My parents’ house is dark and empty, but it feels light and full the second I walk through the door. It’s weird to be greeted by silence, since we’ve had at least three German shepherds in this house since I came to live with them. But my dad takes them with the family on long trips. The cats stay with the neighbors since they don’t care for nineteen hours of flying across the world.
I head to the kitchen and drop my keys on the table, and then continue into the family room and flip on the TV. The couch is old and comfy, so I flop down and slide the spare laptop out of the drawer in the coffee table. Ash and Kate use this one when they feel like going online. Ford and Five have an entire room devoted to computers upstairs. But I don’t have the code for the security lock on that door.
I only need to check my email, anyway. So it’s not like I’d ever need it.
I flip through the channels until I find something mindless to watch, and then open my email.
Fuck. Seventy-two emails in two days.
I scan down the list to see if any of them need to be opened and sure enough, there’s one from Professor Brown. I feel sick just looking at her name. But she might be kicking me off the email server altogether, since they won’t let you have a university email if you leave school.
I open it and take a deep breath.
Dear Sasha,
I wanted to make sure you understood exactly what I was saying yesterday. I went up to your office to see if you had any questions and found your desk cleared out. Does this mean you’ve made a decision to leave school? Or, as I fear might be the case, you think I kicked you out of school during our talk?
I hope you don’t think that. It was not what I was saying at all. I love having you as my student. I think you are bright and motivated. I’d be proud for your future research to be a reflection on my career.
If you truly do not want to continue to study under my guidance, I will understand and I will wish you good luck and happiness. But if you misunderstood me and packed your office up on the assumption I was kicking you out—please, please reconsider. Come talk to me when you have time. I’ll be in my office for a few more days finishing up grades.
Your friend and mentor,
Dr. Janet Brown
Holy shit. I am a total idiot. I stare at the screen for like five minutes. I’m not kicked out!
“Woohoo!” I jump up and do a little dance. “She believes in me!”
Oh my God, I am so happy. And to think I was depressed all day yesterday thinking I was a total failure. I look around, wondering who I should tell my good news to. But I never mentioned it to my parents and Ronnie and Rook will still be pretty busy with the birthday party.
So hmmm. I had a crisis and victory and I have no one to share it with. That sorta sucks. I guess being anti-social and having no friends is only fun when you’re a failure and don’t want to share news. But success, that’s a good time to have friends.
And I have none. Boo.
I could try Jax. That makes me smile.
But then he would start in on me about that FBI job. And I really don’t want to think about that right now. I’m not sure I want to be an FBI agent. I spent the last ten years trying to get away from a life like that. What possible reason could I have to go back into it working for the other side?
Nope. Jax doesn’t need to know. I’ll just check the rest of my email, then call for pizza delivery. My mood has done a one-eighty in five minutes and I’m starving.
I go back to perusing my email and then gasp out loud when I see one a few lines down from Professor Brown’s.
It’s addressed to Smurf.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “It can’t be him. Not now. Not when my life just got back on track.” It could be James, he’s the one who gave me that name. But James does not email. And Merc wouldn’t address it to Smurf. He calls me Sash.
I know before I click the screen who this is, but the face in the video message brings it home. He’s wearing a gray hoodie with a black beanie covering up his golden hair. The chain tattoo around his neck peeks out from the collar of a black thermal shirt. The video message that starts playing as soon as the page is displayed makes my heart stop.
“Got you,” is all he says. Five seconds long.
But it’s not what he says that’s disturbing.
I press replay and it starts again.
“Got you.”
Replay.
“Got you.”
He’s holding a cell phone up to the computer monitor as he says the words, Got you. But the disturbing part is the barely audible sound of a camera shutter just before he speaks.
Got you.
My stomach starts to churn as things become clear. He’s taking a picture… not of the computer monitor, but of me. My face is being displayed on his computer monitor.
I slap the laptop closed.
What the actual fuck?
I swallow hard and try to keep my cool, and then I open it back up so I can see when the email was sent. Yesterday afternoon. Before I even got home from school. He hacked into my webcam at home and then waited until he saw me on his screen—when was the last time I used my computer? Two days ago.
My phone rings in my purse. “Ahhhh!” I scream, my hand over my heart. “Jesus Christ, Sasha. Calm the fuck down!”
I get up and walk slowly to the kitchen table, but the phone never rings again. Instead I get a voicemail alert.
This is it. He’s back. He’s made contact and he’s gonna—
Another alert. This time it’s a text. I fish my phone out of my purse and read the message flashing across the home screen.
Come outside.