ReBoot (MAC Security Series Book 4)

by Abigail Davies

How the hell can watching someone eat be so sexy? First bare feet and now eating? What the hell is wrong with me?

  I’m inside my own head when we finish eating, not realizing that all the food is gone until his hand grips my knee, bringing my attention back to him.

  “Hey,” he says, placing the bag on the floor. “You’ve been quiet.”

  “Sorry,” I answer automatically. “I guess I’m… nervous?”

  “You know you’re safe here, right?”

  “Of course.” I cringe at the sound of my own voice, giving him a sad smile before he stands up and holds his hand out to me.

  I frown at it before looking back up at him, trying to see what he’s saying in his eyes. “I want to show you something.”

  “O-okay.”

  “I want you to know me: to know who I am and what I do.”

  I place my hand in his, letting him help me up before he stands in the middle of the room and crouches down. I tilt my head to the side when he hovers his hand above the wooden floor before he looks back up at me.

  “I’ve never shown anyone this… Not even the guys here.”

  “Then why—”

  “Because I want to share something with you. I want us to be open with each other. No secrets.” He mimics what I said at the end of our first date, his eyes shining and his lips lifted into a soft smile.

  He places his hand on the floor and a couple of seconds later, something clicks and then a part of the floor is moving, exposing a steel panel that starts moving in the opposite direction.

  “I know that you’re aware I work with computers here.” I nod in reply. “But I do so much more than that. The car I drive? I built it, making my own gadgets to put inside and outside. It’s what I do. I adapt things, I make things.”

  “What kind of things?” I ask, completely captivated by what he’s saying.

  “The kind of things that you can’t buy from the store. Listening devices, weapons, specialized gadgets for gaining footage… everything you could possibly think of that helps on our jobs.”

  He dips his leg inside the hole that is now in his floor, lights switching on as he leads me down the stairs.

  My eyes widen when the door closes above me and I gasp, causing Evan to give my hand a light squeeze.

  My gaze flits around when we make it to the bottom, seeing all of the weapons that line the walls and the computer that sits at the end of the room.

  I was wrong. This isn’t a small place, this is huge, maybe three times the size of the cabin above us.

  “What is this place?” I ask, slowly letting go of his hand as I walk toward what looks like a huge gun, but not really a gun, at least, not any that I have seen before.

  My hand reaches out, brushing along the black metal casing before feeling him come up behind me, his chest against my back.

  “RPG,” he whispers, encasing my hand with his as he pulls it across the circular metal. “Rocket-propelled grenade. You hold it over your shoulder and aim… then it does exactly what it says on the tin: launches rockets.” His breath skates across my neck, making me shiver as his hand guides mine over the handle and to the end. “This is where the rocket comes out.” His voice is so smooth, you wouldn’t think he was talking about a weapon.

  “Have you ever used one?” I ask, my voice a mere whisper as he steps impossibly closer, his other hand curving around my waist and splaying across my stomach.

  “I have.”

  I close my eyes as his hand grips me tighter, pulling my back even more into his chest as his other hand still encasing mine on the rocket launcher lets go. He twirls me around, my chest heaving and hitting off his bare chest as I stare up at him. A fire burns behind his eyes making the gold flecks that much more golden.

  “I’ve never brought anyone down here. It’s my safe place.”

  I can hear his meaning loud and clear: I’m different, at least to him I am anyway.

  He’s shared a piece of himself with me; not because I asked or because I wanted him to, but because he wanted to.

  I let my hand float up and over his arm, resting it on his shoulder as I close my eyes, preparing to share something with him too.

  Watching as the expression on her face turns from relaxed to apprehensive has my stomach lurching. Her eyelashes flutter on the top of her cheeks before they open, her hazel eyes connecting with mine, showing me all of the pain that she’s feeling.

  “You know I went to prison,” she whispers. “I know I deserved it…”

  I pull away from her, pushing my hand through my hair as I look down at the floor. This is where I have to tell her that I know exactly what she did: that she didn’t deserve to go to prison or be tried as an adult.

  Who the hell does that? Tries a fifteen-year-old girl as an adult?

  “You didn’t,” I say, my voice coming out gruff. I lift my head, my gaze clashing with hers. “I know what you did: you didn’t deserve the punishment.”

  She shakes her head, her eyes misting over with the threat of tears as her bottom lip wobbles.

  “My gran… she needed them.” Her voice is so small, her shoulders coming down as she tries to become as small as she can.

  I hate it; I hate how hard she’s being on herself.

  I take two giant leaps for steps and wrap my arms around her, pulling her head against my chest before I plant a soft kiss on her temple.

  “She needed the pills.” She hiccups a sob, clutching onto my back, her nails digging into the tensed muscle. “She hadn’t been able to walk for a week, and they wouldn’t give them to her because she was so far behind on all of her payments.”

  She lifts her head up, showing me the tracks that are running down her face from the tears that have escaped. Lifting my hand to cup her cheek, I let my thumb swipe them away. “I know, baby.”

  “You don’t.” She shakes her head emphatically, pulling away and running up the stairs where the steel and wood move aside, allowing her to get back into my cabin.

  “Lex!” I follow her up, watching as she makes a beeline for the door.

  “I shouldn’t have come.” Her hand clutches the door handle, ready to pull it open but I don’t let her. I smash my front into her back, pinning her to the door.

  “Don’t you dare,” I murmur, my hands clutching onto her hips. “Don’t you dare fucking walk away from me.”

  Her breaths stutter, her back moving against my chest as she tries to catch her breath.

  “You deserve better,” she says, her voice holding no conviction whatsoever.

  “No.” I grit my teeth, spinning her around before I move my face closer to hers. “I don’t give a fuck what I deserve, what I want is you.” I pause a beat. “All of you, not the part you allow others to see, but the parts you keep locked away.”

  Her eyes flit between mine, looking for the truth. Yeah, baby. You won’t find a single lie in these eyes.

  The sound of the wind wraps around the cabin, the trees moving and making their own melody. But inside, all that there is is silence as we stare at each other, neither one of us willing to talk first.

  “Okay,” she whispers, her eyes flicking back to the sofa briefly.

  I see her meaning and pull back, waving my arm before she steps forward, sitting down and clutching her hands in her lap.

  She closes her eyes, lines forming around them as she squeezes them tightly. “I went there with good intentions. They weren’t going to hand over the medication without money, so I thought if I maybe begged them, even if it was just for one script, that they would feel sorry for me. I could hear her crying at night in pain, and the night before was worse than all of the others.” She shakes her head, opening her eyes but not looking at me. “Her son, my uncle, wouldn’t help; he wouldn't give her any money.” She pauses. “He was her power of attorney and yet he did nothing.”

  I reach my hand out, taking her small one in mine as I silently encourage her to continue.

  “When I got there, I didn’t mean for it to escalate the way tha
t it did. I had a bat with me…” She looks up at me. “But only because I was going to softball practice, I wasn’t going to do anything. I swear, Evan, I wasn’t.”

  “I believe you,” I reassure her, my heart breaking at the devastated look in her eyes.

  “He wouldn’t give them to me: the pharmacist. He said that he was told not to give her a single tablet until she paid her bill. I didn’t know what to do.” Her chest heaves. “I started to scream at him, the bat in my hands waving about the place.” Her hand flutters up to her throat. “I screamed so loud at him that my throat burned. But it didn’t matter anyway, because he must have seen something... something that he didn’t like because he threw her prescription at me as he backed away from me like I was a crazy person.”

  Her hair floats around her face as she dips her head and I move forward, taking her face in my hands and pulling her toward me as I lean back. Her head drops to my chest, her ear right over my heart as she continues, her fingers tracing an invisible pattern on my stomach.

  “I spun around and ran out of there as fast as I could, but I didn’t know that there was a worker in the back room that had called the police.” My hand smooths down her hair, whispering down to her shoulder as I pull her closer to me. “They scared me, I didn’t know… I… I don’t know why I did it, but I swung the bat.”

  I clear my throat after she’s silent for a few seconds, her breathing evening out the longer she half lies on me. I tangle my legs with hers before saying, “I don’t understand why they tried you as an adult. You should have been out before you turned eighteen at most.”

  At my words, her back straightens, the atmosphere changing as she pulls back, her face coming level with mine as her eyes turn dark and stormy.

  “My uncle… he was the DA.”

  I reel back, my eyes widening. “What—”

  “I didn’t understand why he was helping put me away for longer instead of helping me get out… at least I didn’t until he came to see me a year before I was let out.”

  She shakes her head, closing her eyes again as another tear tracks down her cheek before she lets her head drop back to my chest.

  She stays silent, not saying another word, but her body is tense. I can tell she’s thinking of the past, remembering what happened, and as much as I want to push her for more information, I decide that she’s told me enough for now.

  I feel her body relaxing again after about an hour, and when I look down at her half an hour later, I see she’s fallen asleep.

  My mind spins and my fingers itch to be able to press against the keys of my keyboard, begging me to search for information on her uncle. My eyes wander over to my computer, and as I’m about to get up, she stirs, moving her body closer to mine.

  I look down at her, my finger trailing over her forehead and down her button nose, skimming over the smattering of freckles that dot the bridge. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her, but right now, I want to bask in the feeling of her lying with me.

  I can find out more tomorrow, nothing will happen to her between then and now—not with me by her side.

  I lean back, lifting my legs up onto the sofa as I pull her fully on top of me, closing my eyes and listening as her heart thumps against mine, matching its beat and thumping as one.

  I shuffle along with the line of prisoners as we all make our way to the visiting rooms. Although this is a first for me. In the four years that I’ve been locked up, not once have I had a visitor, not unless you count the psychiatrist or the parole board.

  A sound blares before one of the officers opens a white gate with the paint peeling off it. We all file through and to the next gate where we go through the same process. We’re all searched and then allowed into the main room where all of the visitors wait.

  I come to a stop, watching as they all see their families, not able to hug or touch them but having to show with only their facial expressions and body language how much they’ve missed each other.

  My gaze lands on a man dressed in a suit, his dark-brown hair preened to perfection. I can’t stop the breath that catches in my chest at the sight of him.

  The man who should have helped me instead of putting me away.

  His lips lift up into a smirk before he stands slowly, his gaze not moving from mine as I shuffle forward.

  “Alexis.” His deep voice has me shivering—not in a good way, but in a bad way… a very bad way.

  “Uncle Aaron,” I reply, my voice low as I slowly lower down into the plastic seat at the same time as him.

  He stares at me for several seconds, his fingers thrumming on the table. “I’ve come to inform you that your gran has died.”

  My eyes widen, a sob bubbling up and overtaking as I let it out, instant tears streaming down my face. “W-what?”

  He rolls his eyes, clearly unaffected by my reaction but I don’t care because she’s all that I had—all either of us had. “I’ve only come to tell you as a courtesy.” He leans back in the chair, his lips lifting up into a sneer. “And to tell you that her will is null and void. You won’t be getting a single dollar.”

  “A… what? I don’t want her money!” A guard walks closer at my raised voice, but Uncle Aaron raises his hand, telling him silently to stay where he is.

  “Don’t be so absurd, of course you wanted it.”

  I tilt my head to the side, watching him and every little movement that he makes as something occurs to me. “Is that why?”

  I wipe the tears off my cheeks, deciding that I won’t allow him to watch me grieve for the woman that I loved and he hated. The woman who was there for me no matter what, who took me in and loved me as her own child.

  “Why, what?” he asks, his brow raised. He knows exactly what I’m talking about.

  “Why you did all of this? Why you wouldn’t let Gran come and see me?”

  He chuckles, standing up and pulling on the cuffs of his expensive jacket, ignoring me as he walks away before turning back and winking.

  I shoot up, my eyes springing open as I start to panic. I can’t be back there, anywhere but there.

  A moan coming from beneath me has my attention snapping down to the person it came from.

  “Evan?” I frown, trying to remember what happened last night.

  As soon as it all crashes down on me, I start to breathe heavier, faster, my chest dancing to the beat of a frantic drum as I try to move off him as fast as I can.

  I told him. I told him what happened. The cut-down version anyway.

  I shake my head, not wanting to go there, not right here, not right now.

  “Lex?”

  “I… I have to go,” I say, scrambling off him fully.

  “I’ll take you,” he says, lifting up off the sofa and heading into the bathroom. “Give me five minutes.”

  I nod slowly, my mind not really here as I hear the pipes groan and then water hitting tiles. Waving my hand in front of my face to try and cool my heated cheeks, I step toward the front door, opening it and walking down two of the steps before I sit down, watching the sun peek over the top of the trees that surround the whole compound.

  It doesn’t matter what I try to think about to get my mind off what I told Evan last night, nothing works.

  Lowering my head, I clasp my hands on either side, willing the memories to slide away.

  “Give me her damn pills!” My throat burns from screaming at Joe, the pharmacist, who told me only moments ago that he wasn’t going to give me any medication until he sees some money.

  My arm reels back, the softball bat that I hold—ready for the practice I was on my way to—slams along a shelf behind me, knocking several bottles of medicine off, crashing as they hit the floor making me jump.

  “Give them to me! She needs them!”

  He holds his hands in the air, his face paling before he reaches up, throwing a bag at me and begging me to leave.

  “Thank you,” I say, my voice softer now but still with an edge to it as I back out of the shop and spin around b
efore I get to the door, pushing it open and clutching the pills to my chest.

  “Hey!” My head snaps up at the deep voice, the police badge and the vest the man in front of me is wearing blinds me as I swing my bat on instinct, catching him in the temple and causing him to go down fast.

  I stare in shock as he starts to bleed, groaning as he moves on the ground. My legs give out, landing in the blood as I start to chant that I’m sorry.

  I lift my hands, staring at the sticky red blood that coats my palms. My breath catches in my throat. I can’t run no matter how much my mind screams at me to: it’s as if I’m stuck in quicksand, sinking with no way to get out.

  “Lex?”

  I jump at the voice, standing up and spinning around. “H-hey.” I push a smile on my face, connecting my gaze to Evan’s as he closes the door behind him.

  His brown hair is still wet from his shower, the scent of his body wash—black pepper and sandalwood—wafting around us, cocooning us.

  My gaze drifts down to his shirt, reading the slogan and laughing out loud.

  “Love the shirt.” I grin.

  His hand drifts across the writing “Zombies Hate Fast Food” with figures of people running away.

  “Thanks.” He smiles, a genuine kind of smile before he jogs down the steps, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me closer. “I have to run into the warehouse real quick before I take you home.”

  “Okay,” I whisper, my gaze flitting from his lips and back up to his honey eyes, watching as the gold flecks sparkle against the morning sun.

  “If I could wake up next to you every morning, I don’t think life could get any more perfect.” Heat rises up my cheeks and I dip my head. “Hey…” His thumb and finger capture my chin, bringing my gaze back up to his. “Remember what I said: never hide away from me.”

  I swallow at the intense look in his eyes before nodding and lifting up onto my tiptoes, moving my face closer to his. He sees what I’m silently saying and meets me halfway, capturing my lips.

  His tongue dips into my mouth, not asking or begging for entrance but taking like it’s his to take. Which it is. I’ve never felt this way about anyone in my entire life. And yeah, okay, so I haven’t had much adult life outside of the concrete walls and barbed wire of a prison, but I know what I’m feeling—this all-consuming need to talk to him, to be near him, to touch him—I know that this doesn’t happen often.