June 26, 2012 at 5 PM, Montreal, Quebec: Rob

"Why don't you go first, Mitch? I mean, you were the one who pressed the red button," Jerome says while Mitch continues glaring at his camera, pulling his hood up to cover his bed head. Although I've already chosen a side and would be loath to abandon two of my last true friends, I have a bad feeling about this tale he is about to tell; I might be on the right side for this battle but I feel like I am on the wrong side of the war. Regardless, I owe my career to Jerome and my life to Mitch, and I refuse to turn around and walk away from them when I can finally do something to repay their kindness. I refuse to be a fair weather friend when they built my life from the ground up for me. Preston, on the other hand... He'll have to make his own decisions and cut his own ties.

"What about the Nooch?" Mitch asks, scooting backward to put his back against the headboard of my bed and pulling his computer onto his lap.

'How classy: now my bedspread is going to smell like his feet and my pillows are going to smell like his ass. Why did I expect anything better?' Jerome leans over to his third monitor and runs his finger down a list, squinting at the text.

"No wild Mats have been spotted online since... about three days ago. He said something about going outta town, so I'm guessin' he's still on his little vacation. Must be fucking nice." He grabs his Monster and takes another huge swig, his eyes narrowed in bitterness. "Anyways, back to the point. You've got the hookah, Benj. Give it a puff and pass it on." Mitch sighs and rubs his tired eyes while he nods, buying himself a few more seconds of silence.

"Well, it started Wednesday afternoon when we were in a Skype call with Sky, Husky, Dawn, Kermit, and Deady. Everyone else wormed their way out of it, as usual. We'd been planning to ask Seto to leave Crafted for a couple of weeks, and somehow he'd found out about it beforehand and started having a complete shit fit. He wanted to be a part of the team but he didn't want to give a single inch in any direction and he was just bogging all of us down. We finally decided to confront him about it and tell him that we were tired of dealing with him being a self-absorbed ass, and we brought him into the group call to ask him to leave the team peacefully. Of course, they put Jerome in the spotlight and asked him to give him the news."

"I always get all the dirty jobs."

"That was the first thing that pissed me off. So our terms were that he would just leave and let everything settle down, and that he could go his own way and do his own thing and we would do ours. We wanted to end on good terms. We never said anything about attacking him, or shutting down his channels, or ruining his personal life, and the Bac and I made it very clear we were still willing to work with him on the side if he was up for it. We had no hard feelings toward the guy."

"Nada. He always got on my nerves, but other than that he seemed like a real stand up guy."

"When Jerome finished telling him about the team's decision, Seto turned it all back on him and started attacking him, saying that Jerome had manipulated all of us into getting rid of him so he could replace him with one of his lackeys. He thought Jerome and I were trying to take over Crafted and we were somehow going to use it to capitalize on all of their hard work, like we hadn't done anything all this time and we'd do something like that. It sounded like he'd been pretty paranoid about the whole thing for quite a while and he knew it was coming."

" 'Cause he's a fuckin' nutcase, Mitch!" Jerome yells, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation. Preston seems concerned at this point, like he doesn't believe their story or he doubts their motives. Although I agree that their morals might be dubious sometimes, commandeering Team Crafted seems too large-scale and too risky a project for Jerome, and without his friend's connections, planning, and power, Mitch would never have been able to pull it off. Given the alternative, I believe Mitch's story a bit more than I doubt it, if only due to a lack of resources rather than intent.

"No kidding. He kept screaming about how we were traitors and we were just in it for the money and we were using people. He went on and on and on for at least two minutes, and every time someone tried to stop him and help him get his shit together, he'd just start all over again like we hadn't already heard him."

"And that's when he asked for a vote."

"Yeah, get this. He didn't believe Jerome when he said no one wanted him there, so he asked us to vote in chat about whether he stayed or left, that way we couldn't lie about how we voted when we saw what the others typed. And guess what?"

"It was unanimous." Jerome finishes off his energy drink and pounds the can on the table like a gavel, sending tiny droplets of light green liquid flying out of the top of the can.

"Everybody wanted his ass out! Everybody, including Adam! Of all the times I wish I could've seen his face... I would've paid a hundred bucks to see the look on Seto's face when the votes came in. He was quiet for a long time-"

"Then he started bawling."

"-and then he started bawling."

"Like a fuckin' baby!"

"He just lost it and started pleading with all the others to let him stay and said they shouldn't let us take advantage of them like that. He was trying to turn everyone against us to start a big fight because he knew that was his only shot at redemption. He thought if he got the Bac and me kicked out that they would let him stay, even though he brought nothing but problems to the team. Everyone just sat there in shock like they'd never seen anything like it."

"Well, let's be honest here, Mitch. I sure as hell hadn't seen anything like it."

"And I could go another nineteen years without seeing anything else like it."

"Everyone was staring at their monitors like they just saw Satan turn into a fluffy purple rabbit in a tuxedo. And he didn't even have his webcam on!"

"He wouldn't own up to his problems and he didn't even try to change – he wanted everyone else to deal with his shit like he was the greatest thing that ever walked the fucking Earth!" Mitch pauses for a moment to collect himself again, taking a deep breath to cool his temper. "I think the funniest part was he couldn't even earn himself any sympathy votes – his little waterwork show was all for nothing."

"He got Deady Dearest. But we all knew that was gonna happen, anyway. He was the only one who could stand Seto for more than five fuckin' minutes so he naturally tried to get everyone else to jump ship so the king could get his fat ass back onboard. Always out to serve his own ambition." I can see Jerome's eyes focus on a new spot on his screen, and I know he's staring at Preston's video feed right now. Even though I can understand his skepticism and distrust of the newest and most ambitious member of our group, I don't see the parallels between Seto and Preston that he sees. I am feeling a case of déjà vu right now as history repeats itself: Preston is to Seto as I am to Deadlox. In times like this, I wish I was as amoral as Jerome pretends to be; it would save me so much stress and guilt.

"So now we have Seto and Ty going around pleading for scraps of pity from the Crafting Table. The only difference is that Ty wasn't trying to pin all of this on Jerome and me. As soon as Seto saw they were singing different tunes, he threw Ty overboard, too, and started in on him. That really pissed me off. Seriously, how much lower can you get when you start stomping on your last friend?" Mitch pauses and finishes his glass of milk, examining the empty cup in his hand in silence.

"So... What happens next?" Preston asks quietly, his face still suspicious and uncertain.

'At least I managed to teach him to stay out of conflict as long as possible. I might have made an impression on him, after all.'

"After that..."

"Mitch lost it. He completely fucking lost it and went Super Saiyan on Seto. Now that was a sight to see."

"I liked to think that Ty and the others were my friends, and I couldn't just stand by and let this controlling, insecure asshole with a Napoleon Complex bully them into making a decision they didn't want to make and would regret for the rest of their careers. So yeah, I lost it. Any decent human being would have done the same thing."

"Even though none of them did it for you."

"Yeah..." The call falls silent again and Mitch puts his glass back on the nightstand, a wrinkle in his usually pristine mask.

'If he had truly tried to make things right and stand up for his friends without any ulterior motives, this is the worst possible outcome for him. He thinks he lost all of his friends except for Jerome, and he thinks he might lose Preston, Mat, and me by telling us this story. To top it all off, he might lose his career, too. He may have made some bad choices, but he doesn't deserve such a disproportionate punishment if he's telling the whole truth. To be practical, though... what did he have to gain by pushing Seto out?'

"When he started in on Jerome again and threatened to expose some 'truth' he'd come up with, I just decided to shut him up. Nothing anyone was trying to say to him was soaking in and I realized there was nothing we could do to save him. We tried to be fair and we tried to be nice about it, but you know what they say about nice guys finishing last. It was over."

"And that was when the first shot was fired."

" 'The shot that was heard around the world and played a million times over again on YouTube.' But you know what, biggums? I'd do it again in a heartbeat." Jerome gives him a weak smile and leans back in his chair, satisfied with what may have been Mitch's first true display of loyalty in the history of their friendship.

'How touching. I wonder how good Mitch's poker face is.' Even after knowing him for almost three years, something about Mitch makes me hesitant to trust him, even though I wouldn't be sitting here listening to this story if it wasn't for him. Something tells me that if the roles were reversed and it had been Preston and me in that call, he would've demanded that Jerome back away from the situation with his hands up so that they could both make a clean getaway and pretend they had never heard about it.

'Am I really so cold-hearted that I have to doubt my friends? Am I paranoid now, too?' I reach for my mug and finish off my lukewarm coffee, hoping to keep my face blank and neutral. The last thing I need is to make enemies here.

"How'd you shut him up, exactly?" Preston asks hesitantly, as if he doesn't want to know how the Bacca runs the world.

"He dropped him from the Skype call."

"Then all hell broke loose," Mitch sighs, raising his eyebrows in a weak attempt at sarcasm.

"Ya know how the air gets real still and quiet right before a hurricane hits? That's what it was like. Everyone just sat there staring at their screens for, what? A good minute? Then Seto's magic spell set in." Mitch rubs his eyes again and nods along as Jerome speaks, squinting in the fading light when he looks at the screen again.

"I don't know what they were saying because everyone was screaming at me at once, but I know they dropped me like it's hot from the call."

"They kept me in, though. At least for a couple minutes. Ty and Adam were tellin' me just because Mitch left Crafted didn't mean I had to, too. And I was like 'When did he say he was leaving?' and they told me that as soon as he turned his back on his friends he chose to leave. I don't know what the fuck they were thinking or where they got that from. They're all a buncha morons."

"So am I," Mitch groans with an apologetic expression on his face.

"Yeah, you're a moron, too. But at least you're a moron I like and I'm willing to put up with your moronicity. What you did wasn't smart, but at least you tried to do the right thing."

"Doing the 'right thing' doesn't matter anymore. All that matters is that you're willing to play the game. I broke the rules and now we're both out."

"Quit your bellyaching, Bitchy Mitch. We both knew they were all pointin' guns at each other's heads, anyway. They were just waiting around like cowards until someone else fired the first shot so they could pin it on 'em when it went south. You coulda sneezed too loud and a certain someone woulda blamed you for making Seto cry."

"You really think she did this, don't you?"

"Who else woulda had the means and the peeps, Benj?"

"What are you guys talking about?" Preston has his head cocked to the side in confusion like a puppy, his eyebrows scrunched together in frustration as he tries to put the pieces together.

'If he was any cuter... No, don't go there. If I cross that line, everything is going to go down in flames.'

"Nothin'. That's for the grown-ups to worry about, Pressy."

"Don't call me 'Pressy!' "

"You should be happy he doesn't call you 'Ton-Ton.' That was his first choice," Mitch snickers while Preston's eyes narrow defensively.

"Are you callin' me fat?"

"You've been awful quiet, Woof. What're you thinking?" Jerome asks as he swoops down and grabs a tiny bag of Fritos from his 32-pack box of chips.

"Honestly, not much. So far I'm the only one who hasn't gotten in any trouble. Life seems pretty peachy from where I'm sitting."

"Part of that's because you're a lazy ass and you slept through the first shoot-out, and the other part's because you're smart enough to keep to yourself until you hafta get involved. You didn't go try to play detective like Pressy did."

"What'd I do? The hacker came and found me! I was tryin' to watch some TV when he called me and fudged up my computer!"

"Why the fuck did you answer the call?"

"Would it've made any difference if I-"

"Can't you two just calm down until we get done with Jerome's little circle jerk? Let me finish my story before you start in on yours."

"Fine." Preston slumps back in his chair, traces of a scowl still lingering on his face. Jerome is crunching on his chips with a satisfied smirk, watching Preston sulk on his screen.

"Heh. 'Cam' down," the Bacca chuckles, popping another handful of food in his mouth.

'This is what I get for surrounding myself with children.'

"What happened after they dropped me from the call?"

"Like I said, they tried to convince me to stay. Then Sky said somethin' about how he hopes we can still be friends after all this 'cams' down, and Dawn said something really snide about taking a vote on that before they decide. I asked her what she meant by that and she said 'I hope your game was fun while it lasted' and dropped me, too. After that, I called Paul and Zeus to get their asses outta bed 'cause I knew nothin' good was gonna come from a fire fight with Seto and his cronies."

"Was it really Seto, though?" Mitch asks as he fixes his hair and readjusts his hood, one of his nervous habits.

"That's a whole other cauldron o' shit. Just let it simmer for a little bit longer – I wanna hear what happened with Pressy before we pick our scapegoat." Preston rolls his eyes, throwing up his hands in defeat.

"A couple hours later, I got this stream of Twitter notifications that made my phone go off continuously for five minutes. It was like... as soon as the little tweet sound finished playing it would just do it again, over and over again for five straight minutes. I eventually got up to see what was going on, and someone had hacked into my Twitter account and was spamming me and all of my followers with the same message."

"Something about him betraying Crafted and ripping the team apart."

"Yeah. Just over and over. It sounded like I had a fucking aviary zoo in my living room. So I used my phone to go on Twitter to delete my account or just... anything at that point, and the screen blinked twice and it died. It hasn't worked since."

"It worked long enough for them, though. They didn't get much (thank Notch), but they wormed their way in your bank account app and drained every last dollar out of it plus a couple hundred more. Then they took your landline phone number and apartment address and smeared their digital feces all over the goddamn internet. You're lucky they didn't get your social security number."

"I'm going to change it, anyway. I won't just sit around and let some childish asshole ruin my life for the next thirty years over a ten minute Skype call. Not fucking worth, dood."

"And now we come to the end of the tale. Mitch grabbed all his important shit and stuffed it in his car and he took off the second he saw the goon squad hangin' around outside his apartment. He went to a motel until Woof offered to let him stay at his place, but at that point someone'd already knifed his tires in the parking lot. So now he's gotta repair his car, too."

"You left out the best part: I caught one of those creepy fuckers using a reverse lens to look in through the peephole on the door of my apartment. After that I was like 'I'm out.' I grabbed a pair of meat scissors from the kitchen and packed my bags and peaced the scene. I'd be surprised if I have anything left when I go back home."

"That seems kinda excessive, doesn't it?" Preston asks as he glances up over the top of his computer screen for the hundredth time, his eyes wide in... surprise? Or is it fear? Jerome snorts and bobs his head a few times.

"Did you forget how the internet works? You didn't seriously think the fuckery ended as soon as you logged outta Reddit for the day, did ya? The interwebs are full of psychopaths and trolls and stalkers and all kinds of scary shit, and they take every chance they get to have a little get together and pull out the overpriced throwing knives they bought at the last anime convention. The internet's just one big, smelly, never-ending dick measuring contest, Lava P, and the sooner you realize that, the better."

"If they can have things like Anonymous and WikiLeaks, why can't they have little bands of cyber vigilantes who put on their homemade Darth Vader cosplay robes and leave their mom's basement for more than an hour? Is it really that surprising?" Mitch asks in his troll voice with his left eyebrow raised, the first sign that his actual personality is starting to return.

"Is that what you saw, Benj?"

"Who the fuck knows? Do you want to go over there and check it out for me? Let me know what you find. Take a picture so it'll last longer." Jerome snorts loudly and dumps the rest of the chips in his mouth before crumpling up the bag and tossing it behind him with the multitude of other bags he had already finished.

"So that's the story of how the Benj and Bac barely escaped from the Fire Nation with their lives, and how Rob finally got Mitch to sleep with him. The end."

"What?" Preston doesn't seem amused, but then again, neither does Mitch.

'He needs to grow a sense of humor. How can he be best friends with Jerome and not be able to take a joke? More importantly, why is Preston acting so weird about it? I thought we were over this.'

"You three are a barrel of fucking laughs. Cut me a break here, will ya?"

"I thought it was funny," I reply while Mitch rolls his eyes and Preston just looks at me blankly. Jerome nods in satisfaction and checks his other computer screen again before slowly leaning toward his webcam.

"Pressy, I think... I think it might be your turn. Oh, Pressy!" he moans, barely above a whisper before he makes a long, wet slurping sound and sits back in his seat. The other two jump at the loud noise and glower at him, Preston's face a bright pink. I can't tell if he's angry or embarrassed, but he doesn't look happy either way. I just laugh at their nonsense, much to Jerome's pleasure, and I can see Preston scowling at me on his screen.

"Come on, dood. Get on with it so the Bac will let me go back to sleep."

"Sleep! Don't you fucking talk to me about sleep!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys. Let the poor lava mob speak," I interrupt. Mitch glares at me again and Jerome has his usual smirk on his face as he reclines in his chair, ready to hear the tale. Preston sighs and brushes his hair to the side for the umpteenth time today before he starts.

"So I think I should start off by sayin' I didn't know any of this was going on when all that crap went down at my apartment. I didn't know anything about Team Crafted or Seto or Mitch or anything else. I thought everything was fine and it was just a regular day, or I woulda done stuff differently. Okay?"

"Hokeyp."

"Sure."

"I don't know how the fuck you couldn't've known about it, but okay." I focus on Preston's face during his story, watching his body language and his eyes to see if he lies or leaves anything out. I know I'll get the full truth from him eventually, but I would rather have peace of mind if, by some miracle, someone in our group decided to tell the full truth without Photoshopping it first.

"Alright. So I was just chillin' in the living room watching TV and waiting to record some COD with Kenny when I heard my Skype go off in the next room and I went over to see who it was. I'd never heard of the guy before and I thought it was just a fan or someone trolling me, so I decided to answer it to tell 'em to frick off."

"Did you actually answer the call, or did it answer itself?" another voice asks through our headphones, the low pitch causing everyone to jump.

"Je-sus, Zeus! Tone it down a little!" Jerome shrieks as he jerks his headphones off, glaring up at the webcam with a comical frown on his face.

"Sorry," the deep baritone voice responds with a hint of laughter while Mitch adjusts his hood and earbuds again. Preston rubs the back of his neck in embarrassment while he talks.

"I thought I answered it... I mean, I don't really remember clicking the button but I know I switched it to audio-only so whoever it was wouldn't see me all messy and grody."

"Look at fuckin' Johnny Bravo over here. I swear, you and Benj are one and the same." They both glare at him, Preston with just a hint of a smile playing around his mouth. "You know they were watchin' you through your webcam, right? If they really want to, people can see you even when you tell 'em not to look." Preston gulps visibly and looks over the top of his computer again, checking to see if anyone had materialized in his room with him.

"What was the username?" Zeus asks, the sound of furious typing audible through his headset microphone.

"His name was 'LeetFire,' like the hacker leet-thing with the L and the F both capitalized. I got his e-mail address in my really old inbox, too, if you can get that somehow. He said his name was Jared and he got my Skype from Dawn." At this, Jerome's eyes widen and his face breaks into a wide, devilish grin, like he just won a round of Hunger Games against all odds after Mitch had already lost.

"I told ya, Benj! I fucking told ya!" he yells as he points animatedly at the screen, spinning around in his computer chair in triumph while Mitch snorts and covers his face with his sleeves.

"I didn't want to think that Adam would try to play us like that. I didn't want to believe it."

"Benj, I never said it was Adam. I said it was Dawn. Seto mighta had some connections but he doesn't make anywhere near enough money to pay for a hack job like this. Getting into bank accounts and remoting computers and webcams isn't cheap, trust me. Those're on a whole other level of illegal and whoever did it'd face a shit ton of jail time if they got caught. No, I didn't think he had the friends or funds to do it, but Dawn has access to everything Adam has, and Adam has a helluva lot. What a manipulative bitch."

"So are you guys gonna go find him and kill his computer or... How does this work?" Preston asks haltingly, hoping he doesn't overstep his boundaries into a danger zone.

"Zeus's gonna see what he can find but I wouldn't count on him finding much. Whoever this LeetFire guy is, he knows his shit. Besides, he woulda got your Skype from his attack on Mitch's computer so that trail's cold – she couldn'ta had it so saying her name must've been a slip-up. Anyways, please continue your story, Pressy." Preston snorts in indignation and relaxes back in his chair again with his arms crossed.

'He's still so defensive. If Jerome would stop teasing him, I could read him better.'

"So I think I answered the call but now I'm not really sure. He started talking as soon as I answered it like he knew I was about to answer, which I guess he did know if he was watching me. He said he was yours and Mitch's friend and he was working with Team Crafted on some kind of server project, then he said something about someone leaving the group and them wanting me to join to help 'em out." Mitch and Jerome both look at the screen with their eyes wide in shock, and I know I must not look much different. It was the perfect plan to get Preston to give in and let his guard down. Whoever did this knows more about us than we would like to think.

'This is an entirely different kind of monster. Whoever is behind this is not only trying to ruin our careers, but they are trying to ruin our ties, too. Who could be so desperate to screw with us?'

"Shit just got real," Jerome says quietly as he grabs his notebook offscreen and starts jotting down notes, his forehead wrinkled as he writes. "Looks like they've been watchin' us for a while now. That's never a good sign."

"Do you want me to keep going?" Preston asks and Jerome nods furiously while he writes down his list of suspicions and predictions, trying to come up with a sturdy battle plan. He would have made an amazing lawyer if he hadn't started doing YouTube. "He just kept trying to persuade me to join and he tried to pressure me into it because they were running out of time or the others needed to know right away or... before you and Mitch found out and said I couldn't join." I can tell this last part is difficult for him to say, and he looks like he regrets mentioning it as soon as it leaves his mouth. Mitch raises his eyebrow in uncertainty and Jerome looks up from his paper with a vacant expression on his face, waiting for Preston to say something.

"And then?"

"He said something about you two not wanting me to join, and something about how I shouldn't trust Rob because he was just using me for views."

"Did you believe him?" I ask, and he looks kind of guilty for a second before he shakes his head.

'He's lying now. Whoever this guy is, he's very persuasive. It wouldn't be too hard to get Preston to turn against Jerome, but to make him doubt me... This is a lot more serious than I thought.'

"Not really. I mean, the whole thing seemed too sudden and way too good to be true. Plus, it was really suspicious how he kept coming up with reasons for me not to talk to any of you guys about it first."

"Divide and conquer," Jerome mutters and he finally puts his pen down on his paper and moves it away from the screen, as if someone was peering in through his webcam to read his notes.

"So I thought 'This isn't real, he has to be after something else,' and I just went along with it for a little while to see if he'd give me any more information or slip up on something."

"So you're saying you were trying to find evidence it was real because you wanted to jump right in and get started. That's what it sounds like to me." Jerome is watching him with a cold stare, his temper beginning to flare up once again.

"No, I didn't say that. I knew it couldn't be real because he was just too... I don't know how to describe it. He was too determined to get me to say 'yes', ya know? He was tryin' too hard to be persuasive and it just sounded really fishy. I knew something was wrong and I wanted to find out what it was so I could tell you about it."

"Right. Yeah fuckin' right. You wanted to read the terms and conditions and see what it felt like to sign your name on the line before you called to tell me someone was trying to sell you a car. Do you have any idea how much trouble that one phone call would've saved? Or is that not fuckin' sparkly enough for you to waste time thinking about for more than a nanosecond?!" Preston shrinks visibly in his chair and he looks like a kicked puppy as he stares pitifully at the screen. "Who the fuck do you think you are, over there playin' super sleuth like you don't know nobody?! It isn't just you anymore, Preston; it's us! All of us!"

"I know, I just-"

"No, you don't know shit! There was no excuse for you to put all our asses on the line so you might have half a snowflake's chance in hell at moving up the ladder! You had no reason to answer that fucking call, and you had even less reason to keep talkin' to him when you knew what he was after! You shoulda pulled the plug on your computer and texted me that something was up instead of playing fuckin' 'Harry Potter and the Dumbass's Nuts!' "

"I'm not a sell-out!"

"Like hell you're not! And fish breathe cyanide!"

"I'd never do that to you guys! I was just trying to help!"

"Bullshit. That is absolute, one-hundred-percent pure bullshit! You knew what you wanted and you went for it!"

"Yeah, you're right! I put myself in danger to try to find a way to help you get him! Of course I freakin' went for it! What'd I have to lose when he already caught me? What was I supposed to do, sit there and let him get you guys, too?"

"Tell me one fuckin' thing you did besides place a bet with all our names written on it!"

"I got his info! And I protected you guys!"

"Do you two hear this shit? Do you hear this, Rob? Do you see why I didn't wanna put up with his shit anymore?"

"Okay, enough. Both of you have to calm down so we can-" I try to intervene while Mitch just stares, his face as blank as if he had fallen asleep sitting upright.

"What's he talking about, Rob? Were you-"

"Preston! Both of you need to shut the fuck up! Let's try to figure out what happened before we start pointing fingers and calling names." Jerome's face puffs up before he lets out a long breath and covers his face with his hands, leaning back in his chair in disbelief. Preston looks wounded, like I betrayed him when he needed me the most. "What happened after you figured out he was trying to screw with you?" He rubs the side of his nose in frustration before he crosses his arms again and continues glaring at the screen.

"He seemed too suspicious and I didn't trust him and he wanted to send me something in an e-mail. I wasn't really thinking at the time because I was too freaked out but I wiped my phone's memory under the desk while we were talking and I played along so I could find out what he wanted without screwing you guys over. I didn't want him to get your info and attack you, too. So I had nothing in my phone and I gave him a really old e-mail address I didn't think had anything important in it, and I opened the e-mail on my phone. He wanted me to forward the e-mail to a bunch of other e-mail addresses he added to the recipients list but it just so happened that he didn't have yours or Mitch's e-mails and he wanted me to type 'em in. That was the biggest red flag ever. It didn't look like anything and I thought it was okay and I could just tell you what happened right after but as soon as we ended the Skype call my phone stopped working and the only thing it'd let me do is send that message. I tried to use my computer to call you and Rob and figure out what to do but that was broken, too. So I unplugged my modem and just... sat there."

"Sat there trying to remember our e-mail addresses, or sat there thinking about how fuckin' stupid you are?" His voice is rising again and I know that this is going to be a very long next few days.

"I didn't know what to do, okay? I couldn't use my computer or any of my accounts to contact you and I didn't have your number in my phone anymore. I was in shock and I didn't know what to do!"

"Were you tryin' to figure out if they'd be able to nuke me fast enough so you could get away scot-free? Is that what it was?! It took you fuckin' long enough to tell us what happened! If it wasn't for Zeus and Paul, we'd all be fuckin' toast right now!"

"If I'd wanted to screw y'all over I woulda given him your e-mails! You think they're that hard to remember?! But he didn't getcha, now did he?! If I'd believed anything he said, he woulda beat the crap outta all three of y'all!" I try not to crack a smile as Preston's usually repressed accent starts weaving its way into his yelling, but it's difficult to listen to a guy from Jersey and a Southerner have a screaming match and not burst out laughing. Now I see why they always make fun of mine and Mitch's accent – we all sound ridiculous.

"You believed him enough ta keep talkin'!"

"Listen here, I d-"

"Preston, finish your side of the story. I'll admit it looks kind of suspicious that it took you so long to call us," I interject just as Jerome opens his mouth to continue. I hold up both of my hands and he stutters out something before he huffs and sits back again.

"You believe me, right? Rob, please."

"I believe parts of your story, but I need to hear the end first." He looks hurt but he nods and rubs his eyes before he continues.

"It took me a little while for it to sink in, then I started trying to think of a way to tell you what happened. I didn't have Jerome's number written down anywhere but I remembered I still had last month's phone bill in the junk drawer so I went and dug it out and went to a payphone, then I called Kenny to cancel our recording and I called you so you'd know about the hacker and you could tell Jerome. If I woulda known what to do sooner, I'd've done it." He finishes and everyone just sits there, waiting for him to continue.

"What happened after that?" I ask while Mitch rolls his eyes, his hopes of going back to sleep crushed once again.

"I wrote down the list of stuff Jerome told me to get and I drove over to Walmart to get it."

"What the fuck happened at Walmart? Didn't you say you hit someone with your laptop and broke it?" Jerome asks, his voice laced with annoyance. Mitch perks up at this part of the story and Preston looks really weary, like he wants to get up and walk away for a long nap.

"Yeah. There was some freakin' weirdo who kept starin' at me like I was a piece of meat. He was behind me the whole time I was in the store so I booked it outta there as soon as I bought my stuff but he followed me all the way out to the car." The more he speaks, the more disturbed he looks. I wish I could tell him he could stop, but I need to keep both of us on Jerome's good side. "He ran up behind me and grabbed my arm so I couldn't get away and he put a hun'erd dollar bill in my face like I'd go back to his car with him or somethin'. He tried to wrestle me over to his car so he could kill me and eat me or whatever the frick he wanted to do and I smacked him in the head with my laptop so he'd let go. I tried to stab him with my car keys a couple a times so he'd leave me alone. I finally made it to my car and went back home to get my crap packed up before I set the alarm and left to find a hotel that was far enough away. Are ya happy now?" I nod gently and he lets out a big sigh, as if the weight of that story had been pressing down on his chest for the last hour.

"Is that all of it?" Jerome asks, still visibly annoyed.

"Yeah."

"Got anything to add, Mitch?"

"Hmmm?"

"Oh, fuck off. Go back to sleep, ya moron."

"Peace, boys." Mitch immediately takes his suggestion and shuts the lid of his laptop without even closing out his end of the Skype call.

"Got anything to say, Woof? Or are you just gonna space out and stare at us some more?"

"I have nothing else to say, for now. Give me a little while. I might be drugged up, but at least I listened to the whole story."

"Do you want a fuckin' medal or something?" Preston looks like he wants to dig into Jerome, but I cut him off before he can start another argument.

"No, but a little civility would be nice." Jerome sighs and rubs his eyes, nodding.

"Why are you drugged up?" Preston asks, his face pulled into a frown and his eyes full of worry.

"I just started some new pills and they turn me into a complete space case. I'm fine, Perston." He nods, too, but he doesn't seem convinced.

'This is why I hate having close friends – they always stick their noses into your business.' Jerome lowers his hands and tilts his chair back, putting his feet up on his desk to balance himself on the back two wheels.

"Well, gentlemen. Those are all the cards. How does your hand look?"