I didn't respond to that, just brought up my camera and chat software, quickly brushing my hands through my crazy morning hair, before entering the screen name and hitting the call button.

My heart was hammering in my chest, my breathing feeling shallow and labored.

I had given up.

Days ago, I had decided it was no use. I checked anyway because I was always praying someone more powerful than me would step up.

That there was someone who wanted to help.

Someone who could end this for me.

And for Breaker.

And Shoot.

Shoot who Breaker hadn't heard from since the last meeting. Shoot who Breaker was getting more and more worried about by the day. He didn't say anything about it, but it was there. In the heavy way his shoulders sat. In the tightness in his jaw. In the faraway look in his eyes.

He was worried.

And that was my fault.

I needed to fix it.

The call got answered and it took a moment for Jstorm's camera to connect. When it did, it might as well not have been hooked up. Because the image gave me nothing. Someone in a hood that hung over their face. The hoodie was big and black, dwarfing whatever body was underneath it. The room Jstorm was in was dark. I couldn't even tell you from looking if Jstorm was a man or woman.

“Alex?” the inhuman voice asked.

Inhuman because whoever Jstorm was, they were using voice modification software.

They meant business.

That was good for me.

“Yes,” I said, nodding slightly, feeling almost nervous.

“I'm sorry to hear about Glenn,” Jstorm said.

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. No one else had offered me sympathy. And I didn't deserve it, but Glenn's memory did.

“Lex has been allowed off his leash for way too long.”

That was true. “Yeah,” I agreed.

“Are you still with Bryan Breaker?”

That was not information I shared. Jstorm had been doing his or her own research. Again, that was good.

“At his house. But he ran out for a few minutes.”

The hooded head nodded. “You need to untangle yourself from him.”

The words felt like a kick to the gut.

Even though they were ones I had been forcing myself to try believe for days.

“I know.”

“Shooter is still alive. But if you don't show proof of the hacker when Lex returns, he won't be alive for long.” There was a pause. “You could create false leads, make false information to hold yourself over. But that will only last for so long and Lex would use his usual methods of... persuasion against you.”

Persuasion.

Rape and torture.

Yeah.

Jstorm was right.

“But not before he uses your weaknesses against you.”

“My weaknesses,” I repeated hollowly.

“Shooter and Breaker.”

Right.

That was true.

Shit.

It was one thing to know it. It was another to have someone else tell you the same thing you were worried about.

“You need to leave.”

“How will leaving help? Breaker will get in trouble for losing me.”

“Not as much as he will be in for helping you.”

That was also true.

“I have no money. No where to go.”

“You leave and turn left at the end of the gravel road. You find a stop sign bent in half and laying on the grass, turn into the woods, under the first downed tree is a bag. Enough money to get you out of town for a few weeks. An ID. A burner.”

Holy shit.

Jstorm really meant business.

“And then what?”

“Then I take it from there. I use what you have and what I have gathered and I take down Lex Keith. Finally.”

“But...”

“You're out of this, Alex Miller. You've lost enough already. Take the bag. Leave town. Don't look back. Don't gather any more information. You can take your laptop and keep tabs, but don't stick your finger back into this mess. You're free. Go build a new life.”

And with that, Jstorm ended the call.

If my heart was pounding before, it was threatening an attack then.

I had just been taken out of the equation.

I had just had my life's work taken from me.

And, at once, it filled me with overwhelming terror and soul-crushing relief.

All I needed to do was leave.

The problem was, there was no 'all' about it.

Leaving was taking a leap of faith.

It was potentially screwing an already screwed situation further.

It was leaving the only person left in the world I cared about.

Someone who said they cared about me too.

And, yes, it was soon.

And, yes, it was nonsensical.

But Breaker meant something to me.

There was even a small voice inside that suggested that maybe he meant everything to me.

But that was all the more reason I needed to go.

To save him.

To save him from trying to save me.

And losing his life or Shooter's life in the process.

I couldn't let that happen.

I needed to go.

I slammed my laptop shut, moving quickly across Breaker's house. I slipped into jeans and my boots, threw on an extra layer under my sweatshirt, half emptied my duffel, and stowed a change of clothes and my laptop inside to make for light and easy travel.

I looked down at my notebooks, flipping one to the last page and ripping it out.

I had to leave. But I also had to leave a note.

If I didn't, he would think Lex got me. I couldn't have him storming Lex's house looking for me. So I grabbed a pen, I sat down, and I said my last words to Breaker.

And I pretended I did this without crying.

But I cried. A lot. Making the words I wrote swim before my eyes.

I grabbed the gun Breaker left with me, slipping it into my waistband like he did, then tore out of the house.

Seventeen

Breaker

I did a quick job for an old friend- roughing up some jackass who kept trying to shake down his store. I was done in half an hour, relatively clean of blood, and whipped my way through the food store.

I wasn't lying when I said we had gone through all of the food. I meant all I had left was a jar of pickles and some stale crackers in the cabinet. She may have been tiny, but she could sock away almost as much food as I could. It was one of the many things I found amusing about her.

She had changed.

After losing her ex. After crying with me. After drinking with me. After opening up a little... she changed.

She let down the walls enough for me to climb over. To get a solid view of what was on the inside. And I wasn't wrong. I knew I wouldn't be. But it was good to have proof.

Alex Miller wasn't just the hollow eyed, determined hacker with a vendetta whose soul spoke in a language of tears.

She was funny and sweet and had a strong tendency to stick her foot in her mouth and then blush like hell because of it. And that temper of hers? Yeah, it wasn't just about shit she found important. The day she was hungover as fuck, she went balls to the wall about a god damn character from a movie.

I fucked her until she forgot what her argument was.

I also caught her singing daily. Sometimes multiple times a day. Like she forgot I was mulling around. Or like she was comfortable enough with my presence that she didn't care that I overheard. Several times, it was that song about smiling. Other times, it was other oldies. Almost exclusively songs about rising above something or choosing to keep your chin up despite the hard times. I wondered if that was because of her mother. If that was the kind of music she played or sang for Alex growing up.