The first time Kai Mercer came looking for the woman he believed he loved, I protected the liar who had stolen my face. The second time, I took one look at the famous champion standing beneath a wall of cameras and realized death had given me something mercy never had: the chance to stop being useful to people who hurt me.
Chapter 2
Brier had always been beautiful in a way that made people want to forgive her before they knew what she had done. Soft brown hair, wide gray eyes, a delicate face that looked almost childlike when she cried. In our first life, those tears had been enough to make me mistake manipulation for panic.
Not anymore.
“I never meant for it to get this big,” she said.
“You took his money.”
“He’s rich.”
“You used my account.”
“You left yourself logged in.”
“You sent him my photograph.”
Her mouth tightened. “He wanted to know what Lunablade looked like.”
“So you stole my face because answering honestly was inconvenient?”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
She looked away.
“Before or after you signed the sponsor deal?”
Her head snapped up.
That frightened her.
Good again.
She had no idea how much I remembered.
Brier had first discovered my anonymous account by accident. I was a college student working evening shifts at the arena merchandise booth and playing Ether Rift after midnight. I had no interest in streaming. I loved the game itself: the movement, the timing, the strange clean silence that settled over my mind when a difficult match became simple.
Lunablade climbed the rankings quickly.
Then I began encountering an anonymous player named CrownKai on Saturday nights.
Neither of us knew who the other was at first.
I beat him.
He came back the next week.
I beat him again.
By the fifth match, gaming forums were sharing clips of our duels.
Brier saw opportunity where I saw competition.
She began logging into my account after I went to class. She never played serious matches because she could not. Instead, she answered messages.
Kai eventually revealed his identity.
Brier kept hers stolen.
“I wanted to stream,” she said now. “Nobody notices girls like me.”
I stared at her.
“They noticed my account.”
She flinched.
“That’s different.”
“No, Brier. That’s the entire problem.”
She sat down hard on the couch. “I needed a way in. You had this amazing thing and didn’t even care about it.”
“I cared about playing.”
“You could have been famous.”
“I didn’t want to be.”
“And I did.”
Her voice sharpened.
There she was.
The crying disappeared so quickly it almost impressed me.
“You had everything I needed,” she said. “The rank, the reputation, the connection with Kai. You were wasting it.”
“You thought my privacy meant my identity was available?”
“I thought we could both benefit.”
I laughed.
“Did I benefit from the money he sent you?”
She looked away.
“Did I benefit from the sponsor passes you claimed?”
Silence.
“Did I benefit from the fake contracts using my name?”
She stood. “You can’t prove I made those.”
The room became very quiet.
I smiled.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For finally saying what you actually think.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You aren’t sorry,” I said. “You’re scared I can prove it.”
I walked into my bedroom and shut the door.
In my first life, I had believed truth was enough.
It was not.
Truth without evidence had left me standing in front of cameras while everyone asked why Kai looked hurt.
This time I had spent the morning preparing.
New password.
New recovery email.
Backup drive.
Screenshots.
Account history.
I called Dax Rowan.
He answered on the second ring. “Please tell me you’re calling because you finally accepted that your controller settings are a crime.”
“I need help.”
His joking tone vanished. “What happened?”
Dax had been my occasional duo partner for a year. He was twenty-four, studied software engineering, and possessed the emotional expressiveness of a parking meter, which made his loyalty easy to underestimate.
I told him everything.
Not the dying part.
Not yet.
When I finished, he was silent for several seconds.
Then he said, “Brier can’t play like you.”
“No.”
“I’ve seen her personal account. She panic-rolls after missed cancels.”
“Yes.”
“She once dashed into a wall three times in the same match.”
“I remember.”
“So if she claims she played Lunablade, she’s clinically optimistic.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
“I need logs, Dax.”
“You’ll have them.”
We worked until midnight.
The evidence grew faster than I expected.
Login records showed Brier’s laptop accessing my account while I was in class or working shifts at the arena. Device histories separated gameplay sessions from messaging sessions. The highest-ranked matches came from my laptop, my controller, or tournament stations assigned to me.
Kai’s romantic chats came largely from Brier’s devices.
His transfers went to a payment account registered in her name.
Gifted cosmetic items were moved through digital wallets she controlled.
Dax found recovery-email changes I had missed the first time. Brier had added her address during a night when she claimed she was fixing our router. She had photographed backup codes from the drawer under my desk.
Then we found the sponsor deck.
THE FACE BEHIND LUNABLADE.
Brier Lane — The Voice Who Made a Champion Listen.
I stared at the screen.
Dax said, “That’s ambitious.”
“That’s one word.”
“You have another?”
“Several. Most would violate tournament chat rules.”
At 12:17 a.m., Brier posted publicly.
Some people pretend to be victims after helping create the lie.
Five minutes later, anonymous screenshots began circulating.
They appeared to show messages from me.
Let him keep sending money. We’ll split it.
When Kai gets here I’ll pretend to be shy.
We can turn this into a brand.
Dax examined the images.
“They’re fake.”
“I know.”
“Metadata’s wrong. Font rendering too. One timestamp format doesn’t match the app version from that month.”
“Can we prove that?”
“Yes.”
At 12:42, Ether Rift officials received an anonymous complaint accusing Lunablade of account sharing, fraud, and possible match manipulation.
I read the notification while eating dry cereal from the box.
Dax stared at me through video chat.
“She stole your account and then reported you for sharing it.”
“Yes.”
“That’s bold.”
“Brier has always had confidence. Skills were the issue.”
“This could trigger an official investigation.”
I looked at the screen full of evidence.
“Good.”
“You want investigators involved?”
“I want people who understand server logs.”
At 8:03 the next morning, my phone rang.
“Maya Quinn?”
“Yes.”
“This is Serena Holt, Competitive Integrity Counsel for Ether Rift Global.”
I sat straighter.
Her name was famous in professional gaming. Former prosecutor. Esports attorney. Tournament investigator. She had once suspended an entire championship team halfway through an event because their hardware logs did not match their statements.
“We need you at the arena security office at ten,” she said.
“I’ll bring receipts.”
“Bring evidence.”
“That’s what I call receipts.”
A pause.
“I prefer evidence.”
I smiled.
“I think we’re going to get along.”
She did not respond.
At ten, Kai was already seated in the conference room with his manager.
Brier arrived late wearing a soft gray sweater with BE KIND printed across the chest.
I nearly admired the wardrobe choice.
Serena sat at the head of the table.
“We are investigating unauthorized account access, impersonation, payment fraud, and potential competitive misconduct involving Lunablade,” she said.
Brier immediately started crying.
“I’m scared,” she whispered. “Maya’s trying to ruin me because Kai cares about me.”
Serena did not blink.
“Your feelings are not part of the server log.”
I almost fell in love with her.
For the next forty minutes, we went through everything.
Device IDs.
Login timestamps.
Payment records.
Replay files.
Campus attendance.
Arena shift schedules.
Brier’s fake screenshots.
Dax demonstrated the differences between our gameplay. My signature character required a ninety-two-millisecond animation cancel during one of her strongest combinations.
I hit it consistently.
Brier averaged more than two hundred milliseconds late.
“That proves nothing,” Brier said.
Dax clicked another video.
“This is your personal account last Tuesday.”
Onscreen, Brier missed the same cancel, rolled backward, hit the wrong ability, and died to a beginner-ranked support player.
Dax adjusted his glasses.
“The support player was eating a sandwich.”
I covered my mouth.
Serena continued typing.
Then Kai finally spoke.
“Maya is still Lunablade. The gameplay is hers. The face is hers.”
I looked at him.
He leaned closer.
“So maybe we keep things simple until after the showcase.”
“Simple?”
“The panel tomorrow. Sponsors are already committed. Play along for one day. We sort the details out privately afterward.”
There it was.
In that moment, Kai stopped being merely a victim.
He knew the truth now.
And he wanted me to carry the lie anyway because honesty would embarrass him.
“You want me to pretend I wrote the messages,” I said.
“Just temporarily.”
“You want me to act like your mysterious online romance so your campaign doesn’t collapse.”
His voice lowered. “You don’t understand how brutal the fans will be.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“Maya—”
“No. You were fooled, Kai. That part isn’t your fault. But now you know, and your first instinct is to turn me into a costume because you don’t want people laughing at you.”
His face hardened.
“I have sponsors to think about.”
“And I have a name.”
Serena’s fingers stopped moving over her keyboard.
Kai looked toward his manager.
Brier stared at me.
I suddenly remembered the panel scheduled for the following afternoon.
The Voice Behind Lunablade.
Brier had arranged it months earlier.
Five thousand people would be in the convention hall.
Hundreds of thousands more would watch online.
Serena said, “Given the investigation, I recommend canceling tomorrow’s panel.”
I looked at her.
Then at Brier.
Then at Kai.
“No.”
Dax turned toward me. “Maya.”
I smiled.
“Let her have the stage.”
