Page 8 of Make Them Bleed
I let out a breath so sharp it whistles and lean my forehead against the bakery’s mural of a smiling cupcake. “She’s home. She’s okay.”
Relief is a warm flood over my chilled skin, but a tremor lurks beneath: now that I’ve committed to this charade, there’s no backing out. Whatever dark corners Juno wants to explore, I’ll be right there. Even if it means lying to her every step.
Thirty minuteslater I’m wheeling my bike into my apartment foyer. Gage’s voice bellows from the living room long before I see him.
"Bro! You missed the final boss again—" He pauses mid-yell as I enter, kicking off my shoes. "Oh. You’re back. How’d your Hoover heist go?"
I hang my jacket on the over-burdened coat rack and toss the mask—now stuffed in a plain backpack—onto the sofa. "Long night." I run a hand through my damp hair, having sweated under the rubber monstrosity.
Gage mutes his game and swivels to face me, elbows on knees. "So? Juno buy it?"
"Yeah." I sink onto the opposite armchair with a groan. "She’s… determined doesn’t begin to cover it. If I hadn’t shown up, she’d probably be shaking down mobsters by sunrise."
Gage scrubs a hand over his face. "And you still think pulling this Batman-by-way-History-Channel act is safer than telling her the truth?"
"I think," I answer wearily, "that letting her wander into dark-web chats with real killers is a guaranteed disaster. At least with me she has a buffer." I tap my chest. "Bullet-sponge, guardian, whatever."
He watches me, eyes narrowing behind thick frames. "Gotta admit, part of me’s impressed. Part of me’s queasy."
"Story of my life," I murmur.
Gage stands and heads to the kitchen, returning with two canned iced coffees—our mutual vice. He tosses one, and I catch it mid-air.
"Look," he says, cracking his can, "I know I joke a lot, but I’m serious… if this goes sideways—like, really sideways—call me. Don’t pull some lone-wolf crap, okay?"
The sincerity in his voice punches a soft spot under my ribs. "You’d drop your controller for me? I’m honored."
He flips me off good-naturedly. "I mean it, Arrow. You need backup, I got you." He gestures toward the hallway. "You want me to read coded emails? Build spreadsheets? Hack a server? I know a guy who knows a guy."
I grin. "Your guy’s name is probably Reddit."
"Details," he says with a mock bow.
I pop the coffee tab and take a long swallow, the bitter sweetness jolting me awake. "Thanks, Gage. Really. Just having you on standby helps."
"Anytime." He drops back onto the couch, though the controller stays forgotten on the armrest. "So… you gonna tell me what the plan is?"
I exhale. "Tomorrow she’s bringing me everything—Arby’s schedules, screenshots of trolls, blocked followers. We’ll start sifting for patterns." I drum my fingers against the can. "I’ll have to set up a dropbox under the vigilante alias. Keep it separate from my real accounts."
Gage whistles low. "You’re going full spy."
"Yeah, well, step one: figure out how to be convincing as a hardened street avenger when I nearly hyperventilated using the voice modulator tonight."
He laughs, the sound easing my tension. "You’ll get there, Herbert."
A yawn ambushes me. The clock reads 1:47 a.m. My eyes feel like sandpaper. "I’m tapping out. Gonna do a quick system check, then crash."
"Night, lover boy," Gage calls as I shuffle down the hall.
My bedroom is half tech cave, half laundry graveyard. I kick aside a stray hoodie, plop into my swivel chair, and wake my desktop. Multiple monitors bloom to life—green code lines on black, email dashboards, a live city-camera feed of Saint Pierce intersections (public access, totally legal. Well, mostly). Juno’s machine pings my network, the spyware sending its hourly sync.
I open the encrypted folder markedJK Monitoring—heart pounding with the guilt that never fully silences. The latest keystroke log scrolls: random BuzzFeed quiz, Amazon search for “therapeutic weighted blankets,” then one line that twists my stomach:
Journal Entry: “Meeting went well. More hopeful than I’ve felt in months.”
Hopeful. Because of me. My chest tightens—not unpleasantly, exactly, but not comfortable either. I’m relieved she feels lighter, yet every spark of hope she places in Hoover is another brick in the wall of lies I’m building.
I sift her incoming email queue. Mostly condolences that arrived weeks too late, brand deals that dried up but still spam her with sales codes. One fresh alert from InfoBounty catches my eye—some tabloid site offering cash for “exclusive updates on the Kate murder mystery.” Scavengers. I move the message to junk automatically.
