Super Secret | Half Hero Book 2 [ON HOLD]

Chapter 12: Chips to Cash

While my mom was in the bathroom and Varun was off making a phone call, Aaron and I headed out into the landscaped courtyard. We had minutes to spare.

"Mom is going to shit a diamond, you know that right?" Aaron's tone wavered as we hunted up a spot with terrible lighting.

"That's why we're posting this to a social channel where content expires," I reminded my sibling in singsong. "And you're obscuring my face. Got it, nimrod?"

"Geez! Calm down, Adolf Titler," Aaron sighed as I stepped onto the smooth river rocks surrounding the globular fountain. "Hey! Stand there, that's good."

I twisted around to find that the glow from the kitchen cut a murky line down their manicured backyard, which left the fountain shrouded.

"Hurry up, bunghole!" I hissed.

"It's recording!"

"What? Delete that part!"

"No way, turd nugget!"

"Erase it, skid mark," I growled, raising a hand. "Or I'll zap you!"

"That's what your fans want to see," Aaron mocked, lowering his phone to pull a face. "Threats of violence."

"Can you be serious, please?" I complained.

"Can you?" Aaron retorted, but held up his phone a second time. "Alright, go!"

For a split second, my mind evacuated and I stared at the back of my brother's custom phone case. It was our family picture that used to hang over the mantle at my mom's house in Seattle. All of us together, the last group photo before our dad was murdered, by Hamm.

Aaron lowered his phone. "Um, you know you have to talk, right? That's how this works."

Galen's angry accusation was crawling up the back of my spine and nagging at my better judgment. The consequences of this little stunt could be further reaching than I'd considered. 

What if the government decided I was a liability? What if Georgetown kicked Aaron out before he even started classes? What if Galen had my mom arrested because I violated their contract? I could be dooming my family to punishments I didn't know about.

My expression must have been enough to spook Aaron, because he lowered his phone again.

"Look, you don't have to do this," he said. "Maybe mom's right."

What I was about to do was selfish and reckless, but what if it paid off? Regardless of whether my emo-stalker followed me on social media, I couldn't stand any more of this bureaucratic ambiguity.

My life was never going to be my mine. I would be lied to, tested on, ordered around, and kept out of sight to preserve the collective peace, indefinitely. Like Varun, if I wanted answers, I was going to have to seek them out myself.

"Son of a basic bitch," I sighed, then, nodded at my little brother. "Do it."

For a third time, Aaron held up his phone to record.

"Tomorrow night there's going to be an exclusive ask-me-anything to the lucky follower who's got chips to cash. You know who you are, and you know where I am."

Though my face was shrouded in the shadows, I was sweating bullets and my heart was pounding. 

"And, cut. What the fuck was that?" Aaron scoffed when I'd finished. "Some kind lame drug deal?"

"Nothing you need to be liable for," I shrugged, strolling over the slatted wood embedded in the grass leading up to the expansive glass wall of their house.

Aaron stared at his screen. I could hear his heart rate soaring. We were both royally f-ed in the b-hole if this didn't work out. 

"If they ask," I spun around to look him in the face. "Tell them I took your phone and posted it when you weren't looking."

"I'll just mirror a bogus IP from Thailand to my phone's OS. From there I can upload the video anonymously via a known bot account, we should be fine." Aaron rattled off the details as if walking through the steps was calming him down.

"Oh?" I chuckled darkly, understanding about three of his words. "That old trick?"

The hint of Varun's sophisticated cologne halted our surreptitious conversation and I turned with a wide smile plastered across my face to see him approaching.

"I was thinking," Varun's warm accent drifted over the bubbling fountain. He caught sight of our communal agitation and paused to study our silhouettes. "How about tomorrow night we enjoy a screening of Die Hard? I've never seen it you know."

"Yeah, sure," Aaron's voice broke like his testicles had dropped. "Sounds fun."

"Yippee-ki-yay," I tooted halfheartedly.

Varun could sense that we were up to something, but to his credit he kept a calm countenance. He was a big brother once. He probably knew the types of hijinks that siblings can (and will) pull when left to their own smart devices.

"Aaron, I think your mother has gone to lie down," The understated shift in Varun's energy was palpable from ten feet away. "Would you bring her a glass of water?"

Aaron shuffled over the landscaping to edge through the expansive window wall, tossing me uneasy looks the whole way.

TWO updates this week because I've been so terrible about updating this story. It's completely my fault and I want to THANK YOU if you're still reading along. I really appreciate your patience and feedback as I post this book! 

I don't have any excuses. I have been in a slump and I fully blame the current pandemic.