With my cell phone in my pocket, and my gun at eye level, I left my room, heading straight for my office. The house was dark, but I didn’t need light to make my way around. At the door to my office, I took a deep breath, not knowing what I’d find. I carefully turned the doorknob and pushed the door open slowly, stopping when I realized how much light was coming from inside.
The computer was on.
It wasn’t supposed to be.
Throwing caution to the wind, I shoved the door open, pointing my gun directly at the chair behind my desk. To my relief, it was empty – the whole room was empty, but the computer was on, and when I peeked at the screen, it was filled with steadily running, nonsensical lines of code.
Remembering what Wick had said, I unplugged everything, pushing out a sigh as it powered down, blanketing the room in quiet and darkness.
But I didn’t feel settled.
Who the hell would want tohackme, of all things? I made nail polish for a living, I didn’t have state secrets, or bomb schematics. But for someone to have access to something that was mine, and use it to access myhomecomputer, which was even more personal… it was a violation, of the deepest sort.
And then there was Wick… now, I suddenly felt a need to know who,really, this man was. Hacking a hacker back? What regular person had a skillset like that?
And there was still the question of how the hell he knew where I was.
My tee shirt wasn’t nearly good enough.
Blowing out a sigh, I pulled the phone from my pocket and dialed a familiar number.
“Hey,” I said, relieved when my call was answered. “I hope you’re not busy?”
“No… but it’s late,” Chloe said, her voice thick like I’d woken her. “What’s going on?”
“Well, for starters… I need somewhere to stay tonight. I don’t feel safe at home.”