Page 77 of Hide and Seek
“Yeah, okay.” I pull my knees up and hug them against my chest. “So I’m kinda into hacking. Did you know that?” I ask when he doesn’t say anything.
“Yes, Phoenix, I knew that.”
My chest and balls tighten when I hear my handle in that damn sexy voice of his. I’m so distracted by my body’s reaction to him that it doesn’t immediately register that he knows my hacker name, so he probably knowsallabout that side of my life.
Which makes sense if he’s a stalker. I’m not an expert in them or anything, and I’ve never had one before him, but I do know it’s common for them to seek out and gather all sorts of information about the people they’re watching. He probably knows more about the skeletons in my closet than anyone.
He's literally the only person I can talk to about any of this.
“At the beginning of the school year, I got an email from one of them, Jacob Fisher.” I pull in another breath to fortify myself. “In it was a link to a private server, and the message said to click on the link, and I had twenty-four hours to respond before he’d go public with what he knew. I thought it was a scam at first, and I deleted it and blocked his address. An hour later, I got another email from the same address with the same link and a detailed breakdown of a hack job I did a few years ago that got a bunch of press and pissed off a lot of important people.”
“The fake charity job?” he asks casually.
“You know about that?” I ask incredulously.
“I know about it.”
“How?”
“Let’s just say you’re not the only hacker I know.”
“Oh.” I chew on my lip for a few beats.
“What did you do with the second email?” he asks, circling the conversation back to what we were talking about.
“I ran a check to see how the fuck it got through when I blocked the address, and it brought me to the Kings’ system.”
“Then what did you do?” he says, giving me a nudge when I pause to sort out the mess of thoughts in my head.
“I poked around and found some shit they didn’t want me to see.”
“Like what?” His tone is carefully neutral, which is weird. But then this entire situation and conversation is weird as hell, so I don’t stop to question what he does or doesn’t know.
“Like files on high-ranking members of some of the other frats.”
“What kind of files?” There’s an edge to his voice, and that makes me pause.
Is he part of one of the other frats? Or does he work for one of them?
“From what I could tell, blackmail files.”
“Blackmail files?” His tone is dark but still controlled.
“Mostly videos and photos that were taken at events they’ve held or been invited to. And some audio recordings from plants.”
“What do you mean by plants?”
The quick question and sharpness of his voice only affirm my earlier suspicions that he’s connected to one of the frats.
“They’d get people to wear wires or give them bugs to plant in the houses or other places their targets might conduct business. There weren’t a ton of details, just files full of what they collected, but it looked like they’d either pay the people who helped them or promise them future favors in exchange for their services.”
The silence on the line feels heavy and uncomfortable for the first time since we started talking, and I hug my legs tighter and rest my chin on one of my knees.
“What happened when you found the files?”
“I fucked up, and they figured out I was in there and looking at things I shouldn’t.” Admitting this to anyone is hard, but for reasons I can’t explain, it’s really hard to admit it to him. “Their system is so basic and easy to get into that I got overconfident, and they traced the hack back to me.”
“What did you do after you found the files?”
