“You know,” Rebekah says, cocking her head, “if I don’t manage to get you up, Carmen will just send AJ.”
I close my eyes. “AJ doesn’t scare me.”
A long silence sits between us, and I open my eyes again to find Rebekah perfecting the raised brows of a disbelieving teenager.
“Fine, they scare me a little bit. Just maybe like this much.” I pinch my thumb and forefinger together.
“Didn’t they pour ice water over your head last time?”
I shiver. “What do you think the chances are AJ is possessed?”
Rebekah smirks. “I don’t know butyourchances of finding out are getting higher by the second.”
I groan and sit up. “Argh, fine. I’ll get up you little cretin.”
“Rude much?”
I glower at her.
“Hey!” Rebekah dodges the pillow I throw her way and lets the door slam shut behind her. “You’ve got five minutes.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
It takes most of my energy reserves for the day and the threat of AJ, Carmen’s terrifying bodyguard, hanging over me to not flop back onto my bed and curl into a ball.
I don’t bother showering and cleaning my teeth feels like too much effort, so I just gargle some toothpaste and water before chucking on sweats and a hoodie. It’s one of Jude’s and I try every day to drown in the smell of it. The cracks in my heart deepen as I inhale and realize his scent has faded even more.
Outside my room with a minute to spare I head down the metal stairs to the second floor. Though maybe floor is the wrong term.
I walk out onto the mezzanine that spans three of the four walls of what is essentially an enormous cavern. The steel grating of the balcony digs like blunt blades into my socked feet. I should probably have put on shoes, but I can’t bring myself to care.
I move over to the metal railing and look down on Carmen’s empire.
The ground floor is split into two sections. The left is filled with rows and rows of computers, more than a dozen tech savvy, punk fashioned hackers coding away.
The right is more spacious with people bent over tables or wielding blowtorches. It’s Carmen’s version of research and development. More often than not it ends up with something exploding, which frankly, given that most of the time she’s making tiny, super smart pieces of tech, astounds me.
Honestly, this place is insane. Apparently, Carmen bought it off a movie star who had it built into the side of the mountain while he was filming a supervillain show and got a little too into character. Then the show ended and he realized living off the grid wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Carmen doesn’t exactly live off the grid, more like on her own grid. This place isn’t on any map and from the outside all you’ll see is rock. She’s created her own secure internet system, and all of her hackers know better than to leave a trace.
“You’re stalling.”
I jump at AJ’s voice, my hand flying to my heart when I see them leaning against the railing next to me, one black boot crossed over the other.
“How the hell did you get there?”
AJ looks up from filing their nails with a file that’s closer to a small knife than a beauty care product. Their gaze is dry. A fresh line cuts through the shaved side of their head, short maroon curls tumbling down the other side. AJ’s the definition of a mystery so I don’t actually know what their ethnicity is, but their fawn brown skin suggests an Indian heritage.
“So are we going to do this the hard way or…”
I raise my hands and take a step back. “I’m going. I’m going.”
AJ keeps staring at me. I think they’re dead inside.
Downstairs, I find Carmen with the hackers, leaning over a young man’s shoulder as she explains something on his screen. She takes one look at me and calls up to her bodyguard. “AJ, stop scaring Freya.”
I stuff my hands in the pockets of Jude’s hoodie. “I’m not scared,” I say like a sulking teenager.
