Page 9 of Battery Operated

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Another round of banging on the door made me jump. This time, Colton opened it, and Penny rushed in. “What the hell?” she demanded of the three men.

Of all the shocking things in the last minute, that was one of the biggest. Penny never said bad words, even very tame ones. “Why did you guys—” she hesitated, looking at my phone, which was still live-streaming. Crap. “I somehow got locked out,” she finished in a quieter tone.

Very aware of the camera, I sat up straight in the chair. My stunned mind tried to focus on a half-dozen different thoughts at once. The things I’d said. What these guys were really up to. And the most alarming question of all—why?

But first and foremost, I spoke to the tens of thousands of people watching live—an amount that was going up every second. “So, today wasn’t quite what I was expecting.” I gave my best smile to the camera, trying to look as if I was completely on top of the situation even though it felt like the exact opposite. “Can someone tell me what’s going on?”

That last question was directed to the guys in the room. It meant letting them control the narrative, which was the last thing I wanted to do, but I couldn’t see any other way out of this.

The new guy standing next to me flexed his gloved fingers. “How’d you like your massage?” The smug grin he shot down at me wasn’t a pleasant one.

“Iwasenjoying it.” I emphasized the past tense. “But now it’s taken a weird turn. What happened to the Massage Mate 3000?”

“Never existed,” he said.

“Then what’s all this about?” In confusion, I turned back to the other two—which only made the fog in my head worse. Brad and Colton were in the process of changing. Brad’s bushy mustache was gone—and even in my current state, I recognized that as an improvement—and he was tugging at his blond hair which turned out to be a wig. His real hair was short and light brown.

Colton’s long brown ponytail wasn’t real either, since it was now lying on top of a keyboard. He winced when he peeled off the beard and then rubbed his strong jaw.

Now all three of them were starting to look familiar. I’d seen them before, but never in person. Never full-sized.

Only on a small screen.

Shit.

I got to my feet, standing on the opposite side of the chair from my masseuse. “I know you.” My voice was shaky, and I fought to steady it.

“Yes, you do,” Colton said, his former Scottish accent evidently as fake as his long hair. He moved next to his buddy with the magic hands.

Despite everything, my first thought was to wonder if they were in the shot. Whatever was going on, there was no point in my viewers seeing only half of it. I glanced at Penny, and she nodded. Moving smoothly, she eased the phone out of its holder and turned it sideways at a wide enough angle to see all of us.

“But we don’t own a startup,” Colton went on. “Or build fancy tech.”

I turned to Brad. Of the three, he’d seemed the most approachable. The friendliest—but he didn’t look friendly now. His eyes were steady on mine, making me squirm for some reason. But still, it was easier to look at him rather than the stern expression on Colton’s face or the smug look on the other man’s.

“What’s going on, Brad?”

“It’s Brady, actually.” He pointed at Colton. “This is Cole. And that’s Gideon. We’re—”

“Down to Earth.” My eyes closed briefly as a lot of things clicked into place.Down to Earthwas the name of their online channel.

They posted videos about simple things—how to grill the perfect steak. How to change a flat. How to hang a picture straight. Super boring stuff like that. But I doubted my audience was bored by the drama happening right now.

This was bad. Really bad.

“So you remember us.” Gideon’s deep voice was disapproving enough to pull my gaze up to his scornful face.

Brad moved to join the other two and addressed my audience. “Ms. James seems a bit tongue-tied, so I’ll fill you in.” He glanced up at Penny, and she nodded, indicating she was getting the shot. Even in this much of a shitstorm, the show must go on.

“As I alluded to a bit earlier, a few months ago, Ms. James said some things that were both unkind and untrue about our online channel. That we made boring videos and that you’d rather watch paint dry. And your thesis, which seemed to be that the only reason we were getting good ratings—particularly from young women—is because we were good-looking.”

“Well, the good-looking part is true,” Gideon muttered, and a wave of loathing rose up in me. Not only had these guys tricked me on camera, but they were being smug as hell about it. Or at least the new guy was.

None of this made much sense, but I knew I couldn’t let anyone online or offline see that I was upset. “So, you decided that the best revenge for what I said was to give me amassage?” There. Hopefully that would make them seem foolish, or maybe I was just grasping at straws.

“That was just to get you here,” Colton said. Or wait, no, his name was Cole, and the other was Brady. Now that they were standing side by side, I could see a resemblance between them. Were they brothers?

If so, I was surprised I hadn’t remembered that. I’d watched some videos on their channel, but that had been a few months ago. I hadn’t given them much thought since—except to wonder what had gotten into me.


Tags: Stephanie Brother Erotic