Chapter Twenty-One - OLIVER
“Where’s Katya?” I say, when our little outside talk is over and we file back into the kitchen.
“She said she had to go to work,” Ariel says.
I squint my eyes at my sister. “Did she? Well, she doesn’t work, per se. So I find that highly suspicious.”
“What does she do?” Pax asks.
“Never mind. I’m gonna go find her.”
“She said she needs some time,” Ellie says. “Said to tell you that. You know. Space, Oliver?”
I look at her. Then Ariel. Then Cindy and Ivy.
If Victoria was in here with them, I’d have an easier time thinking they were lying. But Ellie? She doesn’t strike me as a liar. “She did?” I ask.
Ivy nods. “It’s a lot to take in. Meeting people who have your dark moments in common.” She gazes at Nolan affectionately. I want to roll my eyes at them and their common dark moments.
“How do you think she found you again, Oliver?” It’s Ellie asking but I’m looking at Ariel.
“She’s the one who left, not me,” I answer. Ariel shakes her head just the tiniest bit. But I know what she’s thinking. That look says, We might have a problem. And by we might have a problem, she means we might be going to prison.
I know that look well, but it’s been a good long while since we were this vulnerable.
Hook-Me-Up is a real dating site. Ariel came up with the idea when she was in high school and we papered Colorado State University with flyers about it, since it’s practically next door to Shrike Bikes.
A dating site is a good way to collect a lot of personal information about people. You get photos, hobbies, occupation, and if not straight-up daily schedules, at the very least you get patterns. Lots of patterns.
You also get credit card info.
We aren’t stealing money, though. We’re compiling data, which is just as valuable. We sell that data. Emails and shit. But that part of it is all legal.
Not everything happening over at Hook-Me-Up is legal.
The first time I heard the words ‘dark web’ it came out of my mother’s mouth.
I remember being so intrigued because the conversation went something like… Five can get that from the dark web.
Could get what? should be most people’s first question.
But mine was… That motherfucker is holding out on me. He has a secret about computers and he’s not sharing it.
I went to Ariel, since we’re the closest of all my many cousins and siblings and we were both really into coding back then. And she said she’d heard of it, but didn’t use it because people who frequent the dark web were part of the underbelly, and did we really want to be considered underbelly?
Ariel and I aren’t evil. Or Five, for that matter. But being able to code things, or break into things using code, well, it makes you more powerful than you’d be without that skill. It makes us different than most people.
A little darker. A little dirtier since you can live underground.
And if you want to find the dark side of anything it’s not that hard when you know how to write the perfect code.
Cindy got in shortly after. She’s a snooper, that one. And she’s tenacious. Most of what she uses the dark web for is pretty innocent. She finds clients on the Hidden Wiki. She’s basically just doing job searches.
But Ariel and I are not as innocent.
And I have a very sick feeling that Katya is back because of what Ariel and I do on the dark web.
“We gotta get to work too,” Ariel says. “Two of the servers are down and we’ve gotten like a thousand complaints from people who are afraid they won’t get laid tonight. So you go handle that and I’ll smooth things over in customer service. OK?”
Aside from my new paranoia about Katya, something is not right here with Ariel and the girls. I can feel it. They are up to something. “Fine,” I say, heading towards the door. I’d rather figure it out without all their faces staring at me.
“Can we expect you for dinner tonight?” Cindy calls out. “At the condo?”
“No,” I say. “Fuck that.”
I can hear all the girls giggling at my reaction as I close the door behind me.
I get in the Camaro and drive slowly home, checking all the side streets to see if I can spot Katya.
But I don’t see her. It’s not like her place is far, so I’m not exactly panicked about that. And I was outside for like twenty minutes talking to the guys. So I can’t really blame her for taking off. I’m sure Ariel was just delightful company.
I don’t bother going home to change before work, just park my car behind the building and climb the stairs to the fourth floor. I head straight to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Katya in the apartment that might be hers before I have to sit down and deal with real life.
But no such luck. She’s not there.
Why am I surprised?
When is the last time luck showed up in my life?