The Hero and the Hacktivist

by Pippa Grant

  Look at Dirk Lemonson.

  He’s like a triple-decker douchewaffle with vanilla flavoring and whipped cream, caramel sauce, and a cherry on top. With Nutella slathered between the layers.

  He looks like a real treat, but he’s still a douchewaffle manipulating lonely women through a leg warmer pyramid scheme empire.

  I scowl at the bedazzled knit cotton covering Willow’s calves again.

  It’s time for phase two of the plan.

  6

  Rhett

  If I were still in California with my SEAL team, I’d be shooting pool or hanging at a strip club or one of us would be getting a new tat or we’d be heading out on a mission.

  Instead, I’m at my sister’s band practice.

  Yeah.

  I’m practically back in high school. Just missing the braces and the inability to talk to a girl with more than a series of grunts.

  But I needed an excuse to get out of hanging with the petty officer in the recruitment office, and Parker was it.

  Nothing to do with knowing Eloise would be here.

  I’m saved from the music—which is surprisingly not bad, if you’re into boy band shit, which is all they cover, and stupidly hot when Eloise is headbanging while she’s drumming—when my phone buzzes and Ogre’s face lights up the screen. Right after the mission from hell, he got word his ex-wife had died, and that his daughter was caught in a nasty custody battle between his ex’s divorced parents.

  He bailed on military life to take on dad life, because that’s what his little girl needed. And even if his life wasn’t shit right now, I’d take his call.

  He’s as much one of my brothers as Brooks, Jack, and Gavin are.

  I leave the basement and help myself to some organic ice cream in the swanky marble-and-black steel kitchen while I catch up with my buddy. “You teach your kid to kill somebody with her pinky yet?” I ask.

  He grunts. It’s his no, dumbass grunt. “Might have to move,” he tells me.

  “Thought you already did that.”

  “Again. That place my gramps left me? Apparently it wasn’t his to leave.”

  “Fucker.”

  “Watch your mouth.”

  I almost grin around a spoonful of fruity ice cream. Ogre’s the first one to let a good motherfucker fly. “You need a new place? I got a couch.”

  “I’ll work it out.”

  Weird to think of him with a kid. Hand any of us million-dollar equipment to execute our mission, and we’ll bring it back new as the day it was born. Most of the time.

  Hand any of us so much as a fish, and it’s gonna die. “Does she speak English and shit?” I ask.

  He snorts. “Yeah, dumbass.”

  “Watch your mouth,” I parrot back to him.

  “Shit. I mean, shoot. Boo, go play with those sticks. Daddy’s gotta have a man call. Don’t go by the windows.” I hear a door shut, and then something creaks. His voice drops. “You talk to The Dooz?” he asks

  “Won’t take my calls. You?”

  “Heard they offered him desk duty. Sounds like he’s getting out too. Leg’s too busted to get back in the field.”

  “Shit, man.”

  The next high-value target or actionable intelligence—that’s what we live for. What we trained for. What we breathe for.

  Knowing The Dooz can’t ever get back out there in the field is a kick to the balls from a steel-toed boot.

  If we’re not operational, we don’t know who we are.

  There’s a high knowing you’re going out to save the world. To get the bad dudes. Being out there taking care of shit so the people you love back home can sleep without ever knowing all the bad there is. Having a purpose.

  Having an outlet for the energy and the drive.

  But there’s also the stress.

  It’s not something we talk about, because we’re fucking gods. Immortal. Immune.

  And probably really fucked up, which we’re rock stars in being able to deny.

  Until we’re not.

  That’s how Pigpen hit rock bottom without any of us realizing that his normal sarcasm was flavored with gin. While we were supposed to be taking down a drug cartel.

  “How’s Rascal?” I ask. “You talk to him?”

  “Beating himself up.”

  Of course he is. He was team lead. He should’ve called the mission.

  According to the brass, anyway.

  All of us should’ve seen what was going on. Wasn’t just on Rascal, but he’s the one taking the heat.

  “He’s talking about training for firefighting or being a cop or something. Sticking close to home.”

  I grunt into a bite of ice cream and stare out the back window.

  Nothing to see except the brick of the building behind this one.

  No bad dudes lurking in any corners to chase down. No spy drones whizzing around. No worries about anything evil sneaking around outside except maybe one of those sewer rats, but even the sewer rats don’t come to this zip code. They like their trash trashier than what they can get on this side of Central Park.

  “Miss the team, man,” Ogre says.

  Now would be a good time to tell him I’m taking care of Pigpen, but I don’t, because he has enough to worry about. “Me too.”

  But facts are facts. And fact is, the team won’t ever be what it was. When I’m off recruitment duty, I might get to go back. Might get assigned to a new team. Might find a new place to fit.

  Or I might not.

  And that’s more terrifying than my dick stirring because the door behind me just opened, and I know it’s Eloise. I can just sense her.

  That’s some weird-ass shit.

  “You need to put that crap away,” she grumbles in her throaty man-eater voice.

  I turn and tilt the carton to her.

  “I meant your ass. It’s not natural.”

  Heh. She likes my ass. If being a SEAL makes me a god, then clearly I have the ass of a god. Also, I can’t deny how much I enjoy being the object of her objectification.

  “You can touch it,” I tell her.

  “I don’t want to touch it.”

  “Lick it?”

  “No.”

  “Bite it?”

  “Who the fuck are you talking to?” Ogre asks.

  Shit. I forgot he was still on the phone.

  “Fairy flew in the window,” I tell him.

  Eloise flips me off. Ogre sighs. “Enjoy the free life, man. Catch up with you later.”

  He disconnects before I can stop him.

  “You done making small children and zoo animals cry?” I ask Eloise.

  It’s what I’d ask Parker. But Parker doesn’t have tattoos of thorny roses down her arm, and Parker doesn’t wear combat boots with ripped jeans and plaid button-downs tied around her waist.

  “Willow’s boyfriend called and now they’re making out over the phone.” She brushes past me, her shoulder hitting my bicep, and I’m almost positive she did that on purpose. What the fuck are her clothes are made out of that they can make electric sparks explode all over half my body when she touches me?

  Whatever it is, I need to find that shop.

  She opens the built-in fridge and pulls out a carrot and a jar of organic hazelnut spread.

  I ignore her weird food choices and eyeball her shirt, still wondering about that electric spark thing. Looks like a normal cotton shirt. Rolling Stones logo on it. Not bad.

  Would be better if it was my face on it.

  Everything looks better with my face.

  Or my ass, apparently.

  Maybe it was magic ink in her tattoos.

  Yep, that’s gonna be my story.

  She unscrews the lid, dips the carrot in the chocolate hazelnut butter, and I do my best not to grimace when she bites it right off the end.

  I’m not sure why, but this feels like some kind of test. I’ve eaten some weird-ass food, but not that weird.

  “That shit’s great on crickets,” I tell her.

 
“Live or dead?” she counters.

  I have this overwhelming urge to ask her to marry me, because she’s unpredictable chaos, and I haven’t had that outside a mission since I left home after high school. “Live.”

  “Amateur stuff. You should try it on live snake.”

  Now I know she’s fucking with me. I like it. “You could try it on my snake.”

  “Lame.”

  “That’s not what—” I stop, because she’s saying it right along with me.

  Like I’m predictable.

  She smirks.

  “Or I could lick it off your ass,” I offer.

  She yawns.

  Fuck me.

  She has a tongue stud.

  How did I not notice the tongue stud?

  The door to the basement bursts open, and Parker comes charging up. Her jaw’s already expanding like Ma’s, ready to chew me out for something.

  I dip my spoon back in the ice cream and take another bite.

  Eloise dips her carrot back in the hazelnut spread and crunches down.

  Parker stops mid-screech without actually forming a real word. “Are you two—did you—are you—”

  We both just stare at her.

  While I eat more ice cream and Eloise double-dips in someone else’s hazelnut spread again.

  With a carrot.

  She’s so fucking weird, but also really fucking magnetic.

  That’s the only way to explain why I’m enjoying watching her eat chocolate hazelnut spread on a carrot.

  It’s also a safer explanation than her crazy is beckoning my soul.

  I drop my spoon and the ice cream on the counter. “I’m going to get more Twizzlers,” I announce. “See you later.”

  “Fucker,” Eloise mutters.

  That’s right.

  I know she likes Twizzlers. And she left hers downstairs with the giant head on the wall and the couples making out and having phone sex.

  Fine, maybe Willow’s not having phone sex. But she could be.

  “Willow’s off the phone,” Parker says to Eloise.

  Dude. If it was my phone sex, it would’ve lasted a lot longer.

  Parker gives me a weird look, like she knows what I was thinking, before turning back to Eloise. “Up for a few more songs?”

  “Yeah, I need to bang something.”

  She brushes her shoulder against my arm again, more electric sparks dance as far up as my neck, and I grunt to myself.

  I’d bang her again, if only to see what else she’d say while I had my cock up her pussy. And also to hopefully get off myself this time.

  But it’s apparently going to take more than Twizzlers to get me there.

  7

  Eloise

  This time, I’m prepared for the shadowy figure lurking by my Hummer after band practice. I whip out my can of hairspray and point it at him.

  What? It takes a lot of shit to make my hair stand up like this. I always carry hairspray.

  And that stuff is killer in your eyes.

  “Aqua Net?” he says. “What is that, like organic pepper spray?”

  “It’s truth serum. It’ll tell me who you’re working for.”

  He holds his hands up. “Okay, I’m gonna level with you here. I’m basically working for my dick. It likes you.”

  “We’re past dick jokes if you know what my car looks like.”

  “This isn’t a car. This is a tank. A wimpy tank, but still a tank.”

  “If you’re looking for your Twizzlers back, you can’t have them. I ate them and put the rest in places I won’t let you go digging.”

  He grins.

  Fucking adorable grin. He gets the Ass of Glory, height, muscles, magic rain repellant—seriously, how am I getting soaked in this cold-ass drizzle and he looks fresh as a daisy?—and an adorable grin.

  But I have brains, so there’s that.

  But my brains aren’t yet working to tell me to get away from him.

  I caught at book club that he was here for two years or so, but tonight, Parker let it slip that this assignment is because of something that went wrong. She called him a lost puppy, if the puppy was a horndog puppy who wasn’t allowed to go places with real dishes and who sometimes pooped in the closet just to make a point.

  I kinda get that.

  Also, when she realized I was listening in, she quit talking about him, so she probably knows I kinda get that, in an I’m a horndog kind of puppy who shouldn’t be allowed to go places with real dishes and who sometimes poops in the closet kind of way too.

  Metaphorically speaking.

  I actually don’t like messes.

  I’m always the one who has to clean them up, and screw that. I’ve cleaned up enough messes.

  There’s exactly one person in this world I’ll happily still clean up messes for, but beyond that, forget it.

  “Are you really in the military, or is it just a cover for some Men in Black-type operations?” I ask, because once you start talking about the aliens, only the weirdest of the weird stick around. “You heard about my neighbor, didn’t you? And you want help investigating?”

  “You don’t believe in aliens.”

  “The hell I don’t. You know how big the universe is?”

  “You don’t believe in aliens here on Earth,” he corrects.

  “I think you’re an alien.”

  “What’s your problem with those leg thingies?”

  Hello, one-eighty. “Would you wear them?”

  He snorts.

  “Exactly.”

  Now he’s shaking his head. “You know what goes really good with carrots?”

  Not hazelnut spread. That was disgusting. I should probably reconsider how I try to make points—and what those points are—when this guy’s around.

  Or maybe I should take off for South America for the winter.

  My heart—yeah, I have one—drops to my belly, because I’d actually miss one very specific part of New York if I went away for six months.

  Specifically, the one person whose messes I’ll still clean up.

  Not that he makes many messes these days when I’m around.

  “What’s good with carrots?” I ask.

  “Twizzlers.” He tosses me a pack, and I miraculously catch it. Then he turns and saunters away. “Think of my dick while you’re eating them,” he calls over his shoulder.

  Fuck.

  I’m totally going to do that.

  Six hours later, I’m cranked up on Twizzlers and Crunchy’s new brand of energy drink while I peer at the middle of my five screens in my home office.

  It’s the jackpot.

  All of Sadie McSanders/Dirk Lemonson’s bank accounts.

  Before you go getting all up in arms telling me hacking’s wrong, let me tell you a few things about Sadie/Dirk.

  “Sadie” runs a private group for women who are “finding themselves” by getting involved with the pyramid scheme to sell La-Di-Dazzle Leg Warmers.

  Yes, leg warmers.

  Willow’s right. They’re coming back.

  All because “Sadie McSanders” manipulated a few celebrity photos to make them look like they were wearing “her” designer leg warmers.

  Everyone saw the photos of Anna Kendrick and the Duchess of Sussex in “Sadie’s” leg warmers. Now “she” has a cult following of hundreds of thousands of women who spend their days spamming their friends and family with requests to vote for their designs so “Sadie” will pick it as the next featured leg warmer design and they can get their name on a plaque at La-Di-Dazzle headquarters.

  No, really.

  “Sadie” sends you a picture of “her” with it and everything. If your leg warmer design is the most popular.

  And that’s all the payment women get for submitting designs that “Sadie” takes and sells using sweatshops for labor.

  Consultants get five percent for sales. Top tier consultants—you know, the ones who have signed up their great aunts and their distant cousins and all the other moms in the PTA to sell
leg warmers?—get up to fifteen percent.

  “Sadie” takes the rest.

  And “she” uses it to go on world trips to donate profits to African orphanages. So every time you buy a pair of La-Di-Dazzle leg warmers, you’re saving the world!

  Except you’re not, because Dirk Lemonson has actually been manipulating a dozen or so stock photos of one woman to make it look like she’s in a “headquarters” with a plaque and visiting starving orphans in Africa.

  And that’s not even the worst part.

  The worst part is his private chat forum where “Sadie” encourages women to talk about their marital struggles and their body image issues and their emotional scars.

  And then “Sadie” pretends to be their best friend.

  All while selling more cheap leg warmers that weren’t even his creations and suggesting they invest in life coaching classes offered by—you guessed it—her friend Dirk Lemonson.

  It’s not right.

  And I’m sick of assholes who prey on people’s insecurities on the internet.

  So I’m doing what I do best.

  I’m fixing the problem my way.

  Three clicks, and Dirk Lemonson makes a huge donation to a legit charity funding vaccines for kids in third-world orphanages.

  Another three clicks, and Dirk Lemonson funds a charity that supplies feminine hygiene products to women’s shelters all over the eastern seaboard.

  And with the next three clicks, Dirk Lemonson makes sure that the arts are funded for grade school children in the entire state of Nebraska for the next five years.

  There’s money to libraries. Money to homeless shelters and food banks.

  Money to children’s hospitals.

  Click, click, click.

  All filtered through a series of networks I set up so that people just as fake as Sadie McSanders get credit for the donations.

  And then, just for shits and giggles, I hack into the real “Sadie McSanders” account in the private La-Di-Dazzle chat group.

  The private message inbox is full of messages from women.

  Donna Farwell: Sadie, you have completely changed my life. I wish my husband understood me and supported me as much as you do. He just doesn’t get it.