Page 36 of Make Them Cry
I’d probably have run back home to the small town I grew up in, Magnolia Ridge, and moved back in with my parents.
So stupid. I think about my job.
And howstupidI was to ever trust Mason Reid.
I pull the blanket tighter around me. My chest aches in that familiar way when old wounds try to scab over.
I should’ve seen it. The way Mason got weird when I started rising. When management praised me. When the NovaVision project got tagged withmyname instead of his.
At first, he was passive-aggressive. Little comments about my “luck.” How I “networked really well.” How I was “so charming with the bosses.”
And then it got worse.
When I ended things, he didn’t even try to stop me. He justsmiled—this cold, calculating smirk—and said, “One day, I’ll show them who you really are.”
It haunted me.
Still does.
And now?
Now I know he meant it.
Only… I can’t prove it. He’s been smart. No digital footprints, no evidence that points directly at him. Just suspicion and a gut-deep certainty that he’s not finished.
My phone buzzes again.
MASK:Sleep. I’m watching.
A chill slides down my spine—but it’s not fear.
It’s anticipation.
And longing.
And something else I don’t have a name for yet.
Maybe someday, I’ll ask him who he is.
And maybe… I’ll already know.
TWELVE
GAGE
We bait the hook with something Regent can’t resist: attention.
Arrow spins up a mirrored Cathedral node—looks real, feels real, breathes like the original board but it’s ours, every packet tagged with a tracer that sings when you hum the right frequency. Render dresses it with stolen forum skin and toxic little thread titles:The Whale Returns,Psalm88 Drop,NEW Footage—DM for link.
Catnip for a coward.
Knight and I sit shoulder to shoulder in Riverside’s back room, laptops open, comms live. Ozzy’s on his rooftop with a directional antenna because he says the sky “makes computers honest.” Arrow paces, stretching the knuckles in his right hand like the bones keep time to the fans.
Arrow says, “Honeypot’s up. Canary creds seeded.”
Ozzy says through comms, “Pings are clean. Any rat that sniffs this cheese gets a bell round its neck.”
Render adds, “I added a blinking ‘skull’ emoji to the footer.”
