Chapter Six

Waverly

“So?”

Neon looks up at me like an eight-week-old Golden Retriever. His glasses slip down his nose and pushes them up before shaking his head.

“Nothing yet.” He holds his laptop in the air so I can see the screen. “But soon.”

“It better be soon,” I grumble. “What the hell do you think I hired you for, Chandler?”

Neon shudders like he’s auditioning for a walk-on roll in Hamilton. “It’s not my fault that my mother binge-watched Friends while she was pregnant with me,” he mutters.

I snort a laugh in and grace him with an exaggerated eye roll.

“It’s better than Waverly.” Neon shoots back. “That sounds like a nouveau riche housing development.’

“Just keep mouthing off to me, Neon.” I raise one eyebrow toward my hairline and let my eyes threaten him with a fate worse than death. “And I’ll fire you. And then you won’t be able to afford that server upgrade you’ve been whining about for months.”

“Fine, fine, it’s a perfectly beautiful name, just lovely and peachy keen.” The toothy grin he gives me reminds me of the Cheshire cat.

Fake. As. Shit.

“Now we’re getting into borderline sexual harassment territory.” I smirk at my lone employee with all the empathy of a black widow about to strike. “Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me to smile.”

“Fuck off,” he mutters. “And just so you know, you couldn’t find anyone to replace me. I graduated magna cum laude, remember? From Cal Poly.”

“Yeah, you’ve only told me like, three thousand times.” Trying to hold my irritated face doesn’t last long – after a few seconds, I break and start laughing. As much as Neon gets on my nerves sometimes, I’m glad I hired him. He’s the closest thing to a friend I have here in Vegas, and I know we’re a good team. Plus, he’s a genius, and I know he’ll bring things to Haven that I can’t bring myself. One of the tenets of good leadership is surrounding yourself with good people who bring something to the table you don’t.

“So.” Neon leans closer and smirks. “How was it?”

I stare down at the screen of my laptop, looking over an algorithm.

“Hello,” Neon whines. He reaches forward and grabs my computer. “I asked you a question.”

I slap his hand away and yank it back. “I’m working!”

“Yeah, well, I’m nosy.” Neon closes my laptop, setting it just out of my reach.

“Obviously.” Just the memory of Hawk’s arrogance makes my nostrils flare. A shiver starts at the base of my spine and courses its way upward, but I tamp it down. Anger, nothing else. “It was fine. He was really mad when he left because I told him to go fuck himself.”

Neon snorts. “The balls on you, girl. Seriously?”

I stare at him. “Yeah, seriously. And why is it so hard for everyone to believe that he’s an asshole?”

“Uh, I don’t know.” Sarcasm drips from every syllable. “Maybe because he’s like, the god of the local scene here. He’s done things that most coders have only dreamed they could do.”

“Well, whatever, fuck him. I want to take him down.”

Neon gives me a strange look, and I can tell I sound like a crazy person. A typical scorned female. And that’s pretty close to the truth. But I can’t admit it to him because that would be revealing too much.

“I’m serious.”

“I know. I just don’t know why.”

My mind races as I search for some excuse that isn’t going to sound ridiculous.

“You are going to tell me at some point, right?”

“He’s just...an evil dick and an asshole,” I say helplessly with a shrug. “I don’t really think I have to expand on that. Do you?”

“Well, yeah.” Neon sounds almost offended. “Waverly, look...if I’m going to keep working for you, don’t you think you should tell me? There’s obviously something more to this. Did you have a run in with Hawk?”

Deep down, I know he’s right. Hell, everyone should know – if only I could tell the whole world. I tug on my lower lip with my teeth as I try to figure out how best to tell him without making myself look like a petulant child.

“It was a few years ago. I met him at Defcon. He was speaking on some infosec panel – I don’t even remember what it was about now.”

Neon narrows his eyes as he leans back in his chair and crosses his legs. “So, that’s not a crime.”

“I’d known about him for years.” As the memories overtake me, I close my eyes and think back to that fateful day. “I mean, he’s like a god of hacking. Everyone knows his name. Or at least his handle.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I went to the panel. And I waited like, three fucking hours to meet him afterward at the meet and greet.” I lean back in my chair, licking my lips. This ache inside my chest becomes unbearable as my heart shatters all over again. I’ve done my best to push the shame and regret of that day out of my mind. “And that cost extra, by the way.”

Neon frowns. “You can afford it, Wav. That’s not it at all.”

“You’re right. When I got up to talk to him, I told him everything I knew – that he’s a total guru – and I asked him to be my mentor. I’d graduated at this point, obviously, and I’d just figured out that I wanted to spend my life in security. I thought he’d be the best person.”

Bitterness creeps into my tone, and I can’t shove it away even though I try. God, how I try. I don’t like feeling weak, and Hawk Stryker made me feel like a newborn baby left on the church steps.

“I’m guessing he said no.” Neon reaches into an open bag of chips and takes one, crunching it slowly in his jaws without taking his eyes off me. “But that’s not a crime, Wav. Us techies like to fly solo. You can’t hate the guy for that.”

“He told me to put on my ruffled toddler panties, and to go hack an Xbox.” Anger explodes out of my mouth. “He didn’t even listen to one word I said. After he got a look at my white hair and tiny body, he thought I was some grade schooler fresh off the playground. If he’d listened to me, he would have known that I’m talented. And smart. And past the age of fucking consent.”

“He was probably really busy that day.” He grabs the bag of chips and bounces it on his lap before taking another handful and cramming it into his mouth. “You’re really taking an offhand insult hard, girl. That’s not like you. Shake it off.”

“Like hell he was,” I growl. “It was the end of the day. You know the only thing going on after that panel?”

Neon’s nervous look serves as his only reply.

“After parties,” I snap. “That’s what was going on. Ragers. He couldn’t be arsed to listen to me because he had to lick some hooker pussy.”

“Okay, well, yeah, that was a pretty dick thing to do,” Neon says. “But I don’t think he’s usually a jerk like that. I mean, he’s a pretty popular guy here. He wouldn’t be so widely liked if he made a habit of being an asshole.”

“Just because he’s smart and talented doesn’t mean he’s nice,” I wail. There’s been this hole inside me since my encounter with Hawk Stryker. And I don’t like it. “He brushed me off like I’m nothing.”

“Well, he didn’t know you.” Neon chews thoughtfully on a chip. “I’m sure he wouldn’t say that now.”

I press my lips into a thin line. “Yes, he would. I think he’s a chauvinist pig. He thinks anything with a vagina can’t be a force to be reckoned with in cyberspace.”

Neon looks awkward, and I decide that I’m done with the conversation. Getting up from my seat, I grab my laptop and a cold soda from the fridge before heading downstairs into my lair.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“To work,” I call over my shoulder. “And I suggest you do the same.”

I don’t want Neon to know, but just talking about Hawk and the humiliation from Defcon sinks me ever downward into a dark mood, and I want to be alone with my work. Even though it happened years ago, thinking about it makes me burn with shame. Not just because of Hawk’s cruel words, but because of how it made me feel – like I was some worthless child who didn’t know her way around a circuit board.

After Defcon, I felt defeated. I didn’t want to go home to San Francisco without good news for my father.

So, I didn’t go home. I stayed in my college apartment until I moved to Vegas, vowing to become Hawk’s direct competitor. And while I always knew I had a chance of succeeding, my ‘meeting’ with Hawk earlier really helped it sink in. I can defeat him. I’m smarter than he is, and since he doesn’t take me seriously, he’s going to be in for one hell of a surprise.

The thought makes me grin, and with that in mind, I turn my attention to the blank screen of my laptop and start to type.

Rat bastard’s never going to know what hit him.