The Hero and the Hacktivist

by Pippa Grant

  What I don’t know is why.

  I also don’t know what the cops have found inside. I can’t hear them, and they’re facing the wrong way to read their lips. I pocket my phone and join the scattered morning crowd walking past them.

  They’re chatting about how much hell they caught from their wives for their phones dying yesterday.

  Of course.

  Nothing useful.

  I circle the block, debating which building I could climb to get a better view into Eloise’s apartment and watching for anyone else who seems to be checking out the building. There’s a dumpster still squawking a fading confession to sending dick pics, and at least three shattered smartphones along the block.

  Nothing else feels out of place.

  I head over to her third apartment on foot. My phone’s still blowing up with texts, but they’re interrupted by a phone call.

  Ogre’s calling. “You have Pigpen.”

  “Somebody needed to grab him.”

  “Fu—udge, dude. You couldn’t just say so?”

  “He’s not talking.”

  “He’s texting now. You got trouble?”

  “No.” I sidestep a group of tourists puzzling over a map and ignore the rumble in my stomach at the scent of coffee and donuts spilling out from a bakery. If Pigpen’s reaching out to anyone, that’s a good sign.

  “Don’t pull this lone wolf shi—stuff. We’re a team.”

  “Priorities. You’ve got your daughter.”

  “Doesn’t make me fucking useless. Fudging. Freaking. Shit.”

  “Teach her the good words, dumbass. Words are words.”

  “Not when you have a four-year-old heading to preschool soon. Her teachers are gonna shit a brick.”

  There are so many extra layers of tension in his voice, it’s like he baked himself a stress cake as tall as those rainbow cakes on Pinterest.

  Yeah, I look at cakes on Pinterest. Suck my dick. I like cake.

  “Everything okay, dude?” I ask.

  “Fine.”

  “It’s not fucking fine.”

  “Shit happens, life changes. Sometimes it sucks, even when it’s awesome.”

  Pretty sure that translates to Love my kid, miss the team.

  Fucker’s lucky he’s got his kid.

  “So what are you into? What do you need?” he asks.

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “You’re keeping a woman in your shithole apartment because you don’t know yet?”

  “You’re squatting in a house that might not be yours. Can’t talk, asshole.”

  “Getting that worked out. Back to your woman…”

  “She’s not talking.” About her problem. Much. But everything else… And it should be annoying, all that jabbering.

  But every time she opens her mouth, chaos spills out, and I get a boner.

  “You need anything, you know where we’re at. All of us.”

  I reach the corner a block down from Eloise’s third apartment—the one I found her at yesterday—and pause.

  There’s shit going down here.

  It’s subtle shit, but it’s shit. There’s a moving van parked out front, which isn’t unusual. What’s unusual is everything else. The dudes are in suit pants. They’re not carrying boxes. They’re carrying bags. White lumpy trash bags with cords hanging out.

  “I gotta go,” I tell Ogre. “Call you back later.”

  I hang up and cross the street with a small crowd, earbuds still in, head bopping like I’m listening to music. I snap pictures of the dudes moving stuff without them noticing me, because that’s what I do.

  And then I text Ogre the pictures, along with a request.

  Because sometimes, I do need help. And because I had a team once, I know exactly who I can trust.

  21

  Eloise

  So this is what dying feels like.

  I’m lying on the floor of a gym, panting and gasping, and not in the good way. My arms are overcooked rigatoni, because having spaghetti arms is boring. My legs are applesauce. And my stomach is a ball of pain.

  “C’mon, wimp,” Tight Baseball Pants says. He’s leering over me, sucking water out of a squeeze bottle and mocking my pain with a smirk. “Two more sets. Want me to dangle a cookie?”

  I can’t even flip him off, because my fingers are limp ribbons, like that curly shit that you tie around Christmas presents, except I can never get my ribbons to curl, so they always just look like impotent joy. Which is the opposite of joy in ribbon form.

  Pigpen looms behind him. He rolls his eyes at me, then signs something quickly.

  It’s your own damn fault, egomaniac.

  I mentally flip him off, and I feel much better.

  “What the fuck?” says an irritated voice that sends shivers down my spine.

  “Hey, loverboy,” Brooks says. He’s really annoying. “You have fun looking for flowers for your little lady?”

  I want to bite his ankles. I really do.

  Rhett punches him in the arm. “I told you I didn’t need you stopping by today.”

  Brooks just grins. “You told us you had a secret. I wanted to know what it was. Parker’s gonna kill you, by the way.”

  All three of them look down at me. I think. My eyes are gliding shut, because this is a very comfortable mat to die on.

  “What the hell did you make her do?” Rhett demands.

  “We didn’t make her do anything. Have you met her? I was like, here, start with ten pounds, and she piled on double her body weight.”

  There’s a moment of silence, probably while all three of them contemplate how much truth there is in that statement—hint: a lot—followed by someone hefting me into his arms.

  Apparently I didn’t kill my sniffer or my cooch, because just the scent of Rhett gets my lady engine purring.

  “You’re a fucking nutcase,” he mutters to me with a heavy dose of affection and adoration ringing through his voice.

  Or maybe that’s a trick of impending death soothing my conscience and making me think I’m still attractive to him.

  I let my head loll against his hard chest, listen to the steady thump of his heart, and something more than my lady engine starts purring.

  Something that might be tied to emotions. The icky, scary kind of emotions that come with connections and expectations and hopes.

  “At least you can’t leave now,” he adds gruffly, and I swear his grip tightens around me.

  I’ve been on my own for years, and I’ve always thought Davey would be the only person who’d ever miss me if I disappeared.

  Rhett’s making me feel like I’m wrong.

  And I don’t know exactly how to process that, so I don’t.

  But I do let myself relax in his arms while he carries me out of the gym, down two buildings, and up to his apartment.

  Where all hell breaks loose.

  “I knew it! You liar!” I feel something flapping in the breeze, and I pry one eyelid open enough to see Parker beating Rhett on the arm with a unicorn purse. “What did you do to her? What the fuck did you do to Eloise?”

  “Ask dipshit over there,” Rhett replies, jerking his head somewhere and making my body jiggle.

  His pulse is steady as it was when we left the gym. I’m dead weight, and he’s not even sweating.

  Maybe he really isn’t human. I should check him for spiderweb shooter things in his fingers.

  “I bet her a signed baseball she couldn’t lift more than me,” Tight Baseball Pants says.

  Parker starts shrieking again, and Rhett dumps me on the couch. Prince Snufflesaurus leaps gracefully onto my stomach, which makes me gurgle and jerk, and then the room spins.

  “How much did she lift?” Rhett growls.

  “Fifteen pounds,” Brooks replies. “And she squatted thirty.”

  Which is also a lie, but closer the truth, even if it felt like twice my body weight.

  I’m a computer junkie who plays in a band for fun. The heaviest thing I lift is a hot dog. Someti
mes a drumstick. And a glitter bomb that one time.

  And my cats.

  Prince Snufflesaurus kneads his little paws into my aching gut, and I grunt and gurgle again. I pry open one eye, and while Parker’s still shrieking, Rhett’s watching me.

  He’s always watching me with those fiercely focused hazel eyes, his body deceptively relaxed. Don’t tell me he wouldn’t leap like a lion across this room if he sniffed danger—or maybe a juicy steak—on the other side of that door.

  The thought of watching the show is almost enough to make me wish danger would come knocking.

  Or a steak. I probably need a steak after that workout. A steak could come knocking.

  His lips are twitching upwards like maybe he’s reading my mind and finds me funny.

  Or possibly I have a weird sweat pattern in my shirt or something.

  Parker slugs him in the arm again. It’s apparently a family thing. “Are you listening to me?”

  “No.”

  The door bursts open, and Willow barrels in. “You found her!” She throws herself at Rhett, turns to throw herself at me, but stops midway. “Oh my gosh, did you take a swim in the river? What’s that smell?”

  “I’m a sexy beast,” I manage to croak out.

  Hell, even my vocal cords are exhausted.

  “I swear to God, if you’re screwing Eloise, I’m going to twist your nuts off and shove them up your nose,” Parker hisses at Rhett.

  “Whoa,” Brooks mutters. “That’s hardcore.”

  “She spent a lot of time with Zeus Berger’s wife last year,” Knox tells him, which actually does explain a lot. Zeus’s wife is terrifying. In the fun to hang out with kind of way.

  Also, I didn’t realize Knox was here too.

  Makes sense. He’s just like all of my friends’ male counterparts. He likes it when his woman gets riled up.

  “I don’t know what your problem is with Eloise, but back the fuck off,” Rhett growls.

  “My problem isn’t with Eloise, you idiot. It’s with you. You always leave. Always. And she deserves better.”

  My heart’s doing this weird thing it’s never done before.

  It’s beating. Like big, thumping, terrified, someone cares beating.

  And there’s something going on with my eyeballs too. It’s like they’re melting.

  Or possibly I’m in danger of crying, which I never do, because I’m a total badass avenging warrior who wouldn’t ever cry.

  Fine, fine.

  I’m really a big ol’ baby who likes to set expectations low so no one can let me down. I thought Parker’s objection to me dating any of her brothers was me. But her worry is that they’ll fuck it up.

  Which makes me wonder just how off-center all of her brothers are.

  Because it’s safer than wondering just how much Parker might actually love me.

  “You know what else I do?” Rhett growls at his sister.

  “Lie to me about where one of my best friends is when I’m afraid she’s in danger?”

  “I come back. I go to shitholes, I save the fucking world, and I come back.”

  “But one day you won’t.”

  “Yes, he will,” Pigpen says.

  All of us—even me—snap our heads toward him.

  He and Rhett do some kind of silent talk thing that I’m pretty sure involved each of them calling the other dumbasses, though I have no idea what’s going on there, because I was actually starting to think Rhett had done that thing he threatened me with last night and pulled Pigpen’s vocal cords out with his pinky.

  “We still worry.” Parker’s not just being stubborn. She’s got a wobble in her voice and a shine in her eyes.

  I’m intruding. This isn’t about me. It’s about them. About their family. Their history and connections.

  But I’m going to need Willow’s help if I’m going to leave them alone.

  Before I can work up the strength to make my pasta arms and applesauce legs move, Rhett jerks his head at me. “She’s the bigger concern right now.”

  “What did you do?” Willow whispers to me, as though whispering will keep everyone from hearing.

  I try to shrug, realize my shoulders have melted into slime under the weight of my workout, and so instead I just mumble, “Nothing.”

  And silently add, unusual.

  Willow scowls at me, which is actually terrifying, because Willow doesn’t scowl. She’s a preschool teacher who thinks fart is a dirty word, and until she ran away from her wedding and hooked up with Dax under some weird circumstances this summer, I’m pretty sure she’d never actually had a cross thought about anyone.

  “It was just a little thing,” I admit.

  “Clearly,” Rhett mutters.

  “It was the dick pic virus, wasn’t it?” Parker asks. I’m pretty sure she’s mentally high-fiving me.

  “No,” I reply.

  I’m still on my back on the couch with my cat trying to rearrange my overworked stomach muscles, and Willow’s right. I stink.

  She’s watching me intently, like Snow White interrogating Dopey after all her socks got dyed blue in the wash or something. “What do you need?” she asks.

  “Massage oil and about three more SEALs,” I reply.

  Now Parker’s glaring at me too. But I can’t help it. I get inappropriate when I’m nervous.

  And ninety percent of the rest of the time too.

  Rhett squats on the floor next to me and flashes his phone. “You know these dickheads?”

  “Whoa, she’s actually in trouble? Like real trouble?” Brooks asks.

  “Yes, like real trouble,” Parker sighs.

  “Shit. Why don’t you call the cops?”

  Everyone in the room gives him some variation of an are you kidding me? stare. His brows furrow, he looks at me again, and then realization seems to dawn. “Oh. Right. Did you really do that dick pic virus?”

  “Eloise?” Rhett prompts, still holding the phone.

  I tear my gaze from the ink circling his wrist to squint at the picture and shake my head.

  At least, I try to. My neck’s getting this crick in it. Probably I should’ve stopped at twenty-five pounds on the arm curl thingie. “Nope. But I don’t recognize most people with their clothes on.”

  Jeez, everyone is glowering at me today.

  “They were cleaning out your apartment,” Rhett tells me.

  Huh.

  That’s not good.

  “Did they take the lampshades?” I ask.

  He doesn’t sigh or give me any more dirty looks, which is intriguing, because I’m not used to being taken seriously. “What’s in the lampshades?”

  “Hidden cameras. Paranoia and I are besties.”

  Still, he doesn’t blink. And it was easier to admit to him that I’m paranoid than it should’ve been. But then, he’s saved my ass a couple times over, and maybe it’s the orgasm factor, but I trust him.

  Also, given my line of work, I should be paranoid. It would be more worrisome if I wasn’t.

  “If I went to your apartment right now, you’d have video of the people taking your stuff?”

  “My lampshades would.”

  He and Pigpen share a look, and Pigpen leaves the apartment.

  “Is he going to fly there too?” I ask.

  “Rhett doesn’t freaking fly,” Parker mutters.

  A gun goes off in the kitchen, and we all dive for the floor, even me. Rhett’s on his feet in seconds, dashing toward the danger and giving me an excellent view of that glorious ass, which even gunshots apparently can’t distract me from.

  Except I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a gunshot, now that the initial panic is fading and my brain is kicking in. It wasn’t loud enough. And it seemed to come from the kitchen.

  Rhett wrenches open the freezer. “Fucking fucksticks,” he mutters.

  He slams the door shut and turns a glare on me. “Why is there hairspray in my freezer?”

  I open my mouth for half a second, then close it, because if there’s ha
irspray in the freezer, that means…

  His lips thin, his eyes go wide, and he yanks open the freezer door again. “Where’s my ice cream?”

  “The leprechauns took it. They gave me an ultimatum. My virginity or your ice cream, and—”

  I stop, because he’s not reacting at all to the insane story about the leprechauns.

  Not the way normal people do, I mean. No curled-lip what the hell is wrong with you coming off him. No, he’s covering his mouth and turning away, and I’m almost positive he’s fighting a laugh.

  “What’s going on here?” Parker demands.

  “You’re a nutcase,” Rhett says again. Reverently. Like he likes it.

  Hello, warm squishy happy feelings in the ol’ cha-cha. “It’s a gift,” I tell him.

  He opens a couple cabinets, finds what he’s looking for, and throws me a towel. “Hope cleaning’s a gift too. I’m not touching your bag. And you owe me new ice cream.”

  It’s not the flippant demand for new ice cream that gets me.

  It’s the amused warmth still glimmering in his expression. Along with his immediate understanding that I put his ice cream back in my bag in the middle of the night.

  I’m a nutcase. I’m weird. I push people away. I test boundaries.

  No, check that.

  I don’t have boundaries.

  I’ve used up my entire bag of tricks to keep him at arm’s length, and yet, all evidence suggests he likes me.

  I’m not allowed to like that he likes me. I’m supposed to be plotting how to leave here, to keep myself and my friends safe from the blowback over my mistake, yet here I am, feeling like a teenage geek getting a crush on the high school quarterback.

  And wanting to stay.

  Parker grabs Rhett’s arm and pinches, and he yelps.

  “If you break her heart, I will fucking kill you,” she says.

  “Not a problem. I don’t have a heart,” I assure her.

  Willow starts to reach for me with one of those oh, honey, yes you do looks, but her nose quivers, and she takes another step back.

  Can’t say I blame her.

  I stink.

  In a whole shit-ton of ways.

  22

  Rhett