was wondering if I could handle the same
talk in the real world when a knock on the window made me jump.

"I could use
a little fresh air," my father said, getting into the passenger seat.

That meant my
mother was taking a down turn. "Fresh air" was my father's polite way
of saying he could not take the brunt of her blackening mood. He clipped his
seatbelt on and turned the radio off.

"Should I
take the long way?" I asked.

He nodded as I
realized I had no idea which way the long route was. I turned right out of our
driveway. My father did not seem to notice the world outside of the car. I kept
driving and he did not care. He studied his hands quietly until I wondered if
he had drifted off to sleep.

"Sorry for
sending you out like that. I should have just gone myself," he finally said.

"It’s no
problem. I wanted the fresh air myself," I replied.

My father opened
his mouth and then popped it shut. He scrubbed his chin a few times before he
said anything. "Your sister always had something to say. She was easy to
talk to. There was always the next step of her plan to discuss, the
accomplishments she could already check off. Sienna was going up and up."

"Thinking
about the future made her happy," I said. The words left a painful
reverberation in the car.

Sienna was only
happy when she was discussing future plans. She never stopped to concentrate on
where she was – or who she was with for that matter. She lived to become a
projected version of herself. The perfect version of Sienna was always a few
steps away in the certain future.

If she lost that
certainty, even for a moment, a gloom fell over everything around her. When
Sienna stopped to look around her, she found faults everywhere and her mood
plummeted. I knew that was exactly what had happened, but I could not tell my
father.

"What about
your future?" my father asked. "You don't seem to spend much time
thinking about it."

I gripped the
steering wheel harder to keep the accusation in his tone from knocking us off
course. "I have been lately," I said. "I think I should meet
with my advisor again and discuss majors. There might be a better fit out there
for me."

"Of course.
Some people would take a tragedy like this and turn it into a reason to work
hard with every breath. And some take it as an excuse to go spinning off into
la-la-land," my father said.

I held on tighter.
"No. It’s just I think I let Sienna influence me too much. She was always
so excited about becoming a surgeon, she made us all excited about it too. I
think that's why I chose nursing, not because I loved it. You have to love it
to be good at it."