The Hero and the Hacktivist

by Pippa Grant

  “What fears?”

  “That I’ll outshine everyone else on the team and they’ll hate me,” I lie.

  He folds his arms on the table and waits.

  And because he’s put his neck out for me, and because he keeps coming back, and because it would probably be safer for both of us for him to know the truth, it worms its way out of my mouth, and I don’t try to stop it. “I’m afraid the people I love will leave me like my parents did.”

  “Your mom died?”

  “I was seventeen and she was gone. She didn’t even tell us she was sick, and then she was gone.”

  He doesn’t tell me he’s sorry or hug me. He also doesn’t tell me I’m wrong to feel abandoned.

  “I know it’s illogical, but I can’t help how I feel.”

  “One of my teammates almost died on our last operation.” His voice is low, but not low enough to mask the fact that he, too, has feelings. “Navy disbanded us. I don’t have a team anymore. Not like it was. Nothing’s ever going to be like it was. But that doesn’t mean I give up. It means I do better next time. I try harder. And you can too.”

  “Yeah, but you’re a fucking superhero.”

  “You’re a fucking superhero too.”

  “No, I’m not.” I’m afraid I’ll let down the people I love by not being good enough.

  I’m afraid one day, someone will look past my hair and my tats and my nose ring and my sixth toe and realize I’m boring and insignificant. That I only know how to cook four meals. That I’m actually not that great of a drummer. That I work online because I don’t have the right genetic makeup to work with real humans.

  If Rhett’s eyes get any more intense, either they’re going to explode or the metal in all my piercings will overheat. “You have it in you to be a team player.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He smirks. “Not with that attitude.”

  I flip him off.

  “Eloise.” He shoves out of his chair, and even though I know what’s coming, I don’t try to resist. Because the terrifying truth is, I like when he touches me.

  And when he kisses me. And when he bangs me.

  And when he hugs me, like he’s doing now. He cradles my head to his steadily thumping heart, and if I wasn’t already in danger of melting, I am now. “You can spend your life being scared and alone, or you can take a chance on trusting people who want the same things you want.”

  “Maybe I don’t know what I want.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  I try to block out the flashes of things I want, but the low rumble in his chest is overriding my mental veto.

  My friends are all in love, and I don’t know how much longer we’ll keep the band going before they all start having babies or getting too wrapped up in their new extended families. My brother’s in a good spot to take care of himself. And I’m still the same.

  Except for the first time since I followed Willow home from the Laundromat five years ago after she started chatting me up about needing a drummer to start a band, I’ve made new friends.

  A specific new friend.

  He came into my life through another friend, but he’s mine.

  Temporarily.

  That damn t-word is making my heart bleed.

  Rhett’s funny. He’s smart. He’s loyal.

  He’s as much of a real-life superhero as I try to be in cyberspace.

  And he gets me.

  All the way from my roots to my toes. No judgment. Just acceptance and affection. And attraction.

  Triple-sized. Just like his wonder schlong.

  “What do you want?” I ask him.

  His arms tighten, and for a split second, I think he’s going to say you.

  But he doesn’t.

  “I don’t know.”

  “No wonder we get along so well.” We’re both liars.

  “I also want you to stay here.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  His sigh is half-growl, but his ding-a-ling presses against my belly, and I seriously dig that being frustrated with me turns him on.

  I’m really good at frustrating people.

  “I told you, I got us into this trouble, I’ll be there to get us out.”

  “What trouble?” a new voice asks.

  Rhett’s arms go tighter, but only for a millisecond before he releases me to cross to a short, chubby dude who looks like—

  Who looks like he’s made of coffee, donuts, and parking tickets.

  I grab onto the nearest chair, because I might not always have good instincts, but I’m going lightheaded, because my instincts are screaming that Rhett’s betraying me.

  He’s turning me over to the cops.

  “More book research gone wrong?” the cop says dryly.

  “Something like that. Your kid ever face internet bullies?”

  There’s no way I can outrun them for long, but if I can get to the far door before they realize I’ve moved, I can probably get to the middle sleeping pod and climb into the duct system before they can catch me.

  If my cracking heart will keep working.

  Pigpen steps right up behind me. “Gotta have faith,” he says.

  The cop’s looking between me and Rhett.

  “You have ten minutes before the lawyers get here,” Rhett adds.

  “We having an orgy?” I pump my hips and glare at him, because as the lightheadedness leaves, the anger is rolling in like a hurricane. “I love soulless bastards.”

  The Ass is back in the Ass of Glory. His expression is hard as flint. “Her apartments were robbed,” he tells the cops.

  “And you know her because…?”

  “She’s my sister’s friend.”

  His sister’s friend? My temper ignites. “The fuck that’s all I—”

  Pigpen clamps a hand over my mouth. “You’ll be fine if you keep your mouth shut,” he mutters to me.

  I shove him away. “I’d be fine if you hadn’t called the cops.”

  “Eloise,” Rhett says quietly.

  “No. You don’t get to talk to me.” I can’t even work up any sass to hide behind, because he called the fucking cops.

  “This is too big—”

  “The fuck it is. I’ll solve it myself.”

  “What happens to Dave if you fail? What happens to your brother if you die?”

  “Please. I’m not going to die. I’m too fabulous.” My voice wobbles.

  He arches a brow, and I swear he’s gotten wrinkles around his eyes that weren’t there three days ago.

  Because of me.

  “If you can’t promise to keep her safe, all of us are disappearing,” Rhett tells the cop.

  As if that’s going to make it any better.

  I can’t spend my life on the run.

  What would I tell Davey?

  How would I tell Davey?

  And what if me disappearing wasn’t enough to keep him safe?

  Which means I honestly only have one option left.

  “Screw that,” I sneer at Rhett before turning to the cop. “Grab an ice cream cone. What do you want to know?”

  I wait for Rhett to tell me to shut up again.

  He doesn’t.

  Instead, he cocks a head at Pigpen, who nods, and the two of them head for the door.

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” I screech.

  I’m screeching.

  I’m a jilted lover who’s screeching.

  My head hurts. My heart hurts. Swear on my motherboard, my soul hurts.

  “Gotta save the world,” he says.

  The cop doesn’t try to stop them.

  But then, they’re not the bad guys, are they?

  I am, apparently.

  32

  Eloise

  Rhett’s barely gone before Sia and Chase burst into the kitchen with three new people in tow behind them. “Do not say another word,” Sia orders me. She spins on the cop. “I want to see your badge. Now.”

  I’m so mad I peed myself a little, and there’s a
reasonable possibility I might cry.

  I look fucking amazing in orange, but that doesn’t mean I want to wear it jumpsuit-style for the next fifty years.

  Sia bends over the cop’s badge and inspects it, then gestures to the three people—two men and a woman—behind her. “Eloise, meet your new legal team. They take care of my brothers when they’re misunderstood too.”

  The door flings open, and Parker and Willow rush in as well. “Eloise! Oh my gosh, what’s going on? What happened now? Did they arrest you? Dax is calling his attorney. We’ll get this all cleared up.” Willow gets to me first, and as soon as she grabs me in a fierce hug, I want to curl up in a ball and cry.

  Which I won’t do, because appearances, but I want to.

  Plus, I already cried once in the last twenty-four hours.

  I’m not doing it again.

  “Are you okay?” Parker asks, but I look at her, and I see Rhett’s eyes, and I have to look away.

  He called the cops.

  He called the fucking cops.

  So much for him understanding why I do what I do. So much for making me think we were on the same team.

  So much for thinking we were connecting.

  That we had something special.

  That he got me.

  “Whatever happened, whatever they WRONGLY THINK YOU DID,” Sia says with a glare, “we’re not letting this guy take you anywhere.”

  “Eloise?” Parker says quietly.

  Dammit. I can even hear him in her voice. It’s a tone or something.

  “I love you guys,” I whisper around the frog in my throat.

  Sia and Parker pile on the hug train, and now I’m being smothered, and the only thing that could make it better was if Davey was here too, but I’m not interrupting his sleep just because I’m a dumbass who trusted the wrong person.

  “Ladies, I hate to break up the hug fest, but I need a few answers,” the cop says.

  “Do not say a single word,” Sia breathes.

  “Except to us,” the female lawyer says. She also glares at the cop. “In private.”

  “My office,” Sia declares. She lowers her voice and leans into Parker. “We are glitter bombing the shit out of your brother.”

  “That might be too good for him,” Parker replies.

  I want to agree, but I can’t.

  Give me another minute, and I will, but I’m not quite there yet.

  I’m still too much in shock.

  And that’s before it hits me that Rhett and Pigpen are headed out, alone, to take out Dirk Lemonson. “Parker?” I croak out.

  She meets my gaze and her hazel eyes flare wide. “Oh, shit,” she mutters.

  Because she knows him too.

  She knows what he’ll do.

  And it doesn’t matter how much I hate him right now, I care more that he doesn’t die.

  Especially because of me.

  Parker darts for the door.

  “I’ll talk,” I blurt. “I’ll tell you everything, just promise me you’ll stop Rhett from getting hurt.”

  “Ms. Jayne,” the older of the two lawyer men says, “perhaps we should—”

  “Now,” I shriek. “You have to stop them now.”

  And then, because I can’t live with myself if I think Rhett’s in danger for one second longer, I spill my guts.

  All of my guts.

  Despite my lawyers’ warnings.

  Despite the cop’s offer to wait until we can get a deal with some prosecutor whatever-blah-blah.

  Because Rhett might be putting himself in danger.

  And I’d rather live my life rocking an orange jumpsuit than let him go down in flames for me.

  No matter how much I hate him for betraying me.

  33

  Eloise

  Three days later, I’m doing what I intend to do with every day for the rest of my life.

  I’m lying on a bed in Sia and Chase’s seven-story brownstone, three floors below their bedroom so I can’t hear the animal noises they make when they have sex, contemplating the meaning of life when there’s no sense in using a computer—my lawyers have basically threatened to put me in jail themselves if I so much as touch a keyboard—and my friends keep whispering around me like I’m a wet paper doll headed to a shredder, and even Davey is disgusted with me for getting caught.

  I don’t know what you did, but now I have to tell my boss my sister is a jailbird.

  To be fair, I didn’t spend a single minute in jail.

  But I’m still facing charges.

  And Dirk Lemonson is still at large.

  At large.

  It sounds so ominous.

  I should’ve been at large, but I’m not a badass at all, and I didn’t even try to hide in the ductwork at Crunchy.

  Someone bangs on the door. “C’mon, Eloise,” Sia calls. “We’re having book club here. Knox’s Nana wants to know about your prison tattoo. She’s jealous.”

  I roll over and look at the clock.

  11:32. Almost midnight.

  “What the hell’s she doing up this late?” I mutter.

  “We all went to the game. Zeus and Ares are pissed that you missed it.”

  Oh. Right. Sia’s brothers’ hockey team was in town from southern Virginia to play New York tonight.

  “They are not,” I call back.

  The door shakes, rattles, and then flies off its hinges. “Yes, we are,” Zeus Berger himself informs me.

  He’s six-nine if he’s an inch, and his official hockey stats list him at three-fifty, with short dark hair, a neck thicker than my stubborn streak, and a superhuman ability to resist all of my horrible pick-up lines.

  He’s also basically a teddy bear, but not as much of a teddy bear as his identical twin, Ares, who’s standing behind him, studying me like he can make a diagnosis of what’s wrong no matter how many hits he’s taken to the head.

  I’ve made inappropriate passes at both of them nearly every time I’ve seen them since I found out they were Sia’s brothers, and they still put up with me.

  The two giants are in matching Copper Valley Thrusters T-shirts—it’s the first time they’ve played on the same hockey team since they went pro after college—and they march into the swanky-ass, interior designer-decorated guest room and grab me. Zeus gets my ankles, Ares gets my wrists.

  “It’s book club time,” Zeus informs me. “Nobody misses book club.”

  Ares grunts his agreement.

  He’d probably get along well with Pigpen.

  And now I’m thinking about the Ass of Betrayal.

  I refuse to call him the Ass of Glory anymore. In fact, I’m trying to not think of him at all, because the only thing thinking about him does is make me hurt.

  Right in my heart.

  That little organ that’s supposed to know better than to get attached.

  The Berger twins carry me down two flights of stairs to the living room, which is overflowing with people.

  Book club is usually the four of us girls, plus Chase, sometimes Dax, always Knox and his Nana, and whichever of everyone’s brothers read the book and wants to come, or who just want the food.

  Tonight, it’s half the Thrusters’ hockey team.

  “Make way,” Zeus hollers, and a path opens up between us and the couch, where they dump my limp body.

  “Somebody needs unicorn poop!” Knox’s Nana declares, and suddenly, there’s a plate of rainbow-colored sweet Chex mix on my stomach. “Beer pong too?” Nana asks me.

  I make a face that’s probably not even attractive on my dream pirate lover, who has more abs and thicker biceps and more tattoos and the face of an ass when I try to get myself in the mood since moving in here.

  And I tell myself it’s just because I’m mad, except it’s more than that.

  It’s that I’m scared.

  Parker hasn’t heard from Rhett since he left Crunchy Wednesday night.

  It’s Saturday.

  No one knows where he is.

  My legal team can�
�t even get it out of the cops if they know where he is. Parker hasn’t heard from him. Their parents haven’t heard from him. Her brothers swear they haven’t heard from him either.

  Not even Brooks, who’s been way less funny and way more wrinkly-foreheaded since Wednesday night.

  “Let’s get started,” Knox calls over the noise. “I’ve been waiting for this Lucy Score book since Pretend You’re Mine. Anyone else?”

  “Dude, you were serious about reading that book?” the goalie for the Thrusters says to Zeus.

  “Fuck, yeah,” Zeus says.

  Ares grunts and nods.

  “This isn’t just another party?” another player mutters.

  “Book club is quite serious,” Willow’s stepbrother, who’s also on the team, informs him with so much mischief packed into his grin, the police should investigate him just because.

  “Finally Mine is my new favorite,” Sia declares.

  A few of the hockey players shift uncomfortably.

  I’d laugh, if I remembered how.

  Zeus pulls up his phone. “I’m gifting every last one of you mother puckers a copy,” he informs the room at large, “because you all need romance lessons.”

  “Seriously? None of you read it?” Knox asks.

  “We’re here for the beer and chicks,” one guy yells.

  “You followed three married guys,” Zeus replies. “Your mistake. And I read it and fucking loved it.”

  “Is that why you were crying on the bus?”

  “Yeah. Also, suck my dick.”

  The voices swell up again, laughter and jeering. I miss my computers. And my apartments. And my freedom, since I’ve agreed to not leave town until this Dirk Lemonson mess is cleared up.

  I eyeball the stairwell.

  Ares Berger eyeballs me like he knows what I’m thinking about.

  I’m pretty sure he’s way smarter than he lets on. Especially considering he’s married to some genius ventriloquist. And I mean genius in more ways than just the tricks she can do with her mouth.

  And now I’m thinking about Ares Berger getting some, and me not getting any, ever again, for the rest of my life, and I wonder if that synagogue across the street from my favorite apartment needs any nuns.

  Probably not.

  Maybe they’d take a celibate hacker anyway.