Noe
I was going to do something I swore to myself I would never, ever do again in my life . . . ask for help.
I’d learned early in life that the only person I could rely on, the only person who would never let me down or disappoint me, was me. No one else had my best interests or wellbeing in mind. I was the only one who cared if I made it through each day and into the next. I didn’t need anyone. I’d been doing all right on my own while surviving some pretty shitty circumstances for a long time. I watched my own back and called all my own shots. That was the way I liked it, the way I needed it to be. But right now, I was scared. Terrified really. I was also smart enough to know that I was in way over my head.
I needed help and there was only one person I felt comfortable enough asking to yank me out of the murky, dangerous mess I’d waded into.
It didn’t make sense because we’d only met once. Oddly enough, in that brief encounter, he had called me a thief and a bitch. He wasn’t going to be happy to see me. In fact, there was no guarantee that he was going to agree to get me out of the bind that had me so wound up that I couldn’t even move, but I had to ask. I needed someone on my side, someone else needed to know what was going on. In this moment, my mind was telling me that someone was him.
I was afraid to show my face. Afraid to come out of hiding. Afraid of every dark corner and every shadow that lurked in the back alleys I called home. I was afraid that I’d finally gone too far, something I never really thought was possible before now. People were looking for me, and while I was notoriously hard to find, they seemed to have eyes everywhere and enough money to pay people to look in the places I normally hid. I was no longer invisible. No longer overlooked and dismissed like most homeless and displaced people were. The streets were never safe, but now, day in and day out, I was actively being hunted. There was a price on my head and everyone in the Point was looking for a payday.
The last time I’d been at this fancy townhouse complex on the outskirts of the Point, I’d been using a lock picking set to jimmy the front door open so I could rob a guy blind. He had come looking for me, and I didn’t like it when people I didn’t know tried to find me. Especially guys like him. I really didn’t like it when people had money, drove nice cars, had obvious free time to blow at the gym, and were as good with computers and tech as me. Everything about him rubbed me the wrong way, and when I heard he was trying to find me, I wanted to make sure he never made that mistake again. I didn’t want to be anywhere on his radar even though he was a huge, gigantic blip on mine. He pinged and beeped alerts all over the place long before he dragged me down to the Lock and Key to meet with his enigmatic boss.
I’d never had the opportunity to meet Snowden Stark before he came looking for me, but I knew all about him. Everyone in the digital underground did, and not because he was tied into some shady business dealings with Race Hartman and Nassir Gates, the undisputed golden king and dark knight of the Point. The two of them ruled this broken kingdom and it was no secret that Stark was their tech wizard. He was the one who made magic happen. Even before he sold his soul to the highest bidder, he’d been into some questionable practices behind his keyboard. It was rumored that he was the one who had hacked the state’s police database and sent the names, addresses, and mug shots of each and every possible sex offender to all the parents in the Point. Not the registered, supposedly rehabilitated pedophiles, but the ones who had gotten away with their crimes. The ones who hadn’t managed to get caught yet.
The watch list was long and terrifying. The list made its ways through schools and was talked about for weeks on the news. People were torn between fury at the invasion of privacy, since the names on the list belonged to people never convicted, and relief that the bad guys had names and faces before they could offend, or offend again. It was always trial by fire in the Point and nobody was really innocent until proven guilty. They were always guilty, and most of the time, they didn’t get caught. There was little the police could do without solid proof and witnesses. Stark didn’t operate that way. No one seemed too concerned when the people on that list started dropping like flies. Vigilante justice was nothing new in the Point. In fact, it was often the only kind of justice this place saw. Sure, some of the people with their name on Stark’s hit list left town and disappeared on their own, but it was common knowledge that most of them were run out of town by Nassir, and those who didn’t want to go disappeared another way. A more permanent and bloody way that involved shallow graves dug under the moonlight.
My favorite Stark story floating around was the one where he’d grounded an entire fleet of aircraft when his airline lost his luggage and proved less than helpful when it came to locating it. He jacked their entire system for two days, only relenting when his bags showed up in pristine condition. Of course, no one could ever prove it was him, but Twitter and the dark corner of the web—the figurative watercooler for hackers—were flooded with speculation. Everyone was impressed by him, and a little scared. Even the guys who made the Darknet . . . well . . . dark.
When he was a teenager, he supposedly hacked the un-hackable Department of Defense, just to prove he could. I heard he ended up in a federal prison for a year or so for that little act of defiance, but no one could actually verify it because he’d disappeared and any records that might have proved it ceased to exist. Years later, when he came back to the Point, the rumors about his time away and illegal acts were less outrageous, but no less persistent.
He hacked his college’s sexual assault complaint database and released the names of all the attackers who were never brought to justice. Everyone who had been named over the years, but had been excused or had their stories swept under the rug by both the school and law enforcement, was put on blast. Their faces were plastered on digital billboards and scrolled across the bottom of the news ticker bar. Their crimes spelled out in excruciating detail for the entire Point to see. It was another digital hit list, and once again, the eyes of Lady Justice remained blindfolded when the people behind the names started disappearing and turning up in the county morgues.
It was clear Stark didn’t like it when justice was overlooked and he didn’t mind a challenge. He had contacts on the Darknet, and some were digital versions of the men who ran the Point. Through cyberspace, they sold humans, sex, drugs, guns, murder . . . anything illegal and unsavory. Stark didn’t approve of some of the more chilling reasons people trolled the dark recesses of the Internet so he went out of his way to shut them down. Chat rooms dedicated to child pornography and pedophilia were annihilated and sites dedicated to human trafficking were mercilessly shut down. He was a one man wrecking ball and no one tried to stop him.
I was hoping both of those things would work in my favor as I prepared to beg and plead with him to pull my ass out of the proverbial fire.
I knocked on his door this time . . . like a normal person.
I shifted uneasily in my well-worn combat boots and ran my sweaty palms down the front of my freshly washed cargo pants. I made an effort to clean up before coming to see him. I didn’t want to show up unwashed and filthy, like I normally was. I needed him to take me seriously, and I figured if he were distracted by my smell and ratty hair, it would be counterintuitive to my endgame. Since I slept on the streets and in shelters most of the time, it paid off to be gross and unapproachable, but Stark didn’t live wild like I did. In fact, aside from his dealings with Race and Nassir, he didn’t have much to do with the Point. His only connection to this place was his longstanding friendship with Race. They went to high school together before Stark was taken away by men in dark suits with serious expressions. He seemed insulated from the violence and vitriol that came out of the place I called home. From what I knew, he kept his heavily tattooed hands clean of actual blood, just dabbling in digital carnage and warfare. I had no idea if he really knew what it was like out there in the real world, but I needed him to get a clue real quick. I needed him to understand that messing with someone’s life online had very real consequences. I still had no idea how my identity had been leaked to the guys looking for me, but they knew exactly who I was, and I knew what they could do with that knowledge. That’s why I was scared, standing on his doorstep, shaking, and willing to do whatever it took to guarantee his help.
I was lifting my hand to knock again when the door was suddenly flung open. Of course he knew I was there. When I broke in weeks ago, I’d had to bypass a security system that rivaled the NSA’s. He had cameras everywhere. He saw everything and everyone that was trying to get close. It wasn’t a simple case of breaking and entering; I’d had to work my way inside the labyrinth and was lucky I made it out in one piece.
I let out a yelp as my momentum pitched me forward, hands landing against rock-hard muscle as I braced myself against his chest. It was easy to forget how big he was. Massive all around. Tall, strong, and covered from his neck down in colorful, bold tattoos. His dark hair was cut short, showing off the multiple silver and diamond studs that dotted his ears and the tiny scar that curved across his temple, which left a startling straight line of white on his scalp. He had what looked like a barcode of some kind inked behind his ear and I wanted to ask him what it meant.
He didn’t look like any kind of geek—computer or otherwise. He looked like a brawler, a leg breaker, a leviathan. He looked like a beast, except for those dark, thick-framed glasses that sat over his slate-colored eyes. They were undoubtedly out of place with his fierce expression and intimidating appearance. They didn’t belong with the nearly shaved head and the tattoos. His eyes were narrowed at me under lowered brows. His mouth was in a hard, flat line as he grabbed my upper arms and purposely set me away from him. His hands were rough, calloused, and abrasive, but his hold was gentle. He crossed those massive arms over his broad chest once I had my balance, muscles popping and flexing with the smallest movement. It was annoying that he was so impressive to look at. I already had a semi-crush on him for his magnificent brain and the lure of his rumored sense of honor. I liked that he wanted to right wrongs, that he looked out for those who were constantly overlooked. It wasn’t fair that he was ridiculously hot on top of being the smartest guy I had ever encountered, willingly or not. I didn’t want to like him, and I really, really didn’t want to need him.
“What are you doing here, Noe Lee?” I couldn’t stop the little shiver of delight that worked down my spine when he remembered my name and said it right. Not that N-O was all that hard to remember. I liked the way he strung my first and last name together so that it sounded like Noley. When we first met, he thought I was a boy. It was a ruse I often used to keep unwanted attention off myself. He was obviously annoyed that I’d been able to fool him. He was supposed to be too smart to be tricked by a street rat. There was no way he could make that mistake today. My black and red hair hung in a shiny sheet, arrow straight where it brushed my jaw. My bangs were long enough that they touched my eyebrows and also hung pin-straight across my forehead. I even scrounged up some lip gloss for this little charade and put on a v-neck shirt that showed a hint of cleavage. I hated it. I usually went out of my way to make sure no one knew I had boobs. I was way outside of my comfort zone, but I would do what I had to do in order to survive.
“You already took everything that wasn’t nailed down the first time you paid me a visit. Don’t have anything left for you to steal.” His voice was a deep rumble that matched his fearsome appearance. No high-pitched, nerdy whine for Snowden Stark. Again, he was annoyed. This time because I’d managed to breach his supposedly secure fortress. I guessed he wasn’t the type to forgive and forget.
I cleared my throat and twisted my hands together in front of me. I hated being intimidated, but he effortlessly towered over me so there was no getting away from it. I was on the short side as it was, so even regular-sized men tended to come across as looming and overbearing. Stark was anything but regular, so I was feeling slightly unsettled and anxious even though he wasn’t doing anything.
I figured that even though he was still pissed I’d ripped him off, he wasn’t missing any of his gadgets and toys. I knew for a fact that the guy was a tech-junkie. There was no way in hell he hadn’t gone out and replaced his stash the second he knew it was gone. He couldn’t survive being unplugged. He was all man, but very much dependent on machines. They were almost an extension of who he was. It was obvious in the cold, calculating way he dealt with people. There were no unnecessary or needless pleasantries. There was no warmth and compassion. Stark was not a guy who oozed sympathy or even basic human understanding. He wasn’t a guy who had patience or any kind of practiced civility about him. Humans were flawed and defective. Computers weren’t. They did what you told them to do and reacted in predictable, expected ways. Computers didn’t break into your house and steal all your stuff. Computers didn’t irritate you and disrupt your precise and orderly life. Computers didn’t expect anything from you. I got the feeling that was exactly why this man surrounded himself with them instead of a bevy of beautiful women and throngs of impressed hangers-on. He could easily be ruler of the intellectually elite, but instead, he lived like a hermit and rubbed elbows with crime lords. It might be off-putting to anyone else, but since I tended to lean toward cold and calculating myself, I appreciated his lack of normal social graces. It meant I didn’t have to force myself to play nice with him.
He was all legend and myth. No one knew what the real Snowden Stark was like or what he was about, but I’d gotten a glimpse when he dragged me to meet the Devil. He was furious that I’d disrupted his routine and touched his stuff. He was livid, even, but he never hurt me. He never used force or threats. His anger simply popped and snapped like an electrical current between us. Cold fury. Like being in the middle of a blizzard with no protection and nowhere to hide.
No one and nothing in the Point operated that way.
We all put ourselves first. We all focused on what was best for us and what would ensure that we stayed breathing a few more days before we considered anything or anyone else. It’s how you had to think and react if you wanted to keep your head above water in this place.
Not Stark.
He got exactly what he wanted, obtained what his terrifying employer needed, and he did it all without hurting or threatening me in the slightest. He didn’t push. He didn’t shove. He didn’t use the fact he was bigger than me as a threat. My first impression stuck. He was impressive . . . I was impressed . . . and it had nothing to do with his muscles or his harshly hewn face with its unreadable, blue-gray eyes.
I took a breath and told myself to get it over with. The worst he could do was tell me no, and if he did, well, then I would be back to trying to figure it all out on my own, which was nothing new.
“I’m in trouble and I need your help.” My voice shook and I loathed the little tremor of sound that betrayed just how scared and desperate I was.
One of his dark brows arched over the top of his Buddy Holly-style glasses. The line of his mouth grew harder and turned down so that he was frowning at me instead of scowling. He uncrossed his beefy arms and lifted one above his head to lean against the door jamb. That was a lot of muscle and tattooed skin stretched out in front of me. I would have appreciated the view if it weren’t a clear signal that he was not inviting me into his space anytime soon. I’d worn out my welcome when I stole from him, and as much as I wanted to be irritated by his reluctance to let me in, I couldn’t be. I’d been betrayed more than once, which is why I set out to live my life on my own terms, and I never forgave or forgot those who had wronged me. I could hold a grudge like a mother . . . and it appeared Stark was the same way.
“What kind of trouble? Did you get caught stealing from someone bigger and meaner than me?” No concern. No curiosity. He asked like he would ask about the weather or the time.
I unlocked my fingers from their death grip and slid my hands into the front pockets of my cargo pants so he wouldn’t notice my fingers digging into my palms. “No, I helped someone disappear.”
That was what I did.
If you could find me, if you knew what rocks to turn over and which alleyways to slink through in order to ask for my help, I could turn you into a brand-new person. If you wanted to be older or younger, I could help you out with that. If you wanted to be someone who had a clean criminal history so you could get a job, I could fix that for you. If you were on the run from someone with heavy fists and a nasty temper, I made sure you were impossible to find.
And, if you were a scared teenager knocked up with your stepdaddy’s baby because the man was a predator and a pervert, well, then I would do my best to make sure no one knew who or where you were until you decided what to do about your situation. I would make sure you were safe, even when your stepdad was the mayor of the City: the place where both the Point and the Hill were located. It had never been a secret that the man was as immoral and unethical as the shot callers who ran all the illegal activities that happened in the dark under his less-than-watchful eye. As it turned out, no one really knew what kind of monster he was behind the closed doors of his home.
When Julia Grace found me, I wanted to turn her away. I liked money and she had a lot of it, but I knew helping her would come with more risk than I typically like to take on. But there was no way I could send the poor girl back to that man once she told me the things he made her do, the things he did to her, that made my stomach crawl. No one should have to suffer like that and no one should be forced to bring a child into a situation like that. She didn’t know if she was keeping the baby or if she was going to carry it to term and give it up for adoption. She was nothing more than a confused little girl trying to work her way through problems that were too big and too life-changing for someone her age to face. I helped her, made her disappear, hid her away where no one would ever think to look . . . and now I was paying the price for it.
Her powerful and paranoid stepfather wanted her back and his dirty secrets buried. He would stop at nothing until he achieved both.
Stark lifted his other eyebrow and raised a finger to push at his glasses as the motion made them slip down the bridge of his nose. “You’re good at making valuable things vanish, so I’m unsure why you are standing at my front door.”
Shit. There was detachment and ice wrapped around every syllable. I swallowed and looked down at the ground. It was time to appeal to that rumored streak of righteousness I’d heard so much about. “Stark, the Mayor has been molesting his underage stepdaughter. For years. She found me. I don’t know how, but she did. She begged me to get her out of the city and as far away from the Hill as she could go. She cried and told me all the things that monster did to her. He knocked her up. She’s just a baby, herself. There was so much wrong with all of it, I had to do what I could to make it right.” I lifted my head and stabbed my fingernails even deeper into my palms so I wouldn’t cry. I refused to show that kind of weakness in front of him. In front of anyone. “He’s been looking for me. He has resources and reach that I can’t outrun. I’m out of places to hide.”
He cocked his head to the side and silently considered me for an annoyingly long moment. When he spoke, his voice still lacked any kind of real emotion or investment. “Why haven’t you done for yourself what you do for everyone else? You could be in the wind, gone, and no one would be able to track you down, not even Jonathan Goddard.” It was a shock to hear him call the bastard Mayor by his given name. I’d taken to thinking of his title as more of a supervillain name, like the Joker, or the Riddler . . . he was the Mayor.
Frustrated, I blew out a breath and tugged on my multi-colored hair. I was used to having it tucked under a beanie or hidden under a ball cap, so the loose strands bugged me. I had to remember how to be a girl half the time. “You’re right. I can go. I could have a new identity, a new name, and place to call home in under five minutes. But why should he be allowed to get away with what he did to Julia? Why should he have the opportunity to do that to any other girl who’s too young and too scared to fight back? Someone needs to stop him. I need to stop him . . . but I can’t do it on my own.” I really couldn’t. The man had too many people on his payroll, too many dirty cops who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt me. I’d spent so many years telling myself I wasn’t scared anymore, that I was the one in control. I hated that it was all slipping away, and once again, I felt trapped. It would have been so easy to send an email blast to the media with the accusations, but with Julia in hiding, there was no proof. I wanted to protect her almost as much as I wanted to stop the Mayor in his tracks. “I need you to help me.”
He was shaking his dark head before I even finished speaking. The tattoos on the sides of his neck flexed as he clenched his jaw, sending a muscle in his cheek twitching. “I learned a long time ago not to pick fights I can’t win.”
I snorted and then slapped a hand over my face to muffle the sound. He watched me as I cleared my throat. I couldn’t stop an eye roll when I muttered drily, “I’m having a hard time picturing any fight you can’t win, Stark.” He was too big, too smart, too shrewd, and too controlled not to come out on top time and time again. He didn’t strike me as a guy who ever lost at anything.
He shook his head again and pushed off the frame, one hand reaching out to grab the edge of the door like he was ready to close it in my face. “I don’t mess with people who have their hands in politics, Noe. It’s a bad idea. They have too much to lose and know how to keep their secrets buried deep. They play by a different set of rules and they don’t share the playbook. They have an army of very rich, very entitled people at their disposal who have too much to lose when they fail. They leave graves all over the place, and they might be just as good as you are at making people disappear. I was dumped in one of their holes when I was stupider and younger. There was no climbing out of it no matter how hard I tried. I barely made it out with my sanity intact, and I have no intention of ever going back. You might as well pack a bag and hit the road before he really gets desperate to find you.”
I knew he had things in his past that built up the enigma of who he was, but I had no idea that they still scared him. He didn’t seem like the type of man who was afraid of anything.
“I can’t let this go. I’m so sick of guys like Goddard thinking they can do whatever they want with no repercussions. Everyone should be held accountable for the bad things they do.”
“When you have money and influence, there’s no need for accountability.” He sounded like he knew that from first-hand experience. I gasped as he fell back a step and started to close the door.
“Wait!” I shoved my battered boot into the swinging door and slapped a hand on the surface as it inched closer to shutting out my last hope and lingering resolve. “That’s it? You’re really going to ignore everything I just told you? You’re going to throw me to the wolves and let a guy like Goddard get away with doing despicable things?” I couldn’t believe it. That’s not who he was rumored to be. He was supposed to fight for the little guy. He was supposed to believe in justice and fairness.
He was a lie.
He frowned at me and looked pointedly at my hand on the door and my foot bracing it open. “I don’t have a dog in this fight, Noe, and I know you’re smart enough to know exactly what you were getting into when you helped that girl ghost out of town. You knew the risk and you took it anyway. You’re a smart girl who made a very dumb choice.”
Of course I did. I was a fucking human being and not a machine like he apparently was. I had a heart. It was a used one, one that didn’t run right half the time, one I had to wind up every single day if I wanted to feel any damn thing, but it was there. Tiny but beating furiously. His seemed to have been replaced by circuit boards and wires somewhere along the way.
I fell back a step and threw my hands up in aggravation. “You’re unbelievable, and not in the way I was hoping you were.” I was no longer impressed . . . I was devastated.
He nodded in agreement, mouth dipped low in a fierce frown. “It’s good not to have expectations. When you do, you’re bound to be disappointed. Keep your head down, Noe. Buy a bus ticket and put the Point in your rearview. You can start over somewhere else. You can get off the streets and do something useful with that big, sexy brain of yours.”
I wanted to tell him to take his advice and stick it so far up his ass he choked on it. I came here for help, not for a lecture on all the ways I’d gone wrong in my life. I was very aware of just how badly I had screwed up, but before I could say anything else, the door was unceremoniously shut in my face. It was a definitive ‘go-away’ and I couldn’t have been more disappointed if I tried. I felt like he sucked all the optimism and confidence out of me, leaving me deflated and empty.
Swearing, I kicked the closed door, taking immense satisfaction in the greasy, black streaks that my boot left on the white surface. I thumped a balled-up fist on the hardwood as well and swallowed hard so the threat of tears wouldn’t spill over. I hated feeling defeated. I was a survivor. I was a fighter and a master at making any situation work for me. Over the years, I’d had no choice. In this moment, his closed door mocking me, I hated that not only did I no longer have the upper hand, but that I was barely holding on as things were spiraling quickly out of control around me.
Sucking in a breath, I pushed my bangs back from my face and gave myself a mental shake. So, I’d struck out with Stark. I knew there was no guarantee he was going to help me out, but that didn’t mean I was willing to walk away from this fatal game of hide and seek I’d started. The Mayor didn’t get to sit in his mansion and chase little girls while his corrupt city burned. Someone had to hold him accountable, and even though this situation sucked and was scary as hell, that someone was going to be me.
I quickly walked back down the front steps of the townhouse, pulling my beanie out of my pocket and slapping it back on my head as I went. I tucked all my hair up in the cap and stopped at the line of decorative hedges that dotted the front of the property so I could pick up my backpack from where I stashed it. Everything I owned was in that camo knapsack, and I felt naked without it. I also paused long enough to pull on a hoodie that was two sizes too big and covered me almost to my knees. No more minimal cleavage on display and no more pretending that my limited feminine wiles would get me anywhere with the moody, distant, computer genius. His heart was missing, and in its place was a processor that did nothing more than calculate and compute.
Sighing and lost in thought, I wasn’t being as careful as I should have been as I walked across manicured lawns and cut across driveways full of expensive cars. I wasn’t blending in or sticking to the shadows like normal because I was in such a hurry to leave Stark, and my disappointment in him, behind.
I was almost out of the subdivision, almost back to the main road that led into the Point, when I heard sirens and realized the blue and red flashing lights were for me. I was so close to the road—near plenty of gullies and ditches to slither through. The road that was relatively safe. I was so close to getting away. I’d never been a fan of law and order, but now that there was a price on my head, I’d done my best to avoid any kind of law enforcement or people in uniform. Too many were in the Mayor’s back pocket. I’d let desperation cloud my judgment. I should have known the police would be present in a nice neighborhood like this. It was their job to keep out people like me.
I contemplated dropping my backpack and making a run for it, but the cop car was too close and I didn’t, for one second, doubt that whomever was driving would put a bullet in me to slow me down.
Swearing, I slowed and lifted my hands to face the burly, mean-looking cop. He climbed out of the car, one hand on the grip of his gun, the other on his phone. I had a sinking suspicion every cop in the city had my picture and a basic description of me. They were all looking, and like a dumb ass, I put myself right in their line of sight.
“Can I help you, Officer?” I tried to keep my voice calm, but there was a thread of fear in it that I couldn’t hide.
“Got a complaint about a trespasser.” He was lying. I hadn’t been here long enough for anyone to complain, and even if Stark wasn’t my biggest fan, there was no way he would turn me in. I wasn’t sure how I knew when everything else I thought I knew about him turned out to be so wrong, but I knew it all the way to my bones.
“Well, I was just visiting a friend. I’m on my way back to the Point right now. I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding.”
He grunted and looked from his phone toward me and back. I knew he was checking my image against one on that little screen, and I also knew if I went anywhere with him, no one would ever see me alive again.
Throwing my backpack to the ground, I turned and started to run.
I had no idea where I was going. I had no idea what I was doing.
All I knew was that I couldn’t let that cop get his hands on me.
I made it across one more yard before I felt a lightning bolt blast through my body. It was like being tackled by a charging rhinoceros. I screamed and screamed and screamed, but the sounds of the traffic coming from the road, from freedom, drowned out my sounds of agony as the cop hit me with another charge from his Taser. I laid on the ground twitching, spasming out of control, watching in dread as his black boots got closer.
The last thought I had before everything faded away was . . . help . . . but like always, no one was there to offer it.
I was alone.