Page 5 of A Rhapsody of Ravens and Revenge

Tears streamed down her cheeks, smearing the heavy eye makeup she wore. She was a pretty girl. And one day she’d be a beautiful woman for someone else to handle. Thank God. Because she had more spirit than anyone he’d ever met. She was only a little misdirected. And he had to get the hell out of this room and away from her because she was scrambling his brains. Maybe it was her eyes. They’d always haunted him.

Between the adrenaline rush and his need to take care of her—out of a sense of guilt or camaraderie he couldn’t be sure—he felt himself being tangled in a web that would be hard to get out of. Her mind fascinated him. Her talent challenged him. And her body made him have thoughts he had no business having. There was only six years between them in age, but those six years seemed like a lifetime.

“I hate you for this,” she finally said. “I’ll do it, but I’ll hate you forever.”

He was almost relieved. “I can live with that. Plenty of people have hated me before.”

“Then what are you waiting for? It’s time for the Black Lily to die.”

Chapter Two

Present Day…

Evangeline Lockwood was almost positive a person couldn’t die from boredom. Because if one could, she’d surely be dead.

She woke up every morning at five thirty, showered, ate a protein bar, brushed her teeth, and dressed in whatever she pulled out of the closet. Today it happened to be a pair of overalls and a tiny white T-shirt that showed her midriff, paired with chunky white sneakers. Apparently the nineties were making a comeback. Not that she bothered with fashion much anymore.

She slapped on some moisturizer—because she was thirty and she’d started to notice the little lines at the corners of her eyes—and piled her dark blond hair on top of her head. Like clockwork, she made it out the door in time to catch the seven o’clock train into DC.

Her office building was just like any other office building. She used her badge to let herself in and rode the elevator with the same people she saw every morning at the same time. She made sure to wear her earbuds and blast Olivia Rodrigo so she didn’t have to talk to anyone.

She and Kai—who also had his earbuds in—were the last two on the elevator as they got off on the twelfth floor. Evangeline gave him a wave as she made her way to the communal kitchen area and grabbed a green juice smoothie before making her way to her cubicle.

There were certainly worse jobs in life. She’d had a couple of them. She’d walked dogs in college, which turned out to be a disaster since she was allergic to dogs. And then there was the short stint as a bartender. It turned out bar owners didn’t like it when you broke expensive bottles of liquor over a jerk’s head. She didn’t particularly like it when a jerk tried to stick his tongues down her throat, so flipping her boss the double bird and quitting had seemed like the right thing to do.

College had been a breeze. She’d graduated early and started on her master’s. She’d gotten bored with it about halfway through, not believing what the Ivy League school had to offer was really the most challenging curriculum out there. She could’ve done the work in her sleep. She’d gotten the job offer from Imaginex the week after she’d stopped going to classes. The job offer had helped cushion the blow when she told her father she’d quit grad school.

The money was good, but creating the software for video games wasn’t her passion. Her passion lay in another area entirely, and she was pretty sure reputable companies didn’t want what she had to offer anywhere near their businesses.

She didn’t have the creativity some of her co-workers had. She could do the technical side of the job faster and better than anyone else, but she didn’t have the same vision. She wasn’t an artist or a storyteller. And that was fine. But after six years of doing the same thing day in and day out—moving from one project to the next—she was starting to wonder if it was time to start looking for something new.

A wadded-up piece of paper flew over the top of her cubicle and landed on her desk, followed by a loud psst. Dark eyes peered at her over the partition that divided her and Joseph Wong’s desks.

“You up for a get-together tonight?” he asked. “Keep it quiet, but we’re going to test out the demo for Aviator and order pizza. We’re going to play on the big screen at Jay’s house. Bring dessert if you’re coming.”

“I’ve got plans tonight,” she lied. “But thanks for the invite.”

“Cool. You’re missing out though.” And with that Joseph went to the cubicle next to hers to extend the invitation to the next colleague.

Keeping to herself had become par for the course for the last six years. She didn’t socialize with the people at work. Didn’t hang out in the break room or go for drinks at five o’clock. There was no point befriending people who would never know the real her. And if they knew the real her they wouldn’t want to be around her anyway. It would more than likely bother most people to know she could have their entire life history with a few strokes of the keyboard—from finances to emails to doctor’s reports. Everything was attainable online.

Her skills as a hacker had only improved as she’d gotten older. She knew how closely Cal watched her movements and monitored her time online. How he searched for her through the underground channels, looking for signs of her old self. The Black Lily had died that day, just like she’d promised. But someone else had been born—someone she could be proud of.

Evangeline spent just as much time monitoring Cal as he did her, looking for that telltale sign that he knew what she’d been up to for the last ten years. But it never came. She’d gone to a great deal of trouble to keep her new identity a secret. And it gave her pride a nice boost to know she’d finally surpassed the master.

Not that she could ever tell him. Cal didn’t say things he didn’t mean, and the second he found out she was breaking his “rules” he’d turn her in. She was under his thumb for the rest of her life—at least on the surface. And he could never be trusted again. She’d grown up with him, seen him as a friend and someone she didn’t have to hide her intelligence from like she did with other kids.

That’s what had hurt the most about the way he’d treated her. Yes, the choices she’d made were the wrong ones. And she was grateful her eyes had been opened to the danger she’d involved herself in. Cal was the one person she’d thought had really understood her. He was her equal. All of her fanciful girlish dreams of happily-ever-afters had lived and died with Calvin Cruz. He’d killed every dream she’d had—of respecting her skill and thoughts of spending her life with him.

Of course he’d never seen her that way. The only reason he’d done what he had and “saved” her was because of her father. Not because he cared about her in any way. But Cal had taught her a valuable lesson. Love was a foolish emotion. The mind and how one used it was all that was important in the chess game of life.

Her game had changed over the last ten years. Cal had been right about one thing. She was headed for destruction if she’d kept on the same path of her youth—playing the dangerous games of one-upmanship within the hacker community. But she was smarter than that. If she wanted her cake and to eat it too she had to minimize the risk without minimizing the rush of adrenaline she longed for. Not an easy task.

So she went to her boring job and lived her boring life. And she took tastes of freedom in small doses when she could.

By the time the clock on her computer screen said four o’clock she was ready to climb the walls of her cubicle. By the time five o’clock hit she grabbed her backpack and dared anyone to try and stop her on the way out.

Summer was in full swing and the heat weighed heavily across her shoulders as she stepped outside and breathed in the exhaust fumes and hot pavement. Cars sat bumper to bumper, ebbing and flowing as the stoplights dictated, and someone down the street sat on their horn as a group of pedestrians blocked traffic.

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