Page 45 of Violet Spark
I sighed. “They killed him, jackhole. I don’t know who did it, but if I could get into his phone, maybe I could figure it out.” And maybe I could figure out the rest of my life too.
“My name’s not jackhole,” he muttered.
Then there was near silence on the other end for a few minutes, but the sound of clicking—typing—scratched at my ears so I knew he was working. I waited, not patiently, pacing tight circles around the empty end of the mall. The lights of the ATM blinked a temptation. I’d never been a thief, but I’d never been a nanotech-infested freak either.
Finally he said, “Jacob.”
I stopped circling. “Is that who—?”
“That’s me. My name isn’t jackhole, it’s Jacob.”
Since he couldn’t see me, I rolled my eyes. “Right, okay, fine.”
“Don’t roll your eyes at me.”
Shit. I had Brayden’s phone pointed right at my face. “Obviously you got it unlocked.”
The screen flicked on with the passcode page.
“Type in 123456.”
“You are fucking kidding me.”
“That’s not his original password. I backtracked through his social media accounts to his device managers and reset his code.”
I vowed to change my passwords daily as I tapped in the numbers. The main screen appeared. “If I were about to be murdered,” I muttered, “which app would I use?”
“Pornhub, definitely.”
“Don’t be a jackhole,” I snapped.
“You asked. But I suppose since Brayden had you, he didn’t need porn anymore.”
Was that supposed to be some sort of compliment? Probably not. And even if Jacksalot—Jacob—was right, I wasn’t clicking on the pr0n icon right there on the main screen. Poor Summoner. Some things should die with their user, and porn preference was one of them.
I flipped through the three screens’ worth of apps. Brayden was obviously a tech nerd and had all the digital detritus to prove it. Scanning through his messages, I didn’t see anything instantly suspicious—texts labeled from Mom, Dad, and Dad#2. Apparently poor Brayden had a stepdad or his parents were polyamorous. Someone else to miss him… A bunch of notifications from the Legendelirium boards. A bunch of work app notifications too, but a quick look at those didn’t have anything marked “drop off jeans for dry cleaning, finish powerpoint, steal high-tech secrets from the office”, so no luck there.
Once again, I didn’t know what I was doing. Shocking, I know.
I let out a hard breath. “I know you’re scavenging too,” I told Jacob. “See anything?”
“I don’t even know what we’re looking for.”
I hated to think it, but him sayingwesounded…comforting.
Looking at Brayden’s phone, he seemed just like us. Just…a guy. “He got into something bad,” I said, “and now he’s dead and there has to besomething that…”
Jacob waited a beat. “That will what? Bring him back to life? Hate to break this to you, MojiMaiden, but there are no do-overs in real life.”
I sank back into one of the motionless massage chairs. “Trust me, I know,” I muttered. “Anyway, it’s Mo.”
“More what?”
“Not more. Mo. My name is Imogen.”
Another silence on his end. Then he said, “Tell me what I saw. That flash of purple.”
This was it. I had to decide if I trusted SirJacksalot with the whole story.
