Page 3 of ILY
I might have pummeled it to death while screaming loudly.
God, when did I become such a killer? My aunt would be ashamed of me. Trying to harm the creatures in the garden.
They’re only living their lives. Have some respect.
Well, fine. I can have some respect for them, but not Michael. With him, it’s personal. He took this too far.
I might feel humiliated, but luckily, no one was there to witness my fall. And I am most definitely not telling any of my friends, new or old. And I’m definitely not telling any man I try to sleep with. It’s already hard enough to get someone interested in me.
I can’t even get a guy to sell me TNT on the dark web, and I’m a paying customer.
Why is being a criminal so damn hard?
The shower I decide on feels good, and it sobers me up a little. I watch the mud and other things swirl down the drain in a cocoon of lavender-scented bubbles and wonder how long this is going to be my life. I’m at war with a groundhog, I have no real job to speak of, the money my aunt left me is starting to dry up, and I haven’t been on a date in…shit. Months.
I scrub at my hair and try not to feel the tightness in the back of my throat. If I can solve the Michael problem, I swear everything else will fall into place. How long do groundhogs live, anyway?
Michael will probably make it to a hundred, just out of spite.
I scrub my face, then rinse off and get out, groping for a towel before I make my way into the bedroom. I dress in joggers and a T-shirt because comfort is my only priority right now, then make my way back to my computer to see if anyone has answered my new query.
TNT reallyisthe only way to go at this point. I’ve failed with all the traps I’ve set up, and the bat with nails in it and the croquet mallet I found in the shed haven’t done me any good.
It’s too bad I’d gone into Deaf studies and not into whatever field made and studied explosives. Shit, maybe Ishouldget a job at a mine. I can handle the dank, dark, lung-killing conditions long enough to sneak some out, can’t I?
Oh, who the fuck am I kidding. I wouldn’t last a day.
I can’t even hack it on a nonfunctional farm.
Or in the gym for twenty minutes on the treadmill.
Taking a breath, I open up the message board and see that I have a couple of replies to my query and a DM waiting in my inbox. My heart kicks up a notch.
Is this it? Is this my moment? My chance to end the madness and get my life back?
My eyes scroll the message.
Someone has what I want. It’s in code, but I know what this is. A real fucking sale. I’m going to get my TNT.
And I’m going to get it tomorrow.
CHAPTER TWO
THORNE
My knuckles ache from typing,and my vision is definitely getting worse now that I’m chained to my desk, working exclusively on message board cybercrimes. My readers are not cutting it, and I have a bad feeling that progressive lenses are in my future.
But I will admit not having to handwrite files is a big plus. I came into the job long after they’d stopped using typewriters, but some of the old guys still tell horror stories about lost paperwork. We have an IT team who can fix pretty much anything that goes wrong these days. From random magnets to shit blowing up, nothing is ever completely gone.
Not that I’ve seen that in my career, but I’ve watched enough movies to not let my guard drop.
I do wish working for the FBI cybercrimes division was more like TV though. People wearing nice designer suits and working in swanky offices, taking down crime boss kingpins. Hell, they probably had an endless supply of decent coffee too, and being able to swagger into crime scenes with sunglasses and puns?
What a life.
My job had no sunglasses. Or puns.
It’s just a hunched back, carpal tunnel, and failing eyesight. Which goes along with the fact that I’m also losing my hearing. So very fun, though that, at the very least, wasn’t job related. It was an untreated ear infection at sixteen combined with crappy genetics, leading to degenerative hearing loss and vertigo.
