“My friends, you’re so hot for each other I’m gonna get hard over here. Babydoll knows what she’s doing.” Xavier was the first to break the silence with a sarcastic round of applause. Luke just cocked an eyebrow, and the two girls seemed focused on Neil, who remained as impassive as ever. “If you’re ever looking to share her someday, holler at me,” Xavier went on. I went rigid at his deranged proposal and immediately recalled all of Neil’s vices, which he still had. I felt a wave of anguish thinking about those times in the past when I’d seen him doing sketchy things with multiple women.
My mood visibly deflated, and Neil raised my chin with two fingers and bent to give me a tender kiss.
“Don’t listen to that asshole,” he whispered. “No one’s going to lay a hand on you as long as I’m around,” he finished firmly. He’d never said anything like that to me before. I smiled at him and nodded gently, and he refocused on the problem of Player with renewed energy.
“Back to this,” he sighed, gesturing to the laptop he’d put on the coffee table. “Today I got a package from Player with this computer inside. It requires a password to log in, and I have no idea what that password might be,” he informed Luke, who had meanwhile opened the laptop. He rested his elbows on his knees as he examined the display with its locked login screen.
“Okay…we could probably brute force it, but it would take some time,” Luke observed. “I suspect Player probably gave you some clue about the password…”
“Because why would he give you a laptop you can’t access?” Xavier said, finishing Luke’s sentence. Neil began to pace anxiously, rubbing his chin.
“Maybe think about previous puzzles or, I don’t know, maybe about—” Before Luke could finish what he was saying, Neil stopped and gave him a eureka look.
“Hard candy,” he said immediately. I frowned, not understanding what he meant. Meanwhile, Luke had already typed it in and was smiling at the screen in satisfaction.
“Yeah…hot damn, that’s it,” he said excitedly.
“So the son of a bitch shattered your windshield with a rock just to give you a password?” Xavier asked.
I stiffened at the realization that there were still more things about the Player situation I did not know. I looked over at Neil to find him looking guilty and apprehensive. He moved closer to me as if to calm me down and tried to take my face in his hands, but I tossed my head.
“After the incident with Chloe, he took another shot at me. I was going to tell you…” he attempted to explain himself, but I just took a disappointed step away from him.
More secrets. More things he’d kept from me.
“When? When, exactly, were you going to tell me all of this?” I burst out.
“When the opportunity arose. But now isn’t the time to talk about it,” he scolded me with an authoritative tone. He didn’t want to be contradicted or condescended to in front of his friends.
I was about to tear a strip off him anyway, but then Luke called out and distracted me.
“Everyone…look at this,” he said, sounding disturbed.
I decided to table my discussion with Neil for later, and we both walked around the coffee table to get a look at the laptop screen.
“The desktop only has one icon on it; some app calledDark Show.” Luke pointed a finger at it and gave Neil a curious look. “So we should open it, right?”
“No. Hold on,” Neil answered. “Put some tape over the webcam lens.” He stepped back, walking away from the computer. He suddenly seemed disoriented as he began breathing heavily and broke out into a cold sweat.
Something wasn’t right.
I knew he was probably flashing back to when Kim tried to film him, triggering his fear of being captured by a camera, a phone, a computer—anything with a lens.
“Why?” Xavier asked, stretching out on the couch.
“Because…” Neil swallowed hard. I could tell from the grim expression on his face that he didn’t want to explain himself. It was hard for him to talk about that kind of thing. He gave me a searching look, and I smiled, trying to beam to him the knowledge that I was right there with him. “Because it screws with my head,” he murmured, going pale. His pupils were so blown they’d almost swallowed the molten gold of his irises. I was afraid that he might melt down at any moment, but he just squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, pushing away the dark thoughts that had shadowed his face.
“You’re right. This thing is probably loaded with malware, and Player could be using it to spy on us.” Luke got up and vanished into another room in search of black tape. He returned, tearing a piece off with his teeth, and stuck a square of it right over the webcam.
I glanced at Neil and watched him let out a sigh of relief. Now that the danger had passed, he could lock his phobia back up in the drawer where he kept it separate from the rest of himself.
“Okay, I’m opening it. Get ready,” Luke informed us. He hovered over the icon and shot a look at Neil. When he nodded in assent, Luke clicked.
Immediately, a chat preview popped up, though it didn’t look like any messenger service I’d ever seen.
Jennifer and Alexia leaned in to get a better look at what was going on.
“The fuck is this…” Luke muttered in astonishment. “It’s requires a username to proceed.” He looked up at Neil, who was standing over him.
