Page 18 of Time Stops With You

“Yeah!” I latch onto that, desperate to claw us out of this situation. “Why were your protocols so awful that an eleven year old could mess with it?”

“Ms. Davis, you should know more than I do that Josiah is no ordinary child.” Cullen levels a look on Josiah that remindsme of Mufasa to Simba inThe Lion King.‘Everything the light touches is yours,my son’.

My eyes narrow in suspicion and I feel the urge to take my brother and run.

“To be fair to Josiah, he did his best to hide the school’s IP address. I only found him because he signed up for our company’s competition.”

“What competition? I didn’t know about a competition.”

Mr. Cullen temples his fingers and says calmly, “It didn’t exist until today. We moved quickly and posted about the competition right after the hacking in order to lure the culprit in.”

“It was a trap,” my little brother squeaks. “I didn’t know.”

I sit in utter shock. I can’t decide if I’m more disappointed that Josiah hacked a billion-dollar company or that he fell for such an obvious trick.

“Did you really… just…giveyour information to the people you hacked?” I ask through gritted teeth.

Josiah tugs on his hoodie. “They said first place could win five grand.”

I rub my forehead. “Josiah Davis, did you want a computerthatbadly?”

“It wasn’t for me. I wanted to win so I could buy you a new stove.”

At once, the air around me gets tight. “W-what?”

Big brown eyes meet mine. “This one only has three working burners and you’re always complaining that you have to work twice as hard to make the rice.”

My heart jerks forward painfully, almost impaling itself against my ribs.

“Ms. Davis,” Cullen interrupts, “please don’t be alarmed. Josiah isn’t in trouble. In fact, I set up that competition in order to find him. In a sense, you can even say that he won.”

I ignore that comment about Josiah winning the competition because it’s irrelevant.

“You wanted to find him and do what?” I demand, draping a protective arm over my brother’s shoulders.

Cullen turns his light blue eyes on me and the image of a lion with his cub vanishes. In its place is a wistful melancholy.

“I want to make him my legacy.”

Question marks pop up in my head.

Legacy? What does that mean?

On edge, I decide that it can’t mean anything good and I shoot to my feet, my face twisted into something dangerous.

Cullen cowers back. “Ms. Davis?”

“You’re not making my brother youranything, you creep!” I stab an accusing finger at him. “Get out before I call the police.”

Cullen’s eyes widen as if he’s never been called out to his face. Well, I’m glad to be the first. I watch the news. I know how twisted and perverted rich people can be. I don’t want that nonsense anywhere near my brother, no matter how much money he dangles in front of us.

Josiah tugs on my arm. “Nardi, you’re embarrassing me.”

I brush his hand away. He couldn’t possibly understand how evil this world is. I’m the one who has to protect his innocence.

“Ms. Davis, I assure you I am not a creep.” Cullen’s cheeks turn ruddy and he seems to struggle to maintain his composure.

“Nardi, he’s the owner of Cullen Tech.”

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