She did a few minutes later, dressed in black skinny jeans and a black long sleeve tee, looking very much like she was going to a funeral. Which was probably exactly what she was thinking when she slipped into it. She sat down on the couch, swishing her finger across the sensor on her laptop to make it come alive as she slipped into her boots.
"Nothing?"
"Lot of views all of a sudden," she said, her voice cool. "No bites though."
"Here," I said, leaning over the couch and handing her the knife and mace. "Tuck those into your boots too. Just in case."
She took them, but made no comment, lacing up her shoes loosely, slamming her laptop, and standing. "Let's get this over with," she said, making her way to the door, avoiding eye contact.
I had no other cards to play so I grabbed my keys and wallet and followed behind. I couldn't begrudge her sour mood. The closer we drove toward town, the more I felt my own darkening.
I sighed as I swung my truck into a parking space out front of Lex's office. It was in a sketchier side of town than you would usually catch Lex in himself, choosing to send one of his lackeys instead. But he was in there. For whatever sick plan he had rolling around his twisted brain. Beside me, Alex might as well have been stone. Her breathing was slow, even. Her hands relaxed on her thighs. Her face impassive. Her eyes far away, staring out the window at the rain collecting on the windshield.
"Doll..."
She shook her head stiffly. "Let's get this over with."
I sighed, watching her open her door and step out into the downpour. With little choice, I followed suit.
The door flew open before I could even reach for it, Limp Dick Rick standing there looking bored. But I could see blood staining the pocket of his jeans. I wondered if Alex noticed, but if she did, she wasn't letting on.
"Lex here?" I asked as we stepped into the office area, cheap fake wood desk, old law books on the shelves. I wondered if he did that ironically or just because they all matched. The floor was dusty in the corners and there were just old yellowed blinds on the windows, pulled closed.
He inclined his head to me and knocked on a door to the side of the bookshelf behind the desk.
A few seconds later, it opened and out walked Lex in one of his gray suits, the stain of blood almost invisible on his black dress shoes. But I saw it. And I felt myself tense. Beside me, still no reaction from Alex.
Lex's head tilted to the side, watching Alex. "I see you managed the task."
"What task?" I asked, trying to make my words come out casual though I felt like I was talking through clenched teeth.
"You broke her."
My head turned to the side where Alex was still just staring off at the wall. It certainly looked like I had. The smart thing to do would be own the idea. But I couldn't bring myself to so I just shrugged a shoulder.
"You might need to... unbreak her a little," he said, his eyes coming to my face.
"Unbreak her?" I repeated, raising a brow.
"She's no good to me all catatonic."
"Might be useful if you told me what exactly she is to be of use to you for then."
To this, he shrugged. "That's why we're here," he said, turning and moving back toward the door he had just walked out of. I felt my gut clench up, every instinct telling me that we shouldn't go behind that door. But there wasn't much choice with Limp Dick Rick standing in front of the main door.
Lex stepped into the room and I followed. Alex was a few steps behind me.
I was right.
We didn't want to be in there.
'There' being a room with white tile and a drain in the floor. A hose was hooked up to the bathroom sink in the room to the back. A hose that they used to wash the blood down the drain. The blood like the blood that was everywhere right then.
The blood that had come from the man that had been cuffed to the chair in the center of the room.
Young. A few years older than Alex, a few younger than me. A little pudgy and with a definite nerdy look with his black-rimmed glasses and video game t-shirt. But good looking.
Or at least... he was.
He was dead.
Likely from the sheer amount of blood he had lost.
Arterial spray fuckin' everywhere.
My eyes went immediately to Alex as she stepped through and I saw a flash. It was gone before a blink, shut down behind her wall. I couldn't even get a chance to analyze it. Shock? Horror? It was gone too soon.
"As you can see," Lex started and my eyes drifted to his, "I have had some issues lately."
"Who is the stiff?" I asked, nodding at the guy in the chair.
It should have bothered me. It was gory. Horror movie worthy. But I had seen worse. I had done almost as bad. I had no right to be disgusted. But even so, my stomach clenched.
"This, unfortunately, was a man I hired recently."
"What's he do?"
"He's a hacker," Lex said easily. "Well, he was."
"A hacker?"
"Yes. See... I have had a series of security breaches and viruses on my computer and I had an inkling that someone was trying to gather information about me."
Fuck. Shit fuck fuck. As much as I wanted to look at Alex, see if she was giving any of her guilt away, I kept my eyes on Lex.
"So this is the guy who has been doing it?"
"No no. This is the young man I hired to find the hacker."
"I'm assuming he failed the task."
"Indeed," Lex said, slapping a hand down on the dead guy's shoulder, making his lifeless body jolt.
"And we're here seeing this because..."
"Because the threat still exists," Lex went on, wiping a bit of blood off his hands with a white pocket square. "I got some of my men on it and when they were searching potential hackers to do the job, Miss. Miller's name came up. I was intrigued."
Yeah, I bet he was. Once he got a look at her. Mother fucker.
"So you want her to ferret out this leak?" I asked.
"Indeed I do. Hopefully she won't be as," he said, looking at the dead guy, "disappointing as this gentleman here."
"So I am supposed to hold onto her until she finds your guy?"
"Or until I have time to look after her myself. Which, unfortunately, is not today. I have a meeting in the city that should keep me busy for the next week. I will need you to hold onto her until then."
A week. I had her for a week. With Lex out of town. I could work with that. I could find a way to get Shoot out and get us all the fuck out of town.
"A week?" I asked, sounding bored at the prospect.
"Provided you can undo whatever damage you have obviously done," he said, waving a careless hand toward Alex's stiff body. "She's of no use to me like this. She's still like this when I get back, just go ahead and get rid of her. Can't even have any fun with her when she's a zombie."
Fun.
Fun.
I swallowed the bile and nodded. "I can do that." I looked over at Alex, shaking my head like she was a nuisance, then looked back at Lex. "I can get her out of this sooner, you want me to put her on the case or wait for your go ahead?"
"By all means," he said, splaying his hands that were stained red despite his rubbing, "put her to use."
I felt myself nodding. "We done here?"
"It's no wonder no one likes working with you," Lex said, his head tilting. "You are really a dreadful human being." Coming from the scum of the earth, well, I guess I could consider that a compliment.
"You're paying me to hold onto the bitch. You want to dig at me about how I handle my shit, it will cost you twice as much."
Lex sighed. "One week and I expect you to drop her off."
"Where?" I asked, fighting the urge to toss Alex over my shoulder and haul ass out of there.
"My house."
Shit.
He meant business with her.
The kind of long, drawn-out business I suspected her mother went through.
"Right," I said, nodding, moving to the door, snag
ging the sleeve of Alex's shirt and dragging her with me. "See you then."
Limp Dick Rick stood in the doorway until I turned back behind me, raising a brow at Lex who flicked a hand, and he moved out of the way.
Alex walked numbly to the passenger side and climbed up. I got into the driver's and tore off, not bothering to buckle. Just needing to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible.
"Are we being followed?" Alex's voice reached me, making me jump slightly.
"What?"
"Are. We. Being. Followed?" she enunciated carefully, her words heavy with something I couldn't place.
"No," I said with confidence. I had been paying attention, my mind running the same way.
"Pull over," she said, watching the landscape become more desolate as we left the town behind.
"It's rain..."
"Pull the fucking car over!" she shrieked, shocking me enough to pull off to the shoulder and throw the car into park.
Before I could even turn to look at her, she was out of her belt and out of the door, slamming it hard behind her.
I swung out of the car, darting around it to find her bent forward throwing up violently beside the front wheel.
Fuck.
I forgot about the body. I know that was shitty and unfeeling of me. But it meant nothing to me. Apparently, it meant something to her. It was one thing for her to see the pictures of the things Lex had done. It was a whole other to see it right in front of your eyes, to smell the blood, to see it all over.
"Deep breath," I said, reaching into the backseat for a spare bottle of water as the rain soaked through my clothes. "It'll pass."
"You don't get it," she said, her voice acidic as she rinsed and spit the water.
"I get it. That was fucked up to walk in on. But it's over. We got out. We have a week to figure out what we're gonna do and..."
"You. Don't. Get. It," she seethed, turning to look at me and there were tears in her eyes.
"Explain it to me," I tried in a soothing tone.
"I knew him!"
"Knew who, doll?"
"The dead guy, Breaker. I fucking knew him!"
Fuck.
I never stopped to consider that there was like a hacker underground. They probably all knew each other in a detached sort of way. "Babe... I know hackers run in the same circles and shit but..."
"No Breaker," she said, shaking her head. She raked hands down her face like she could claw the image away. "I mean... I knew him, knew him."
FIFTEEN
Alex
It was Glenn.
I followed Breaker who followed Lex into the second room, knowing it was probably not a good thing that we were being moved to a second location, but not having much of a choice.
And the second that I stepped through, my eyes fell to the chair.
And they found Glenn.
Glenn the sweet, slightly overweight hacker who taught me almost everything I knew. The only person on the planet aside from Breaker who knew even part of my story.
The guy I used to have sex with.
Weird, awkward, passionless sex.
But still.
I knew what his lips felt like on mine, what his body looked like. I knew his voice when he was excited for me when I finally understood a concept he was explaining or the way he said my name like a warning when he got frustrated with my ever-present runaway temper. I knew that he hated coffee and preferred energy drinks. That he thought crunchy cheese curls were superior to the puffed kind. I knew that his mother still bought him underwear for Christmas and his laptop cost four times what mine did (and mine was expensive to the point of obnoxious).
I knew him.
And he was dead.
By Lex's hands.
Like my mother.
Used as a puppet and bled dry.
Like my mother.
The Goddamn son of a bitch took everything, everything from me.
"What do you mean you knew him knew him?" Breaker asked, his head tilted at me, water spilling down his face and dripping off his beard. Funny because I was blissfully unaware of my own wetness.
"When I was out on my own... looking for people to help me figure out the hacking thing, I found Glenn. His name was Glenn," I said, my voice wobbling a little and I winced at it. But I couldn't help it. It kept getting more and more shaky as I went on. "Glenn Gable and he was just a couple years older than me. And he was good and patient and he loved his mother and his hands were always warm to the point of being clammy. And he thought crunchy cheese curls beat out the puffed kind. Which is stupid. Puffs are way better. But he loved them and he downed them with green energy drinks and he used to rub my back when I would sit and stare at the computer all day every day trying to learn what he was trying to teach me and..."
"You dated him," Breaker said, his voice soft. My eyes went to his, expecting to see mockery there. Because Glenn wasn't super hot guy badass material like Breaker was. But all I saw in Breaker's blue eyes was understanding. Sympathy.
"Yes," I admitted, the tears that had been stinging my eyes finally winning out and brimming over. "It wasn't good. But he was good to me and I cared about him. And Lex killed him!"
"Oh baby..." he said, his arms reaching for me and hauling me against his chest as his arms squeezed me hard enough to make breathing difficult.
But in a weird way, it still felt good. So I turned my face into his neck and I let the tears come.
I wondered if Glenn's mother would ever know what happened to him. Or if he would just be a missing person and empty casket for her. I hadn't met her, but I had seen pictures. She was an even heavier, feminized version of Glenn. Same dark hair. Same roundish face. Same nice brown eyes. She looked like the kind of woman who cried at greeting cards.
She wouldn't have anyone to buy underwear for at Christmas anymore.
At that, I cried some more.
And Glenn would never get a chance to finally reach the final level in that video game he had become obsessed with the day before Breaker took me. He had bought a case of energy drinks so he could stay up for days and play.
I doubt he had even gotten close to finishing before Lex picked him up.
At that, I cried even harder.
"He's dead because of me," I cried, my words coming out high-pitched and choked.
"Alex, you can't think..."
"I'm the one fucking with Lex's computers. It's me. He was hired to find me. And he died because he knew it was me all along and he knew he couldn't tell Lex that because he knew what would happen to me. He died to protect me!"
To this, Breaker had nothing to say.
Because there was nothing to say.
There were no magic words that could make that any less true. Any less painful. There was no one left in my life who cared about me even in a detached 'we used to date but it didn't work out' kind of way. There was no one. I had nothing left.
"No one is left to care about me," I whispered against his skin, just loud enough for me to hear.
But his arms squeezed me tighter. "That's not true," he said with certainty.
"Yes, it is," I sniffled, knowing I sounded pathetic and not particularly caring. I earned the right.
"Doll, it's not true," he said firmly. "I care about you."
"No you don't," I said, rolling my eyes even though he couldn't see me. "You don't even know me."
"I know enough to give a shit, Alex. I might not see it all because you won't let me. But I see you. And what I do see, I care about. I don't care that I've only known you a couple days and it's too soon and it doesn't make any kind of fuckin' logical sense. Especially since I don't give a fuck about anyone but myself and Shoot, but I care and I am going to try to get all of us out of this."
His words sent warmth through my insides, making me see for the first time how cold a place I had been living in.
But that was exactly the reason he couldn't care about me. I wasn't the kind of girl who deserved that. I was the kind of girl who was surrounded
by death and torture and obsessions that brought nothing but misery to myself and those around me.
He might have been bad news, but everything I had learned about Breaker suggested he was a good man.
And I couldn't drag a good man down into my gutters to wade around in the muck with me. It wasn't right.
I had to find a way out for myself. And for him. And Shoot. Whatever it took. No one else was going to die because of me and my mess.
I sniffled back a new onslaught of tears, taking deep breaths to calm myself down. It wasn't the time. To break down. To fall apart. I needed to push back all that dark and lock it away for a time when everyone was safe and away from my mess. Then I could let it out. Let it consume me if it needed to.
"You alright?" Breaker's voice asked and I felt myself nodding even though that answer was a booming, deafening no. "Can we get back on the road?"
"Yep," I said, pulling out of his arms and turning back to the car, throwing myself in before he could even move a foot.
Breaker got in silently, throwing on the heat, pulling off the shoulder, and letting me have my silence though I kept feeling his eyes on my profile as he drove.
We pulled up to his house a while later and I followed Breaker inside, both of us going to change into dry clothes. And I desperately needed to brush my teeth. By the time he came out of the bedroom, I was in a pair of black yoga pants and a oversize pink sweatshirt, legs curled on the couch, laptop propped on top of them, mouth tasting minty clean finally.
"What are you doing?"
"Putting the word about Glenn out there," I said, forcing my eyes to blink back the tears. "He had friends in the hacker community. They have a right to know. Everyone worries about each other when we disappear. Mostly thinking one of us got locked up, but there's always a chance for... worse. His friends deserve to know the truth."
"You think that's a good idea seeing as we're the only ones who know what happened to Glenn?" he asked, watching me, his words hesitant like he was worried he was crossing a line.
"First- Lex doesn't exactly seem like the type who knows how to use the dark web. Second- I am going to say to keep it on the DL because it could lead to my getting into the same kind of trouble as Glenn. And third, I don't give a fuck."
Savages Series Boxed Set Page 15