For The Win (Gamer Girls, #6) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,179

back to her desk and opened up the Silk forums first. She'd been given a forum account with a rather impressive avatar that Tim had designed. This would be her first three posts, and she wanted them all to be exactly the same, but she honestly had no clue what she was going to write.

"Dez!" she yelled. "Want to look it over?"

"No, just post it," Dez called back.

So Rhaven copied the whole thing and did just that. Then she moved to Eternal Combat, changed the game at the top, and repeated the process. Finally, she put it on the Flawed page as well. When all of that was done, Rhaven closed the forums and got back to work, refusing to check what kind of comments people were leaving. There was a whole wing of the building that should be moderating that. It would be fine. And if it wasn't, then at least the assholes weren't going after anyone else.

But her hopes that one post would be the end of it were dashed the next day. When she and Braden pulled in, the crowd had gotten bigger. There had been maybe six people at the gates yesterday. Now there looked to be at least thirty, and the signs were a lot less generic. Some had her name. One had a picture of her face. Quite a few suggested that she needed to die or be killed.

Braden reached over and grabbed her knee, offering what comfort he could. He also parked right in front of the side door that was usually used for after hours. A sign on the curb said the spot was reserved for the CEO of Deviant Games, but Braden didn't seem to care.

"Won't Chance be pissed?" she asked.

"Nope," he said. "He doesn't drive to work, Rhaven. He walks over from his house in the back. He also wouldn't want you walking around where someone could throw shit at you, and this is as close as I can get."

"I just don't understand why they hate me," she breathed before getting out of the car. Then she kept talking as she walked to the door. "It's not like what I call myself has anything to do with them. It doesn't change their lives at all!"

"I honestly don't know," Braden said, reaching over to swipe his badge to unlock the door. "I've never understood it, baby. I'd be just as bisexual if I lied about it, and then I'm adding another sin. I mean, it makes no sense."

"Yeah," she breathed, walking into the building.

But the warehouse was jumping. People were hurrying back and forth, looking like they were on a mission, and too many yelled across the room at someone else as if they were in crisis mode. Jeff's desk was closest to her, and the guy looked up with dark circles under his eyes. He was clearly exhausted, but he still offered a weak smile.

"Got DDoSed last night," Jeff said. "The standard protections diverted it, but now we're being swamped with spam from KoG. The fuckers are tagging it with their little logo, too. Not even worried about losing their accounts, I guess."

"When was the last time you slept?" Rhaven asked.

"I'm going on thirty-seven hours awake," he admitted.

Braden pointed to the back wall. "Hit a bed, Jeff. I'll take over for you."

"No, I just have to - "

Rhaven didn't let the man finish that. She caught his hand and pulled. "I'll get him there," she promised. "Start my computer, Braden?"

"Sure, baby."

Jeff let her tug him to his feet, and then he hooked his arm around her waist. "I'm totally being inappropriate, but it'll make Braden laugh, so go with it."

So she hugged him back, playing it up. "Jeff, I'm sorry about all of this."

"This is normal," he assured her. "Rhaven, you didn't make them be idiots. And if they didn't target you, they'd just find something else to be pissed about. Some people want to hate. I mean, you should've seen the things they said about me! My parents should've just let me die, and shit like that, all because I had scoliosis surgery. It wasn't life threatening, just prevented me from being fully mobile. I wasn't going to die, but they needed someone to hate, and we're all good targets because we have power over their games."

She steered him behind that useless wall and into the closest open room. "Want me to bang on the door in six hours?"

"Three," he said. "Not going to let them chase off our