Page 23 of Red Hunt

“Promise.”

She kissed me on my forehead and was out the door. Somehow, even though Tara was only a couple minutes older than me, she’d always been the strong one, the one who could take care of herself. The one who’d rather roam the streets at night than come home to…

Well, at least that way she escaped. Escaped all the horrors that happened at night at home.

I took my lap desk and my laptop and tried to get into a comfortable position. The ice pack slipped from my knee and my laptop nearly fell to the floor while I attempted to pick the damn thing back up.

This sucked.

Not the staying-at-home part. Because that was what I was usually doing every evening, but the not-being-able-to-move-properly part. That was the sucky part.

I logged in, started my routine to mask my IP address—and any evidence leading back to my physical address and identity—and only then did I log into the Dark Web forum I hung out at every evening with my crew, the Greyhounds, my fellow gray-hat-hackers.

We didn’t know each other—no names, no details, just a common interest in fighting the evil bastards.

I didn’t think of any of them as other than their online names—mine was radical_angel—everything I wasn’t in real life.

I wasn’t an angel since I knew for a fact they didn’t exist. And I wasn’t radical or maybe only borderline radical since I had devoted my life to going after those monsters. The same monsters who made my childhood a living hell.

radical_angel: Hey guys.

Electrona: Hey, Angel.

radical_angel: What’s new?

John Q.: We had a breakthrough.

Oracle Who: You missed all the fun.

I hesitated a second, typed, then erased what I’d written. No details, no time zones. I wasn’t late, and I wouldn’t tell them about the accident. I checked if red_hunt was online. Our newest member usually made me feel almost giddy. But he wasn’t on.

radical_angel: What breakthrough? Sorry, I wasn’t there.

Oracle Who: Better late than gone. We found the new hideout. Mickey and Hash are breaching as we speak.

hash-boy: *busy*

Mickey: Never too busy for a beautiful lady.

Oracle Who: *lol*

Electrona: @Mickey, you’re such a charmer.

radical_angel: charmed my socks right off…

Electrona: *lol*

Oracle Who: @Mickey—don’t let the pretty ladies distract you!

Mickey: 10-4, boss

I logged myself into our encrypted wiki site and read the latest progress reports and documentations. Our little group had been growing but not by a lot. But even though we weren’t more than a dozen members, documentation and progress reports kept us all in the loop and enabled a quick takeover from one to the other. Usually, I would dive right in but not tonight. I yawned and leaned forward to look at the big clock on the kitchen wall. I felt the stretch in the back of my knee and moaned at the spike of pain, though when my eyes got stuck on the empty can of soup sitting on the counter, my skin tingled and I forgot the pain. Max had heated the soup for me as if it wasn’t a big deal. As if caring for me wasn’t a big deal. As if in saving me out there, he hadn’t done enough already.

15

MAX

I honest to God would kill whoever was hammering on my door at—I looked at the old-fashioned clock on my makeshift nightstand and groaned—7 a.m. in the freaking morning. Goddamn.

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