Ruined: The Anguish MC Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.

  Ruined copyright @ 2016 by Laura Day and Kara Parker. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  RUINED

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty One

  Chapter Forty Two

  Chapter Forty Three

  Chapter Forty Four

  Chapter Forty Five

  Chapter Forty Six

  Chapter Forty Seven

  Chapter Forty Eight

  Chapter Forty Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty One

  Chapter Fifty Two

  Chapter Fifty Three

  Chapter Fifty Four

  Chapter Fifty Five

  Chapter Fifty Six

  Chapter Fifty Seven

  Chapter Fifty Eight

  Chapter Fifty Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty One

  Epilogue

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SAFE – KARA PARKER

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  RUINED

  Chapter One

  Eden

  There’s something wrong with the code.

  When the women enter the city, the screen distorts, and the buildings begin to disappear and reappear, and then the character models crumble, and finally, the game crashes. I close the game and go into the source code, scanning it, my lips moving faintly. The June sunlight shafts through the window and shines on the screen, making it reflective. I watch myself: red-haired, sharp-featured, eyes wide and tired. Then I squint and look past my reflection and scan the code again and again.

  Months and months of work have gone into this. I can’t even count the number of nights I’ve sat up, fueled by coffee and determination, trying to sort out the snags and bend everything into something that works. I rub my eyes and lift my gaze.

  The coffee shop is half-full, midday on a Saturday. In the corner, a hipster-type man sits, his hair tied up in a man-bun, wearing a Star Wars t-shirt (ironically, I’m sure), and typing at his laptop. Businessmen sit to my left, talking in hushed tones. Three women stand behind the counter, swirling milk or stirring coffee or spraying whipped cream into hot chocolates. The coffee shop is all heavy brown couches, plush cushions, and comfortable armchairs.

  Months, I think, scowling. Months of work and now the game decides to stop working. Months of work and now the game wants to ruin all my hard work.

  I force myself to look at the screen again, to scan the code. There has to be something wrong. There has to be something I’m missing. This problem has hounded me for the past few weeks now. It’s the last thing I think about when I go to sleep and the first thing I think about when I wake up.

  My course is in gender theory, and when I approached my professor and asked her if I could submit a video game instead of a long-form essay, she was shocked. Her gray eyebrows shot up like a cartoon character, and her mouth formed a comical O. And then she stroked her chin, and began nodding.

  “Very cutting edge, is it?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I told her, keeping my voice level. I wanted this, badly. I wanted this more than I’ve wanted anything in my twenty-four years. I was desperate for my professor, an old-school feminist, to say yes. But I didn’t want to show her how badly I wanted it. If you show someone how badly you want something, they’ll use it against you. That’s my theory, anyhow.

  Finally, she nodded definitively. “A video game,” she said. “But make sure it has something to do with gender theory. You must understand, this is very strange. I understand you’re a computer programmer by trade. Very well. That gives us some excuse, at least. But please, Miss Chase, make sure it has something to do with the subject matter.”

  “It will, I promise.”

  “Good,” she said. “This will be very impressive, you know, if you can pull it off. I might even get an article in Education Weekly.” She waved her hand in the air, as though spelling out a headline. “Avant-garde Professor Gives Thumbs Up to Daring New Project.”

  The conversation comes back to me clear and stark, as though it is happening now, in the coffee shop. My fingers ache from typing code, my back aches from hunching over at my laptop, my eyes ache from staring at the screen—and now a problem has sprung up out of nowhere which I can’t fix.

  The deadline is approaching fast, lightning-fast, and there’s little I can do to fix it. All that work—artists, voice actors, animators, and all the coding… all of it paid for out of my own pocket…

  I shake my head and take my phone out of my pocket, dial Natalie Smith, my friend and my coding partner.

  The phone rings twice, and Nat’s voice chirps through the phone. She’s LA-certified. Nat talks like someone who just fell out of a movie about tech-head teenagers, all squeaky and high-pitched and giggly.

  “Eden!” she giggles, but the giggle is dark. That’s Nat. She can somehow make a giggle dark. “Any luck?”

  “I was about to ask you the same question,” I say. “What the hell is happening to the environments? Is there some kind of glitch? Have we made a mistake? Because if we have, I can’t find it.
Not at all. Not even close.”

  “Bet you wish you stuck to an essay now!” Nat sniggers.

  I don’t return the laugh. Maybe she’s touched a nerve, or maybe it’s too close to the truth. But video games, women in video games… they’ve been portrayed like bimbos for a long, long time. Sure, every now and then you get an exception to the rule, but the rule is still iron-strong. You have a woman with giant breasts and pouty, big lips and fuck-me eyes and that’s the character. You have half-naked women bouncing all over the screen. Side-characters, minor characters, eye candy. I just want to make a game where the women are the main characters.

  “Eden?” Nat chirps, bringing me back to reality. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I sigh. “Just… Yeah.”

  “We’ll sort it,” Nat says. “We’ll find it. I’m sure there’s just a line of code somewhere we’ve missed. Or maybe there’s a chunk of code that’s missing, and we just have to write it in. It’ll work out.”

  “Sure,” I say, but I’m not convinced.

  The problem popped up when I added in the duel-wielding robe-wearing old woman character, but even when I took her out, the problem persisted. Perhaps adding her disturbed something else? Perhaps I’ll have to go back and rewrite huge chunks of it, just to be sure? But that fills my chest with a heavy terror. The deadline is in two weeks, the thirtieth of June, and if I miss it, I’m screwed. Bye-bye Ph.D. in Gender Theory, bye-bye months of work, bye-bye chance at making a video game that lets women do something.

  “Eden!” Nat exclaims, breathless. “You keep going quiet.”

  “Just thinking, Nat,” I reply. “Sorry. You don’t have to bury yourself in it like I am, you know. It’s my dissertation.”

  “Yes, but it’s our video game. I wouldn’t dream of letting you trudge through all of this on your own.”

  I can’t help but smile. “You’re a good person—”

  “Can it, bitch!”

  I laugh. “You can it!”

  We hang up shortly after. I’m laughing, but the terror in my chest doesn’t get any lighter.

  Maybe she’s right, I think. Maybe an essay would’ve been easier.

  Chapter Two

  There is a bell above the coffee shop door. Every time a customer enters, the bell rings. It reminds me of the door of a small shop in a video game based in Victorian England I used to play as a teenager. A small shop was your hub of operations in the game, and each time you walked through the door, the bell jingled, and an Igor-style character emerged from the back.

  You are so scatterbrained, a voice whispers.

  I can’t deny it; I am.

  The bell rings, and I look up. I do this over and over, no matter how many times it rings. It seems the video game has settled deep in my psyche somewhere. I look up to see hipsters, college students, and businessmen and women walk into the coffee shop. I order more coffee, I sit, I work.

  And then, after around three hours of making zero progress in the code, the bell rings, but it’s not a hipster or a man in a suit. A man in a leather jacket swaggers into the cafe. His hair is short and blond. As the door opens, sunlight touches it, and it looks golden. A light beard covers his jaw. His face is strong. His nose is hooked, his chin dimpled, his jaw square. His eyes are searching and narrow, focused. He wears big brown biker’s boots and faded blue jeans. On the back of his leather jacket, there is a picture of a woman dressed in thin white fabric screaming. Above the image are the letters: THE ANGUISHED.

  My first response is: He is handsome.

  I have been trying to stop myself from doing that: from judging men on first glance based on their appearance. I’m meant to be a modern progressive feminist, a super-feminist, who sees right through your face and into your heart. Barf, yeah right.

  The man swaggers up to the counter, shoulders shifting. People move aside from him as though by instinct. He walks like he owns the room.

  One of the women behind the counter has gone on break. The other two are about my age - at the very least, in their early twenties. One of them wears her hair in a bun with a pink ribbon tied around it, her face fresh and elfin, the other is short and thin, girlish, with freckles covering her cheeks. When the man leans on the counter, the girlish one giggles and looks up at the man under coquettish eyelashes. The one with the ribbon in her hair blushes.

  From where I’m sitting, I can hear their conversation. I tell myself to focus on my work, but the man’s muscles are pressing through his leather jacket. It’s like his muscles are going to burst out of the leather. From the way he’s leaning on the counter, I can see that his arm muscles are huge, tight.

  “Hello, pretty ladies,” he smiles, looking over the two women.

  What a jerk.

  But it’s none of my business, and I shouldn’t even be listening. But I can’t help but peep over the top of my laptop. The code is laid out in lines and lines, willing me to go back to it, but my eyes stray up and fix on the man in the leather jacket.

  The pink-ribbon girl giggles.

  What is she, twelve? Get some goddamn self-respect.

  “I came here for coffee, but I might have to drop that idea.” He smiles, and even from where I’m sitting, I’m drawn into the smile. It’s easy and carefree, the smile of a man without a single care in the world.

  “W-why?” the freckled woman mutters.

  “Because I’ll be leaving with two dates instead,” the man says.

  Then the pink-ribbon woman stands up straight and stares at him, as though this is a big moment and she’s being brave. She bites her lip. “You’re too much,” she says.

  He steps away from the counter and spreads his hands. “I’m too much,” he agrees, and then winks at her.

  She blushes beetroot-red.

  He just winked, woman. He didn’t climb over the counter and go down between your legs. Jesus.

  Am I jealous?

  My hands turn into fists at the question, my fingernails digging into my palms. Jealous? I have no reason to be jealous. I don’t know this man. A stranger in a leather jacket. A cheesy pickup flirty stranger. A stranger with no shame who’ll flirt with anyone.

  Then, to my shock, the girlish one leans on the counter and says, right in the man’s face, “I get off in an hour and a half.”

  She gets off in an hour and a half!

  My fists are clenched so hard my knuckles turn white.

  Why do I care? Is it just because he’s hot? Am I really that shallow?

  Maybe that’s a rabbit hole I shouldn’t be too eager to go down.

  I have to just ignore him. This happens every day, I bet. Some handsome man struts into your life, flirts with somebody else in front of you and then struts away. Probably half the women in this place are thinking the same thing as me. Yes, but are they clenching their fists in jealousy and lust? Are they so horny for this random man that they’re—

  “Shut it,” I whisper, wishing there was an off button for your inner monologue.

  “I’m sorry, pretty lady, but I’m busy. A man has to work.”

  The woman with the freckles nods, and then shuffles to the other end of the counter. The man tells the pink-ribbon woman, “Fourteen coffees, please. Black, sugar, none of that artificial stuff. To go.”

  The woman nods, pressing buttons on the cash register. Ting-ting-ting! And then the man turns to look around the room. He does this as though he is the boss and all of us, the regular customers, are his employees. I have never before seen a man so full of his own confidence. I’ve seen my share of cocky men, of blustering men, of oh-look-at-me men. But never a man who was just at ease, who looked like he seriously didn’t care what people thought of him.

  Careful, I tell myself. Don’t be one of those women who fall for a stranger in the—

  The man’s gaze comes to rest on me. I think he’s just going to skim over me, but he doesn’t. His gaze holds in place. His eyes, I see, are bright blue. A tattoo climbs from the top of his jacket, up his neck, almost to his chin. And ta
ttoos crawl out of his sleeve over his hands. I didn’t notice them before, but when I do, a shiver moves through me.

  He looks at me, and I find myself staring back. My mouth falls open. He smirks. Then he lets his mouth fall open, mimicking me. I close my mouth, my face burning. He laughs, and for a moment the whole coffee shop goes quiet at the sound. The man doesn’t care. His gaze stays locked on me. Without turning to the counter, he says, “I’ll have one more coffee. White, with lots of sugar.”

  Is that for me? I think.

  As though reading my mind, his smirk grows wider. His eyes don’t move from me. People from adjacent tables begin to look at me suspiciously, as though asking why that strange man in the leather jacket is staring at me. I shrug my shoulders when the hipster man arches his eyebrow at me. And when I turn back, the man is still staring at me.

  I’m freaked out, I tell myself. Yes, that’s what I am. Not intrigued. Not interested. Not curious. No, I’m full-blown freaked out. This man is scaring me. That’s the line.

  But that’s just what it is: a line. Because I am intrigued, interested, curious.

  His smirk grows wider and wider as he watches me. Images invade my mind, naughty images: the man in the leather jacket bent over me; his chiseled face close to my body; his jacket crumpling in my hand as I tear it away; falling to my knees; and…