Page 76 of Fractured Devotion
We walk down the hall together, unspoken rhythms forming between our steps. As we approach the lab wing, a tech brushes past, nodding to us but not stopping. The world spins on like everything’s normal.
But it’s not.
“You ever feel like this place is too quiet?” I murmur.
She doesn’t look at me, but her voice is firm and certain. “All the time.”
I hold the door open for her, and her fingers graze mine as she passes through. Intentional? I don’t know. But I catalog the touch all the same.
She disappears into her office, and I linger outside for a beat longer than I should, the buzz of tension coiling in my chest. Not everything about last night sat right with me. And as much as I don’t want to push her too far too fast… I know I’ll have to test her soon.
Not just her trust.
But her limits.
I settle into my usual corner of the lab. But not the security terminal. That would raise flags. Instead, I pull out my ownsystem—silent, untethered, and untraceable—and open the data stream I isolated last night.
The ghost signal.
It pulses like a heartbeat through the archive logs. Whoever it is, they’re not just copying Celeste’s credentials. They’re mapping her digital presence, tracking her queries, and recording her timestamps.
I dig deeper, deeper than I should.
Then I find it.
A remote sync signature buried beneath a trail of dummy IPs. It shouldn’t be there. It’s clever. It’s meant to look like a server redundancy, but it’s a device signature, not a server log.
A name flickers up, encrypted and truncated. But I know the style.
Harper.
I freeze.
Harper was never this sophisticated. Not unless she had help. Or was working for someone else.
Which means there’s another player. One with access. One willing to burn her trail through Celeste’s credentials.
I sit back and drag a hand down my face.
This isn’t just about protection anymore. Someone’s planting breadcrumbs in her digital trail and setting her up to look compromised and unsafe.
It’s not enough to shield her. I’ll need to dismantle their leverage and discredit them.
I’m still thinking through my next move when the door clicks behind me.
Rourke.
His expression is unreadable, his eyes scanning the room before landing on me. “You’re early.”
“Didn’t sleep.”
He doesn’t question it. Instead, he steps closer, lowering his voice. “We may have a leak. One of the new interns. Harper flagged inconsistencies before she left.”
My pulse stutters.
“Before she left?” I echo.
He nods. “She disappeared. She was spooked. If you see anything unusual, report it. I want this cleaned up.”
