The Hero and the Hacktivist

by Pippa Grant

“Prince Snufflesaurus!” I shriek. “I can’t leave without both my cats!”

  His whole body goes tense against me, and I’m not exactly sure what planet I’m living on where a buff military guy with an ass of steel is rescuing me from a leg warmer mafia, but here we are.

  I’m unceremoniously dropped on the floor while he mutters something about cats and stalks to my bedroom.

  I get it. I’m not a cat person either. But I’m also not a let them starve kind of person, so when I trip over an emaciated cat, I feed it. And I’m a sucker for being thanked, even if it’s with headbutts and purrs and being followed home for eternity.

  Prince Snufflesaurus is hiding in my office, which I know because that’s where he’s always hiding, except he’s in the closet instead of under the desk since I tore through here unplugging everything from the servers to the pencil sharpener, which is totally unnecessary since I haven’t sharpened a pencil in at least four years and the pencil sharpener predates WiFi. I dig him out from under a precarious pile of boxes that hold a bunch of someone else’s childhood shit that I rescued from a dumpster once just in case I ever needed to give myself a new identity, which now appears to have been brilliant on my part.

  When I get to my bedroom, Rhett’s still holding Princess Sparkle Butt under one arm while he shovels my clothes into a duffel bag. The way his eyes slide toward me suggest he saw my costumes in the closet.

  What?

  I like walking around Times Square dressed as a Teletubby sometimes. People freak in both the good and bad way, and it’s fascinating to watch. It’s also fun to just bop around.

  He zips the bag and turns to me. We’re two people holding cats and having a stare-down when we should be getting the hell out of this building.

  Pretty sure I got the better end of this bargain, because he’s really fucking hot when he’s pulling that SEAL-god shit. I think he grew a few inches and his neck got thicker too. He’s so hot, my glasses are fogging up.

  Or maybe that’s my own fear-sweat creating unnatural humidity.

  Also, I hope the mob doesn’t already have cameras on me, because then I’d be putting him in danger, and that’s a serious dick move on my part.

  I need to get out of here.

  “Did you make the dick pic virus?” he asks.

  “If I answer that and it’s not what you want to hear, you might not have plausible deniability later.”

  He squeezes his eyes shut briefly before hustling me out of the bedroom.

  “Wait! I have cat carriers.” I dive for my closet and dig out the canvas cat purses I bought on one of those deal-of-the-day sites back when I went through my phase of thinking Princess and Prince and I could go to one of those cat bars that just opened in the city.

  “Are you in trouble because of the dick pic virus?” he asks.

  “What? No. That’s something else entirely.”

  I shove Prince Snufflesaurus into the first carrier. He goes easily, because he’s a good cat.

  Princess Sparkle Butt yowls and nips and tries to climb Rhett like a tree, which I totally get, except she’s not inappropriately thinking about humping him too.

  I don’t think.

  She is my cat, so you never know.

  But we finally get her in the cage, and I head for the door, which I manage to unlock in forty-eight seconds flat.

  “You wanna tell me exactly what’s going on?” Rhett asks when I bypass the elevators for the back stairwell.

  “No.”

  “Scale of one to ten, how much trouble are you in?”

  The door bangs itself shut half a floor above us, and I flinch again. “Oh, you know, just a little old thirteen.”

  I’m suddenly trapped between him and the concrete wall, his nose inches from mine, his eyes so close I can make out the ring of golden-brown around his irises and count each individual green fleck. “What did you do?”

  I gulp. I know about eighteen different ways to defend myself, but a guy who can get into my apartment from the balcony isn’t going to be easy to take down or shake off.

  “What wouldn’t you do if someone hurt Parker?” I whisper.

  His upper lip twitches like he’s trying to not react, but whatever he’d do, it wouldn’t be pretty. His attention dips to my lips, then back to my eyes, and there’s something harder in the slant of his brow. “Let’s go.”

  I let him grip my elbow while we head down the stairs, but only because I’m headed that way anyway. And possibly because I’m as independent as the next strong female hacktivist, but I’m also not totally stupid.

  Today, anyway.

  “You don’t have to help me,” I tell him, just to keep my pride. “I just let you because you startled me when you ninja-ed your way into my apartment. I’m all better now.”

  He mutters something that sounds like fucking obnoxious woman.

  He’s not wrong.

  But I won’t be his problem once we get out the door. Because I’m not taking anyone on the run with me.

  No matter how much I appreciate not being alone at the moment.

  This is my problem to deal with.

  Nobody else’s.

  14

  Rhett

  Pigpen is waiting for us at the back door when I pull Eloise, her bag, and her cats out of the building. We make eye contact, and he silently assures me he’s sober as a doorknob with one grim nod.

  A nearby dumpster has at least six phones in it squawking out electronic dick pic confessions.

  “Thanks for that thing in the stairwell,” Eloise says in that throaty voice of hers. She winks and reaches for her cat bag and clothes bag like we’re done or something. If she hears the dick pic confessions, she doesn’t let on. “I got these.”

  She yanks.

  I grip them both and watch while she flails about, unable to get her stuff from me. She’s stronger than I’d give her credit for, but then, if her muscles are half as strong as her pussy when it’s clenching around my dick or my fingers, I’m probably underestimating her.

  “Get in the car,” I tell her, jerking my head at the twenty-year-old Toyota idling in the alley.

  “I can call a cab.”

  “Lose your tank?”

  “Sold it.”

  She really is a remarkable liar. I’d believe her if I didn’t have reason not to. Said reason being my gut.

  Someone shouts down the alley, a horn honks, and she flinches back toward the building. Her cat yowls, and a phone tumbles from the sixth floor to the ground across the alley.

  “I send dick pics,” the phone voice announces.

  “Christ on a cracker,” someone swears, and a window slams shut.

  She grins.

  “Get in the fucking car,” I mutter to her.

  She sticks her nose almost as high as her hair usually points and flops toward the faded silver sedan. Pigpen gets the door for her, shoots me another look—this one clearly says you’re a dumbass for whatever you’re getting involved in, but he can’t talk—and he helps me put her clothes in the trunk. I climb into the passenger seat and twist to hand her second cat carrier back.

  She’s nibbling on a fingernail and slinking low in the seat, eyes darting between the car windows like she’s afraid someone’s going to see her.

  Pigpen’s looking at her too. He’s a big dude, couple inches taller and twenty or so pounds heavier than I am. His car’s littered with fast food bags, junk mail, and a random cafeteria-size can of pudding he’s kept in here as long as I’ve known him, so basically since SEAL training a decade or so ago.

  His gray eyes meet mine again.

  She’s up shit creek, isn’t she? he silently asks.

  Forget the creek, she’s drowning in shit lake, I silently reply.

  He doesn’t ask where we’re going, since I already told him when I texted him for the ride and told him to meet me at the address where I saw Eloise the other day.

  Probably a good thing he’s not the type to send dick pics, or we’d be taking a cab.
r />   Best of my knowledge, he’s not talking to anyone else on the team. I banged his door down when I finally found him at his sister’s house in Oklahoma just after Parker’s wedding and threatened to cut his Achilles tendons if he didn’t get his ass to New York so I could babysit him and make sure he went to his AA meetings.

  You could say he’s not talking to me either, and that would be completely accurate.

  But I don’t give two shits.

  I’m just as happy to have a silent roommate as I am to have a sober roommate.

  His military career’s over. Doesn’t mean I’ll let him throw away his life too. We’re not brothers by blood, but we’re still brothers, and I’ll walk on fucking lava across an ocean of sharks before I’ll let him self-destruct.

  I’d be there for Ogre, Rascal, and The Dooz too, if I could be in four places at once. Of the four of my best friends and teammates, though, Pigpen needs me the most.

  Eloise is silent for all of three blocks. “How’d you get onto my balcony?” she asks.

  “Flew,” I answer.

  Pigpen rolls his eyes, then lays on the horn and the brakes when a dude on a bike cuts us off. Horns sound all around us, and Eloise shrinks back in her seat again.

  “Don’t think they’ll be looking for you in a beater,” I tell her.

  Pigpen cuts me another look, like he hates when I insult his car.

  “She’s a damsel in distress, motherfucker,” I say. “Doesn’t give a shit what your car looks like.”

  Eloise kicks my seat. “I’m not a fucking damsel. I’m a badass.”

  I ignore her and text Parker, partly because I know her phone’s not infected with the dick pic virus either, and partly because texting Parker is always entertaining as hell.

  Rhett: No Eloise. Apartment’s cleared out.

  Parker: Duck a fadoodlebump.

  Rhett: She show up there yet?

  Parker: Nope-a-dope on a roodle.

  Parker: DUCK. This gobble dangle shoestick!

  Rhett: Watch your language. If you’re pregnant and the baby comes out saying Gobble Dangle, I’m showing this to Ma to prove it’s your fault.

  Parker: Duck ostrich. Where’s Elephant?

  Rhett: Probably the zoo.

  “Are you texting Parker?” Eloise demands. “I want my phone call.”

  “You’re not in prison. Should you be?” I shut my phone off. Am I lying to my sister? You’re damn right. Until I know exactly what Eloise did, there’s no way I’m involving Parker.

  “I had to leave my phone behind,” Eloise says.

  “You’ve been sending dick pics?”

  She kicks my seat again, and a weird noise makes me turn around again.

  “Fuck,” she mutters. She bends over in front of one of the cat carriers. “Hang on, Princess Sparkle Butt. We’re almost there.”

  “We’re like twenty minutes from there. At least.”

  “My cat’s car sick.”

  I grab a McDonald’s bag and pass it back to her. “Have it puke in this.”

  “Oh, sure. Here, cat. Puke in a bag. Because we practice that all the time.”

  “You’re cleaning it up if the cat misses.”

  “Nobody would notice a little cat puke back here.”

  Pigpen’s getting more silent by the minute. And if you think that’s not possible, you’ve never been around a pissed Navy SEAL.

  I look back at Eloise again. She’s going pasty, with a sheen of perspiration sneaking up under the wilting spikes on her head. I grab another bag and pass it to her.

  “Shut up,” she grumbles.

  “Sure thing, badass.”

  “I’m fine when I’m driving.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She slinks lower and closes her eyes, white-knuckling the bag.

  The cat yowls.

  The other cat hisses in response.

  Pigpen grips the steering wheel so tight the car feels like it’s being ground into the road, even when we’re in stop-and-go city traffic.

  Takes us forty-seven minutes to get to my apartment. It’s a studio in a crappy old building on the line between Manhattan and East Harlem, and it’s already crowded with me and Pigpen in it. I got it because it’s cheap and I didn’t plan on being here long if I could help it.

  Also didn’t plan on having one roommate, much less two.

  “Where are we?” Eloise asks when Pigpen kills the engine. “And who’s your bodyguard? Or is he your prison bitch? Are we about to get freaky?”

  Pigpen climbs out of the car without saying a word, wrenches open the back door, and takes both cat carriers.

  I brace myself to have to tackle him if he starts toward the Vietnamese place on the corner to offer them a sacrifice for the dinner menu. I like that place, and I’d be pissed as hell if Pigpen offends them with a cat offer and they quit serving us. But he heads to the apartment building’s front door.

  I climb out and open Eloise’s door. A businessman whose pocket is squawking that he sends dick pics hurries past us and drops the phone in the nearest trash can.

  Eloise is like an emaciated poodle wrapped in flannel, if poodles had spiked black hair, tattoos up and down their legs, a nose ring, and liked to hang out at biker bars.

  Even green at the gills, she’s hot as fuck.

  But she’s also trouble.

  “Come on, sleeping beauty.”

  “Are you going to interrogate me?” she asks without opening her eyes.

  “Fucking right I am.”

  “With whips and chains and your bodyguard watching?”

  “I prefer to set the mood by cranking up the polka and baking fish in the microwave when I’m interrogating terrorists.” I crack my knuckles, mostly because ten years of deployments is enough to make me feel like an old man some days and my knuckles need a good cracking anyway. But it has the added bonus of making her open those baby blues behind her glasses and obviously swallow a whimper.

  “Nuked fish smells like dead rat ass.”

  “Get out of the car, Eloise. You like being a sitting target?”

  She lunges out of the car, except she’s still strapped in, which means she snaps right back into the seat. I lean in and reach across her, getting a whiff of fear and chocolate chip cookies, and hit the button to release her.

  She’s holding her breath, but her pulse is fluttering in her neck. I grab her hand—such delicate bones and soft skin for someone who would fit right in at a police lineup, and I don’t mean because of the tats and piercings, I mean because of her potential criminal activity in launching a cell phone virus—and tug her out of the car.

  She sways a little, but quickly gets her footing. I grab her bag and make a quick visual check of the street for a third time—it’s subconscious, I can’t help it—before following her while she follows her cats.

  Wouldn’t know she was motion sick two minutes ago.

  She might not be the badass she pretends to be, but she’s not helpless either.

  In over her head, probably, but not helpless.

  Not that I can talk about being in over my head. Because this fascination with her is crazy, and distracting, and probably not the smartest move if my old chain of command finds out. I’m here to be squeaky clean and get my shit together so I can be reassigned to a new team and get back out on missions.

  Not so I can get involved with a woman who might be breaking international internet laws.

  This could be one hell of a mess.

  Or it could be my fast track to getting back to field work.

  Too soon to tell.

  Whatever it is, though, it’s the most fun I’ve had in the last two months.

  15

  Eloise

  They’ve taken me to a holding cell with one unmade bed, one saggy couch that looks like something not even my blind great-grandma would’ve let in her house in the eighties, a single dirty window, and a bachelor pad kitchenette that could be an homage to grocery store rotisserie chickens.

  Okay, fine.
It’s an apartment. And I’m not a snob—you should see the place Davey and I grew up in—but I don’t know what I’m doing here.

  Except most likely being safe.

  I’m totally good with being safe.

  “Are you going to tie me to a chair and blindfold me while you touch me inappropriately and ask me leading questions?” I ask Rhett, who doesn’t blink at the question.

  “No, you’d enjoy that too much.”

  Maybe I’m getting predictable.

  Or maybe I should just say thank you.

  I take a seat on the couch and unzip Princess Sparkle Butt’s carrier, because no one tells me not to. There’s no obvious cat puke, which is a relief, because have you ever tried to give a cat a bath? “Does your bodyguard have a name?”

  The silent one who carried my cats inside gives Rhett another inscrutable look before locking himself in the bathroom.

  It’s a loud lock. They probably heard it three floors down.

  Also, from the looks of him, he could probably climb a small building too. Or possibly a large building. He’s furrier in the face, like he hasn’t shaved in a couple weeks, and his hair is too long to be within military regulations, but it might’ve been recently. There’s this mysterious haunted air about him that makes me wonder if he had his tongue cut out in some horrific SEAL accident.

  Except I saw his tongue when he dug into a carton of yogurt right after we walked in the door, and he’s not really haunted. I’m making that up because it sounds better than has a case of stick-up-the-butt-itis.

  Rhett’s not answering either.

  “Oh, I get it. This is silent treatment time until I spill my guts. Sorry, SEAL boy, not gonna happen. My guts are locked up tight. You’re going to have to lick the truth out of me.”

  His pupils dilate a fraction of a hair, but he seems to get a quick grip on his involuntary response to the idea of licking me.

  Damn.

  Because I’m not opposed to licking.

  “Is this your place or his? Or are you secretly working a side job for the mafia and you’re going to murder me and my cats while I’m not looking?”

  “You fucked over the mafia.”

  Not a question. A statement.