Chapter 2

An in-person, live showdown.

Nothing draws a crowd faster than that.

People kept pouring into my stream. In no time the counter was past eighty thousand.

The newcomers all asked what was going on, and the trolls jumped in immediately to smear me.

On a second phone, I messaged my best friend and a couple of close friends for backup, asking them to post videos explaining what really happened.

Then I had to speak up for myself right there in the stream.

No matter how fast the comments scrolled, they couldn't out-talk me.

I wasn't about to let someone stupidly spin the narrative while I sat there saying nothing.

"New babies, don't let them spin you."

"Here's what actually happened."

"I just started streaming today, and Autumn and Jared, who are in the same niche, came on my feed."

"They picked a fight the second they joined, accused me of abusing a dog with zero proof, and suddenly my stream had a few thousand trolls in it."

"New babies, I think you're all smart enough to see this for what it is. This is a planned smear."

"And right now I'm going to meet Autumn and Jared in person. In front of everyone, I'm going to tear off their masks and show you who they really are!"

Pretty soon people in the stream started backing me up, because everything I said held together.

And I do have fans. They weren't going to just watch me get bullied.

Some of the sharper ones had already started flooding the other side's stream. No reason the whole fight should stay on my turf.

Half an hour or so went by like this. The platform noticed too, and instead of shutting it down, it kept pushing our streams. We were already on the front-page recommendations and the trending list.

And I stepped out of the car at the small plaza in the dog park across town.

By now the area around the plaza was packed. All of them were viewers who'd followed the stream over to watch the drama.

Autumn and Jared were already there. From somewhere they'd dragged out two chairs and were sitting like they owned the place, their streaming gear set up and pointed at me.

I walked straight up, not a trace of fear on my face.

I've always been the tough type, and now that I could hear their phones talking, why would I be scared?

The second Autumn saw me she sneered. "Gay Pruitt, you actually had the nerve to show up. In that big a hurry to quit the internet?"

Jared gave a mocking little laugh. "What's wrong with just streaming your own thing? You have to come leech off Autumn. Would it kill you to stop stealing traffic?"

The comments in the stream got even filthier:

"If a mom didn't die, where'd she get the nerve to leech traffic like this?"

"A dog-abusing streamer, of course she's thick-skinned."

I just laughed and pointed the phone at myself, catching Autumn and Jared in the frame too.

"I went live today, and Autumn was the one who joined my feed. You can see it in the stream replay!"

"You joined on your own, you demanded I fix your Bichon's problem on your own, and now you're saying I'm faking a feud to steal traffic?"

"What, are you God? Every word out of your mouth is law? Whatever you say goes?"

"And all of you in the stream cursing at me. I'm going to go through the replay, track down every single one of you, and report you to the police one by one!"

The number of people cursing at me dropped in an instant.

Autumn and Jared's faces weren't looking so good either.

The internet may have no memory, but a stream replay doesn't disappear.

Everything they'd said was on record now. All of it was evidence.

After a brief moment of panic, Autumn immediately pointed at the little Bichon. "Cut the nonsense. I'm just asking you, can you fix this dog peeing everywhere or not?"

As she said it, she stroked the little Bichon again.

And the little Bichon promptly peed.