Encore (Book Four of Test the Limits Series)

Paranoia

"We ready to go?" Jack asked as he flexed his fingers, prepping them for the amount of button mashing he would have to do since him, Mark, and Felix was playing Rocket League.

He glanced at his camera, relieved to see everything recording properly so his friends could see his face, and that he could see their face cams in return.

"Sure, go for it!" Mark flashed the camera a thumbs up.

"I'm ready to kick y'all's asses!" Felix cheered excitedly.

"Top of the morning to ya laddies-"

"Hey Jack the game's starting." Mark pointed out as his car veered away from the ball towards the other players to destroy them, completely driving by the ball.

"Shut up Mark I know, I was doing my intro!" Jack sighed in mock annoyance, rolling his eyes as Mark laughed, sounding not at all sorry for disrupting his intro.

"Here I'll do it for you." Felix paused as he sucked in a deep breath of air.

"TOP OF THE MORNING TO YA LADDIES!" Felix yelled at the top of his lungs in a terrible somewhat impersonation of Jack's Irish accent.

"Thanks Felix, you nailed it." Jack chuckled in a sarcastic tone.

"How's it goin' bros, my name is PEW-WOOWOOWOO!" Jack mocked Felix's intro as revenge.

"Aw, you took my joke." Mark pretended to pout, a smirk breaking his mask of concentration as his car shot towards an orange car. He successfully managed to smash into it, blowing the enemy car up in a big ball of orange fire.

"Hey guys-"

Mark broke off mid sentence, biting his lip with a thoughtful expression.

"Yeah?" Jack prompted.

"It's been a year since...ya know." Mark sighed, carelessly driving his car in circles.

"What made ya think to bring it up?" Felix frowned in confusion, pausing the game.

"It's all I can think about. Jack nearly died, Anti and Dark lied to us and nearly got us all killed and I felt so helpless-"

"Mark, that was all in the past. I'm okay. I have the medicine for my anxiety and Signe's been helping me deal with the nightmares." Jack interrupted Mark with a reassuring smile.

"Bro Jack's right, Anti and Dark apologized. They didn't ask for Infelix to capture all of us and feed us to his fucking terrifying were-bear." Felix added.

"Sin was not a were-bear." Mark corrected him in a mumble, shuddering as he remembered the terrifying bear like creature.

"Whatever. Either way, everyone's okay. Marzia, Signe, Amy all are fine, I've learned to cope with the paranoia, and Jack's been doing what helps him. The only person who still doesn't seem okay is you." Felix continued.

"I....I've been working on it." Mark lied. In reality, he had been shoving his problems aside into the far corner of his mind so no one worried about him.

"Good. Keep in mind that if, and that's a huge if, Infelix supposedly knows where we are or anything, don't you think he would do something sooner like when we were getting back on YouTube or something?" Jack chimed in.

"Yeah you guys are right, I'm just being paranoid." Mark sighed again as he shook his head, running a hand through his black hair in exasperation.

None of them spoke, the trio lost in thought.

"You done stalling now?" Jack broke in teasingly.

"I guess." Mark chuckled, resuming the game.

"Chica, help me!" Mark grunted as he lifted the puppy up off of her bed behind his chair into his lap, holding her with one hand while playing with the other.

"Hey Chica-Bica!" Jack exclaimed, momentarily distracted by Chica's cuteness that resulted in his car running into Felix's.

"Hey I'm walking here!" Felix yelled jokingly in a somewhat decent Jersey accent that sounded much better than his Irish one.

"Felix, go to the news in Germany." Marzia commanded as she burst into Felix's recording room, her eyes wide in a combination of fear and worry as she walked quickly over to him to stand behind his chair.

Felix didn't question her as he pulled up the website.

"Amy, come here!" Mark called out, unlocking the door to his room to let her in.

Jack had called Signe in as well so they could look at the news together, the playful mood that filled the air replaced with a sense of dread as their eyes scanned their computer screens, re-reading the title to make sure what they were seeing was true.

HOUSE FIRE IN BERLIN KILLS RESIDENTS AND NEARLY INCINERATES NEIGHBORHOOD.

Right below the words was a picture of what used to be Anti and Dark's house.