by India Kells
Table of Contents
Acknowledgment
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
About the Author
License Notes
Copyright © 2017 by India Kells
Editing by There for You Editing
Cover Art by Deranged Doctor Design
Formatting by Deranged Doctor Design
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-0-9951767-5-1
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
www.indiakells.com
Table of Contents
Acknowledgment
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
About the Author
Acknowledgment
To my crazy idea bouncers, plot twisters, stubborn debaters, and unfailing supporters: Myriam, Andrée-Anne, and Genevieve. The Women of Purgatory owe you a lot.
And to my followers and street team … it takes an army to create a book, and I’m glad I could find you and you me. I hope we will continue being there for each other for many stories to come.
India xx
Chapter 1
Dylan’s eyes were burning from staring at her computer screen for so long. She pressed the palm of her hands hard against her orbits, wishing the pain to vanish. There was too much to do this night. How could she have guessed that righting wrongs and helping so many people in the complete anonymity of the dark Web would be so much work? But good work, as she was bringing hope to those who needed her skills to survive and provided kick-ass justice to the worst of human kind. If she could no longer be part of this world, at least she could help from a distance.
A groan escaped her when she stretched the tensions twisting her body and rose to peer out the window of her small apartment. The sun was slowly setting over the city, the light shifting, colors blazing in hues of oranges and reds. She never needed a watch, she always knew when the night was rising. Even if she tried for so many years to whip her body into accepting the day, nighttime made her very soul sigh and stir. Dylan may have done everything in her powers to hide and make herself disappear from the eyes of the world, but in the end, she was and would remain an outsider.
Still looking out, she pushed her arms above her head, stretching, before massaging the kinks in her neck. For so many years, she had moved from one place to another, from villages to towns, from towns to cities. Where was she? She had to observe the skyline and remember that she was in Boston. Locations blurred so easily in her mind, and became unimportant now. Anywhere and nowhere could be her same destination. With each uprooting, in each place, she was hiding her true self until her instincts told her it was time to leave. Once again. So much of herself, of her past she had to sacrifice, to forget and to hide. She never thought her computer skills could come handy to find another career, another purpose. From early in her life, it was easy for her to make any machine sing at will. The same easy confidence as when I used to be a cop. That annoying, recurring thought made her frown.
Her hacker skills were a way of surviving, the only way she had found to stay sane all those years. She targeted crooks, very dangerous preferably, and never lost a wink of sleep over it despite her shady methods. She grabbed what she needed, dispensed some justice, and vanished like smoke. And most of all, she had purpose, a way to be of service to the world. Once more.
That’s why she created Dogberry. Her pseudonym on the Web, the way to contact her if someone requested her help. She offered her talents to those needing them the most—not only the underground community, but also rogues, rebels, and victims. Her only exception was to Beatrice. Beatrice Dante, the founder and mastermind behind Purgatory, an organization grouping those same lost souls who fought crime under a single banner, trying to bring justice to this world. When the usual channels had their hands tied, when the usual solutions failed, they called Purgatory. Beatrice had used her last-resort talents to save her life, and now Dogberry had a special debt to repay—an endless one, in her opinion, as she wouldn’t be breathing without the help of her dear friend.
Dylan’s thoughts took a detour when her stomach growled loudly. She could push herself as much as she wanted, but without fuel, she wouldn’t go very far.
The lights were off in her small but comfy apartment, and the descending night shed a soft glow over her furniture. She went straight to her fridge, but she didn’t have any high hopes there. Dylan knew how to cook, but always forgot to buy any sort of groceries. After a quick inventory, she realized she would have to go out … unless she wanted to eat mustard on toast.
Dee’s Café was only a corner away and Dylan always liked to walk the short distance at a leisurely pace, especially when the cool autumn air was nipping at her cheeks, the wind was playing with her long strands of dark air, and the perfume of crushed leaves overpowered the other surrounding smells. She was living in a quieter part of the city. One the urban jungle hadn’t taken over yet. The buildings were old, most of them pre-war, and there were a multitude of trees and a greater sense of community. Consciously, she was drawn to it when
arriving in a new city and searched for that feeling when she moved to another location, even though she didn’t connect with her fellow neighbors.
Shop lights were bright and people were walking briskly around her, pressed to arrive to their destination. Dylan was tempted to take a longer detour, enjoying the fall temperature, but her hungry stomach and the weight of her laptop in her bag on her shoulder made her decide against it. Her cell phone started to buzz in her pocket. One quick look at the number made her frown.
“Hello Beatrice. How are you?”
Her friend sighed. “What’s the point for me using a burnt phone if I can’t hide my identity?”
Dylan smiled. “You know I’m that good, but to be honest, you’re basically the only one calling me. So, it was an easy guess. And yes, you’re covered, that burnt cell didn’t scream your name and location for everyone to hear.”
“Thank God!” The voice of her friend was laced with a healthy dose of sarcasm, her favorite poison.
“Bea, I thought you were on vacation? Or retired? I always forget which one it is.”
Beatrice scoffed on the other end of the line, her British accent even sharper than usual. “I don’t have the temperament for retirement, so you can forget the image of me lying on some beach somewhere.”
“Nah, I thought more about you playing bridge at an old folks’ home near a big fireplace. Must be your British ass inspiring that particular image in my head.”
Her friend laughed at the other end of the line. “I think your indomitable sense of humor is the main reason I’m glad I saved your ass, Dylan.”
“Well, I’m glad you saved the rest of me as well. Although I must admit, my ass is one of my best assets. Not that I don’t want to discuss all the other parts of my anatomy, but if you called for something more specific it may be preferable to start with that.”
And as she suspected, Dylan felt Beatrice’s mood change on the other end of the line. Never quite a good sign in her humble opinion.
“Beatrice?” Dylan waited before sitting on a bench where she had a good view of the people on the sidewalk with her back to a concrete structure.
“Someone tried to force their way into the secured server system you installed for Purgatory.”
Holy shit. “Tell me more, Bea.” Already, possible scenarios started to pile up in her mind.
“The attacker or attackers didn’t succeed. My team here detected something wrong with the algorithm you had put in place the last time you came on site. And your alarms got off. The bad news is that my men couldn’t track back to where the attack came from.”
“Yeah, that would be the downfall of my security system, it protects us well, but it makes it difficult to retrace the steps of any assailant.”
Beatrice sighed. “But after analysis, we discovered the hacker was targeting specific information, phone numbers, and IP addresses.”
“In other words, he was trying to locate Purgatory members or information. Listen, I’ll be on the next plane to you—”
“No, we’ve solidified the infrastructure here, there is nothing more you can do.”
Dylan smirked. “Humor me! If I can work directly in the server—”
“I don’t want you here, Dylan,” Beatrice stated, cutting Dylan off.
The voice of Beatrice sounded like a whip to her ear. And then it dawned on her, making puzzle pieces click together. “That hacker wasn’t targeting agents. He was trying to locate me.”
The silence at the other end of the line was telling. “Have you seen anything strange wherever you are, Dylan? Nothing popped on your screen?”
Dylan closed her eyes for a moment, her hand rubbing her forehead. “No, it has been quiet for a while, apart from your requests on Mac’s case a few months back, and now jobs had picked up. Not that I’m complaining.”
“I’m sending you protection.”
Dylan rolled her eyes. It had been a constant fight between the two friends. “Bea. I don’t need a bodyguard. I’d been a cop for years before I quit. I can handle pretty much anything thrown my way.”
“I know, but I still remember the one time that you were blindsided. It almost cost you your life.”
Dylan forced her rising emotions back down. She knew it would bring her nothing good to wallow in the darkest parts of her life. “I know, Bea. But being alone, I can move faster, and I draw less attention. If you sic a bodyguard on me …”
“I want you safe.”
Dylan’s brow furrowed in aggravation. “I’m safe. As safe as I can be.”
“Not enough.”
“Let it go, Bea.”
Beatrice groaned on the other end of the line, her voice now a low murmur. “You know I can’t.”
What could she say? Some trauma could never be erased and for some people, reactions were pure knee jerk. It was her lot now. That’s why when she answered, Dylan forced her voice to remain calm, her tone comprehensive.
“I know, Bea, I can’t either. But I’m living, still breathing. I don’t want a nightmare to define the rest of my life.”
“Now you humor me. You know very well that this particular nightmare still does.”
Dylan swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, shivering under her thick canvas coat, the image of her body coming to mind before pushing it back down again, in the dark recesses of her memory. “There are things I will never be able to change. Others, I’ve already done. I know you won’t believe me when I will say it, but I’m content. Even happy with my life. You’ve given me that, too.”
“Dylan, damn it.”
Despite the contained rage and helplessness she heard in her friend’s voice, she pursued. “There is nothing else to be done for my past, or what happened to me. Let’s leave it be and focus on what needs to be done with the wacko stupid enough to try trapping me. Send me all the logs you guys have. I’ll analyze them. Nobody is really able to remain invisible from me, you know that.”
The long silence of Beatrice was telling, but Dylan knew that they understood each other, whatever their opinions and differences. “Be careful, okay? Until we know what kind of wacko we’re dealing with. And speaking of wack jobs, my dear husband has met with Director Morton from the National Counterterrorism Team. Again. He’s still trying to find you, to find Dogberry to be more precise, and even though the director doesn’t know your real identity, he greatly suspects Purgatory to be your biggest client. Too bad he’s right on that. Just be careful and keep that in mind when you’re so inclined to take risks. That Morton moron is like a rabid dog, he won’t let that particular bone go easily.”
“No fun keeping that kind of weasel in mind, but I’ll do it for you.” Glad that Beatrice had finally reneged on pushing protection on her, Dylan inquired about the team she was part of as a ghost, before promising to give a quick update as soon as she would be able to review the data, and to be careful. Again.
Dylan hung up and took a deep breath. The city was moving around her, as she stayed still, pensive. She wasn’t worried. When you’ve been on the move for so many years, your instinct told you when you were in imminent danger. None of her usual alarms had been triggered so far. It was impossible for any human being on Earth to be on constant alarm mode. She had experienced that first hand. So, she decided continuing her routine was the most logical and sensible solution for her. For now, and for as how long it would last.
Chapter 2
As she pushed open the door of Dee’s Café, Dylan was glad to see only a few patrons around, familiar faces that made her relax. Being surrounded by too many people was a trigger she tried to avoid at all costs, thus her nightly routine.
Scanning around, she saw her usual bench free. Dylan always liked this café. Situated on a street corner, the owner kept the brick wall and the old copper ceiling offering a cozy glow over the dark leather benches and wood tables. The lighting was low, but not too much so to strain the eye. With a contented sigh, she put her bag on the bench and shrugged out of her coat.
; And talking about the owner, she saw Dee walking briskly from the kitchen to behind the counter, refilling the pastry display. The lovely brunette laughed at what one of the men sitting at the counter said, her bob of slick, shiny chocolate hair swinging as she answered back.
From the moment she set foot inside the café, the first night she had settled in the neighborhood, Dee had come to her, determined to be her friend, even if Dylan had done everything in her power to keep her at arm’s length. When the energetic woman set her mind on something, Dylan realized it was impossible to make her change course. She could have found another place, another café, but Dylan didn’t. She found some sort of solace in this instant friendship. However, she only kept it inside the café, never accepting Dee’s invitation to go out. One way of protecting her, if something might happen. By keeping it seemingly casual, Dee would be able to claim her innocence.
As she unzipped her backpack, Dylan heard Dee’s squeal of delight. “Dylan! I didn’t see you coming.” Dylan smiled as the lovely café owner waved at her. She was very grateful for Dee to keep a certain distance between them. The young woman may have been demonstrative, but she respected the wish of her friend and refrained from touching her. Well, when she remembered.
While Dylan booted up her computer, Dee came with her usual order—a double latte—and set it before her. “Do you plan to eat? Today’s special is a broccoli cream with a coronation chicken sandwich.”