Page 12 of Zen's Crash

“If anyone can fix this, you can, bro.”

I have another question for her, “Did you ever share your seed phrase with anyone?”

“Of course not. I’m not an idiot.”

***

I mull over the situation as I drive her back home and then head to the clubhouse. Once I’m inside my office, I open her laptop. Her password is carefully printed out in neat handwritten letters on a Post-it note with the words ‘thank you’ underneath and her seed phrase for CryptoLock on another sticky note.

Once I boot up her laptop, I go straight to her online wallet and type in her seed phrase. Sure enough her wallet is empty. I begin a forensic analysis of her transactions. It looks like she’s been putting crypto in the wallet for years as a cushion.I honestly hadn’t thought she’d remember what life was like when she was a kid.

Memories of those dark times rise in my mind unbidden. Dad was flat on his back in bed, but he still looked out for Lori during the day. He’d read her books and they’d nap together. Mom was gone all the time and on the rare occasion I saw her, she was too exhausted to talk much. To say she was emotionally unavailable would be an understatement.

I remember dropping all my extracurriculars like chess club and debate club in high school so I could be there for Lori in the evenings and help dad with his daily living. It was hard. We had our cable turned off a bunch of times and even our electricity once. That’s when I started picking up online jobs, so I could earn money to help out and buy food. I’d go to the store and stock up on whatever was cheap and edible. I bought ten-pound bags of pancake mix, cheap syrup, ramen noodles, instant potatoes, canned veggies, hamburger, and hotdogs. I used to buy these big cartons of popsicles because they were cheap, and she considered them a real treat. Jesus, that seems like forever ago.

Lori stuck to me like glue when I came home after school. We’d watch cartoons in the living room while I worked online. I was young and moving too fast to even realize how hard I had it. My whole family was having a hard time, so it felt normal for me to do what I could to help out. I was fifteen and Lori was just a little kid. Now she’s turning eighteen and I’m thirty-one.

Shoving all that out of my mind, I get back to trying to figure out what happened to her crypto. Tracking digital information is my specialty and there’s no way in hell I’m gonna let some asshole steal her life’s savings.

Chapter 5

Lexi

Ten days have passed since my visit to the Savage Legion’s clubhouse. I went back home that night right after Zen dropped me off. I haven’t set foot outside my house since, which isn’t unusual for me. I haven’t left my house much since my father was murdered.

Memories pop into my mind of the morning I was released from the hospital. I dreaded coming home for several reasons, the foremost among them being that my father’s presence would be conspicuously missing. I miss him every single day. It’s true what they say—you never get over losing someone you love, you just learn to live with the pain.

Another thing that made me dread coming home was the thought of cleaning up his blood from our living room floor. Thank God I was spared that hardship because my neighbors had arranged for a crime scene cleanup team to deal with the house. That simple kindness was enough to make me tear up, just thinking about it. Now, I come and go through the back door, avoiding that room entirely. Being there brings the horror of that night back again. I’ve gotten good at forgetting that whole part of the house exists. I could move—in fact, that’s probably what most people would do—but all my memories of my father are here both good and bad, and leaving would be like getting rid of the final link that I still have of him.

Tonight, I ordered dinner from DoorDelivery. Their app is convenient, and they’re good about getting my food to me hot. For a girl who isn’t wild about cooking, that app is a godsend.

This evening, my driver was being a pain in the proverbial ass. He’s already texted me three times for directions. Each time, I gave him clear directions straight to my back door. Each time I told him to set the bag outside my door. Now he’s knocking. I turn from making iced tea and yell through the closed door, “Just leave it on the porch and thank you for delivering.”

I hear him mumbling something and then he tries to turn the doorknob. I’m shocked because I’ve never heard of a delivery driver trying to enter someone’s house without permission before. Something feels off about this guy and I can hear him muttering to himself. I press my ear against the door, trying to decipher what he’s saying. It takes me a minute to realize he isn’t saying actual words.

I yell, “Leave the bag and get off my property or I’m calling the police.”

I jump up to look out the peephole and see him walking away quickly with no bag in his hands. He then gets into his car and drives off.

Only then do I open my door, grab my food, and close the door, locking it behind me. I lift up the bag to make sure it hasn’t been tampered with. The restaurant had taped the bag shut with tamper-proof, branded tape, and the food smells amazing. Since it looks legit, I write off the driver as a crazy tweaker and carry the delicious smelling bag down to the safe room.

That’s where I’ve been staying since I came home from the hospital. After putting my dinner down on the desk, I walk over and carefully lock myself into the room. One of the first things I did was hire a locksmith to reverse the lock on the safe roomdoor so that it locks from the inside rather than the outside. I never want to be locked in again. The feeling of helpless rage that took over when I couldn’t get out of the room to trade myself for my father still simmers just below the surface, even today.

I grab a couple of diet sodas from my mini-fridge. Circuit boards and components fall from the top and crash down onto the floor because I’m in the middle of building myself a new computer. Picking the pieces up and balancing them on top of the mini-fridge, I turn, sit down, and begin surfing the web while I eat.

On the rare occasion that I can compartmentalize the horror of my father’s death and shove it out of my mind, I find my mind drifting back to that night at the Savage Legion’s clubhouse. The men there were very different from my father and every other man I’d ever met. Different doesn’t mean better though, I remind myself.

Pulling open the bag, I take a big bite of my chicken sandwich and check my messages. I have a real-life best friend from school named Cindy. She’s Kayla’s older sister. I also have an online best friend. Her name is LawlessHate. When her screen name pops up, I immediately send her a message.

Me: LawlessHate, it’s about time you showed up.

My friend is a straight shooter who hates lawlessness with a burning passion. Despite knowing her online for years, I know little of her real life. It might sound weird but that’s the way I like it. Online we can be whoever we want to be.

LawlessHate: You forget, I’m ahead of you. It’s breakfast time here.

Me: Well, you missed PrankWarrior. He’s on London time this week and that puts him five hours ahead of me.

LawlessHate: So he’s eight hours behind me in Perth. And don’t forget MadHitter—he’s an Aussie like me.

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