Chapter 10: Don’t Leave
Kai stared at the screen.
$100,000.
The number didn’t feel real at first. It just sat there under Derek’s name like a glitch in the UI, too large to belong in the same world as his apartment, his chair, his half-dead stream setup.
Kai. Run.
Rain ticked against the window. The room felt louder than it should’ve.
Seventy, maybe eighty thousand viewers now. Chat scrolling so fast it stopped being readable and turned into motion blur. Donation alerts pulsing like warnings.
And Luna... still on call.
Quiet.
No rebuttal. No defense. Just breathing.
That bothered him more than anything Derek had said.
Kai swallowed. "What happened to them?"
The chat instantly fractured.
Half chaos, half anticipation. Clips already forming.
A beat passed before Luna answered.
"I didn’t hurt them," she said.
Careful. Measured.
Kai caught that immediately. Not denial — distinction.
"I found people posting my friend’s information," she continued. "School. Address. Photos. They thought it was funny."
The room felt colder without changing temperature.
Kai leaned forward slightly. "And you tracked them."
"Yes."
Not proud. Not ashamed. Just factual.
Another donation from Derek hit the screen before Kai could respond.
RealDerekVoss donated $25,000:
You hear how she says it like it’s normal?
Kai exhaled through his nose, sharp.
"Dude," he said into mic, voice flat. "You’re literally paying to narrate your own villain arc right now."
Chat surged instantly — half laughing, half arguing.
Luna spoke again, quieter.
"I didn’t hurt them," she repeated, then corrected herself almost immediately. "I didn’t touch them. I just made it stop."
That phrasing landed wrong in a different way.
Kai rubbed his face. "What does ’made it stop’ mean?"
A pause.
Long enough that chat started spamming question marks.
Then:
"I contacted their parents’ workplaces."
Silence hit the stream in a way even chat couldn’t immediately disrupt.
Kai blinked once.
"...You what."
"It wasn’t violent," Luna said quickly, like she’d anticipated the reaction. "Just information. So they understood what was happening."
Kai let out a short, disbelieving laugh. "That’s... somehow worse."
"I know."
No disagreement. No spin.
That was the pattern with her. She didn’t dodge the weight of what she said. She just set it down and left it there.
Derek’s donation came in again, louder in tone than amount.
RealDerekVoss donated $50,000:
This is exactly what I’m talking about. This is escalation behavior.
Kai’s jaw tightened.
He glanced at chat. The energy had shifted again — less meme, more analysis. People picking sides. People diagnosing. People building narratives out of fragments.
Kai muted his mic for half a second.
"This guy is insane," he muttered.
When he unmuted, Luna spoke again, softer.
"You don’t have to defend me."
"I’m not defending you," Kai said automatically.
A pause.
Even he didn’t fully believe that.
Luna noticed it.
"Are you sure?"
That question landed cleanly. No manipulation. No pressure. Just accuracy.
Kai leaned back in his chair.
The ceiling above him was dull white, slightly stained near the corner. Normal things. Real things. Things that didn’t involve eighty thousand people dissecting a stranger’s morality in real time.
"I think," he said carefully, "I just don’t like people turning you into a spectacle."
A pause.
Then Luna:
"You barely know me."
Kai let out a quiet breath that almost became a laugh.
"That would hit harder if you didn’t know what I ate yesterday."
That earned a soft sound from her — not quite a laugh, but something close.
But it faded quickly.
Derek dropped another donation immediately.
$1 from LunaLove:
You defended me for one dollar less than him ♡
Kai actually laughed this time, sharp and sudden, breaking tension he didn’t realize had built up.
"Okay, that’s insane," he said, covering his face. "That’s actually insane behavior."
Chat detonated.
The stream briefly lost coherence.
But beneath it, something else shifted — less about humor now, more about attention. People weren’t just watching anymore. They were studying.
Derek pushed again.
$75,000:
Have you ever tracked someone before, Kai? Yes or no.
The room changed temperature again, psychologically if not physically.
Kai stopped smiling.
Luna didn’t respond immediately.
That delay mattered.
Kai looked at his monitor, then at the call window, then at chat.
"...Luna," he said quietly.
Her voice came back lower than before.
"Yes."
Chat broke instantly.
But Kai didn’t react to it yet. Not outwardly.
"Who."
A pause.
Then:
"People who were hurting someone I cared about."
That answer should’ve reassured him.
Instead it just clarified the shape of her world.
Selective. Targeted. Certain lines crossed without hesitation — others held firmly in place.
Derek capitalized immediately.
$100,000:
Kai. Run.
The message sat there like a verdict.
For the first time in the night, chat slowed instead of sped up.
Kai stared at it.
Then at the call still active on his screen.
Luna didn’t speak.
Just waited.
Breathing faintly through the headset.
Not defensive.
Not pleading.
Just... braced.
Kai noticed that too.
And it hit him in a way he didn’t have a name for.
He rubbed the back of his neck slowly.
"This is getting way out of hand," he said, mostly to himself.
Then, quieter:
"...Luna, are you okay?"
A pause.
Longer than before.
"I think I should leave," she said.
Immediate reaction hit him harder than expected.
"No," Kai said before he could filter it.
Silence.
Even chat seemed to pause on that.
Kai exhaled, slower this time. "I mean—don’t just disappear mid-conversation."
Another pause.
Then Luna:
"People are scared of me now."
Kai glanced at chat.
That part was true.
But not cleanly true.
"They’re scared of the situation," he said. "Not just you."
"That isn’t better."
She was right about that.
He knew it.
The call stayed open.
Rain kept tapping against the glass.
Kai’s hands rested on his desk, motionless for once.
"I don’t know what you are," he admitted.
Honest enough to feel risky.
Luna didn’t respond immediately.
Then, quietly:
"I don’t either."
That should’ve been alarming.
Instead it just sounded... tired.
Kai leaned back, eyes briefly closing.
The stream was still live.
The internet was still watching.
But for a moment, that felt far away.
"You pay too much attention to me," he said.
A beat.
"I know."
No defense again.
Just acceptance.
That pattern should’ve scared him more.
It did.
Just not in the way it should’ve.
Kai opened his eyes.
"This should be easier to walk away from," he said quietly.
Luna’s voice lowered.
"It could be."
And that was the first time she sounded like she meant it.
Like she would let him.
If he actually chose it.
