Heathers Requests/One Shots

Hacked

The YouTube AU no one asked for, but I'm doing anyway. Question: would you want a series in addition to this one-shot book, and if so, what would you want it about? And guys! 400 reads? You guys are crazy! TW//very brief mentions of self-doubt and eating disorders 

Veronica couldn't believe it. Her channel, her small channel, had grown. Of course it did, YouTube channels tended to do that, but it had grown a lot. Her dumb little animations and stories had gotten her a spot in the YouTube house with some of the three biggest girls on the platform: the Heathers.

Their three channels, Duke, Chandler, and McNamara (It's just their last names, I'm not that creative) had over 23 million subscribers. Now her's was on the rise, adding a solid 3 million and counting.

The Heather's each covered different areas of the platform. Chandler vlogged, going from Paris to London to Disney World in a matter of days, Duke made scathing product reviews, while McNamara posted makeup looks that varied from girl next door to outrageous looks.

Veronica made animations about her ridiculous life, like how she dated three guys all took her on the same dates, or how her and her childhood best friend, Martha, once blew up her kitchen by microwaving a soda.

Now the four of them lived in a gorgeous house overlooking a large lake. Chandler was able to make lake vlogs, Duke made reviews over different swimsuits, sunglasses, and sundresses, McNamara made tutorials on how to make waterproof makeup looks, and Veronica was able to make stories about all their shenanigans.

She got to learn something about all of them. Chandler wasn't as happy and bubbly as she was on camera. She could be (if she was with McNamara, a fact she denied till death), but mostly she was just like Duke. Duke.

She was just as cunning and cold and calculated and witty in real life. But she also collected expensive things, like first edition books, lavish fountain pens, and extravagant high heels. She never wore them except for videos  ("Those wreck your feet, honestly, and they hurt like hell!"), but she had several racks of them.

McNamara was mostly the same as on screen. She was cheerful and optimistic in both real life and her videos, but she had crippling self-doubt that she kept hidden away. It was like that one John Mulroney quote: "I'll keep all my emotions right here, and then one day, I'll die."

Recently, Veronica had been following a new account, one with a small fan base of a couple thousand. He was all sharp lines and quick quips and just his voice made her heart spiral. J.D. his name was, but nobody knew what it stood for.

"He's a creep," Chandler said, twirling pasta around her fork. She was sitting a little- scratch that, a lot closer to McNamara than she had to. Duke nodded, not touching her small portion in the slightest. 

"Plus, have you seen his videos?" McNamara asked worriedly, swirling her lemonade around with her red and white straw. Her lips were pursed tightly. "He hacks into channels for fun. All their videos, gone, just like that!" She snapped her canary yellow nails.

"I know," Veronica said, "But that doesn't mean I can't watch him." Duke rolled her eyes, finally taking a bit of food.

"Just be careful," McNamara put in with a small smile. Chandler nodded. She and McNamara always agreed. "Come on, let's go night swimming. It'll be fun." Chandler went off to find her video camera, which she was always misplacing.

Veronica watched all of J.D.'s videos in one night, after swimming. His small smirks lit up her room even with the lamps off and the windows closed. Then he went love, just in the middle of him exposing how he accessed a sports channel ran by Kurt Kelly and Ram Sweeney, two idiots Veronica had seen around her college before.

"So," he began, lounging in an office chair with a slushee in one hand and a pocket knife balanced ion one of his fingers. He smiled into the camera and normally, Veronica would swoon but now, something was different in his eyes. "We have one person watching this. Veronica Sawyer," he said, testing the name out on his tongue.

Veronica didn't know if you could see who was watching your livestream, but this was J.D., hacker extraordinaire. "I have an ultimatum. You've moved into a house with the Heather's, this of course being very well known." He put down the slushee and threw the knife down, into his desk. It sunk in nearly, hilt deep. Veronica flinched as she sound pierced her headphones.

"So here's the question: would you sacrifice one of the, for yourself?" Veronica froze. What? "You heard me. Choose Chandler, Duke, or McNamara's channel to be deleted, and everyone else's lives! Choose your own, and yours gets deleted. Be indecisive, and it's all of yours." He clicked a couple buttons, and a 45 second timer was displayed in the corner. "Clocks ticking."

There was no good move. Veronica's channel wouldn't be able to be salvaged. She was well-known. But not enough for people to subscribe to a new channel. The Heather's followers would. But could she choose to save herself? The obnoxious music rang through her room, too upbeat for something this bad.

Something like this might break McNamara. For a while, she had been a bit like a ticking time bomb, with the most random things being triggers. Chandler was good for her and she was getting better on her own too, but Veronica couldn't do this to her.

So Chandler or Duke? Chandler's vlogs were on YouRube only, but Duke had backups everywhere because she had always been a little paranoid. And Duke had a second channel that she could definitely use.

"Time almost up," J.D. sing songed, a smile on his face. It was chilling how peaceful he looked, how at ease. With chalking fingers, Duke was typed into the chat. You're a monster, followed. He laughed as he read this. "Maybe, maybe.

"But here's the thing. I hate snots and brats and spoiled daddy's girls, but not as much as I hate people like you, who would do anything to get ahead." His dark eyes met the camera and for a second, it looked like he was staring directly at her. He couldn't be, Veronica thought nervously.

"So here." His fingers flew across the keyboard, his smile deepening with every click. Veronica pulled up Duke's channel but when the clicks stopped, it was still there. Two reloads later, and it was still up.

"Check yours," he said, bored. Veronica froze. Cold seeped through her bones as she humbly tried to pull up her channel. It wasn't there. No results, none at all. "The extreme always seems to make an impression," he whispered carefully, then logged off. Veronica sat there, not noticing the sun rising, the bronze rays painting  the sky anew. 

She was gone. Wiped off the face of the planet. Her fingers curled into fists, her nails crazing gashes on her palms, the blood falling onto her sheets. She slammed her laptop down, not caring about any damage. She opened Twitter, where she had just recently broke a million followers.

My channel may be gone, but I can still ruin you, she thought as she hit post.

(1173 words)