24. Myles
MYLES
“How’re things with your billionaire boyfriend?” Cipher asks.
“They’re good.” I adjust the volume on my headphones and lean back in my desk chair.
“Good?” he asks, his tone flat. “That’s all you’ve got for us?”
“Really good?” I shrug, even though I know he and Echo can’t see me. “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“Just trying to live vicariously through you since you’re the one with the boyfriend,” he says. His words are casual, but there’s an edge to his voice.
“There’s really not much to tell,” I say. “He’s good, and things are good.”
“Of course,” he says, his tone placating. “I just figured there might be trouble in paradise if you’re hanging with us on a Friday night and not spending it with him and his friends.”
“Phoenix already told us his man is going out of town this weekend.” Echo reminds him.
“Oh yeah,” Cipher says. “I take it he’s already left to go do whatever billionaire frat boys do when they’re not at school?”
“Yeah, he left this afternoon.”
“Careful, Ci,” Echo cuts in. “You’re starting to sound jealous.”
“Nah,” he says dismissively. “Definitely not jealous, just curious. And not really liking how he’s so busy with his new boyfriend and his new friends that we barely get to hang out with him anymore.”
“Give him a break, Ci,” Echo admonishes. “He’s doing exactly what we’ve been telling him to do for years.”
“We told him to get a life and get laid, not to ignore us because he’s finally getting some D on the regular and would rather hang out with his billionaire buddies than us,” he shoots back.
“Like you don’t do the same thing every time you start dating someone new,” she counters.
“Remember when you were hooking up with your roommate’s brother last year and you went dark on us for over a month?
Or when you were seeing that guy over the summer and we didn’t hear from you for weeks at a time? Or when you?—”
“That’s so not the same,” he interrupts.
“How is it not exactly the same?” she asks.
“I didn’t go dark then because I was dating someone.
It was because I had other shit going on in my life that I had to deal with,” he snaps.
“Unlike some people, I actually have to worry about real-world problems like not being able to afford food and ending up on the streets if I can’t pay my rent, or not being able to get my meds if I lose my insurance.
I don’t have rich parents to bail me out whenever I fuck up,” he says pointedly.
“And I’m not sitting all comfy in my fancy pants school with a full staff to take care of my every need.
I live in reality, and I’m the only one here who does. ”
“Wow,” Echo says at the same time I say, “You know I can hear you, right?”
“Tell us how you really feel, Ci,” Echo says.
“Yeah, you don’t want to know how I really feel,” he says in a dark tone I’ve never heard him use before. “I’m so done with both of you, and I’m not even sorry about any of this.”
The little green dot next to his name disappears as he goes offline.
“What the fuck was that?” Echo asks incredulously.
“I have no idea.”
Cipher can be dramatic when he’s stressed about stuff, and this isn’t the first time he’s gotten mad at one of us for something stupid and said he’s done with us. It isn’t even the first time he’s ragged on us for having more money than him, but it’s never been like this before.
“Is it just me, or did that sound different from his usual tantrums?” I ask Echo.
“Yeah,” she agrees. “Everything about that was weird. And it started before you came online.”
“What do you mean?”
“He asked me some really strange questions while we were waiting for you. Like if I knew anything about some deepfakes you’ve been looking for?—”
“Wait,” I cut in. “Deepfakes? He asked specifically about deepfakes?”
“Yeah,” she says, sounding confused. “That means something to you?”
“It does, but it shouldn’t mean anything to him.”
“Huh?”
“I didn’t tell either of you this, but a few months ago, I learned about some deepfakes that someone made of me and my siblings that they were going to use to try and ruin my family.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
I can hear the hurt in her voice, and I’m going to spend the next few years groveling and making up for it, but I know I did the right thing, even if it feels wrong.
“Because I was trying to keep you guys safe.”
“But—”
“I know how that sounds,” I tell her gently. “But the people who made those videos were bad people who weren’t afraid to hurt whoever they needed to in order to get what they wanted. They’re the type who would have used you to get to me, and I couldn’t risk that.”
“Were? Like past tense?”
“Yeah,” I say grimly.
“Are the videos as bad as I’m thinking they are?” she asks hesitantly.
“Way worse.”
“But if you didn’t tell either of us about any of this, how does Cipher know about them?” she asks.
“I have no clue. What exactly did he say?”
“He asked if you’d told me about some video files you were trying to track down. When I said no, he asked if you’d mentioned someone named Jacob to me.”
“Jacob?” I interject. “He said Jacob?”
“Yeah. That means something to you?”
“Yeah. What else did he say?”
“Not much. After he asked about that Jacob guy, he said you told him about some deepfakes you were looking for and asked again if you’d said anything about them. Then he told me not to tell you he asked because he was worried you’d be angry at him for mentioning any of this to me.”
I sit there, stunned, trying to process everything she just said.
“What the hell is going on?” she asks, her voice tight and full of distress.
“I don’t know?—”
The room is plunged into darkness as the lights and my computer both blink off at the same instant.
“Echo?” I ask, looking around the nearly pitch-black room. Was there a power failure? “Are you there?”
The silence on the other end of the line is expected, and I pull my headphones off and grope on my desk for my phone.
I closed my curtains since Jax was going to be away for the weekend, and there’s almost no ambient light in the room.
My hand closes around my phone, and I turn on the flashlight. Now that I can see, I make my way over to my window and pull back the curtain.
Just as I’m expecting, the lights around Boone House are dark, so whatever happened to the power didn’t just affect the building, but the entire system.
I’m just turning away from the window when I hear something strange. Like a key being slipped into a lock.
My lock.
The soft clink of a metal on metal follows, then the doorknob twists.
My blood turns to ice water in my veins as I stare at my door in horror, too terrified to do more than stand there as I’m paralyzed with fear.
That’s not Jax. He’d never turn the power off in the whole building just to sneak into my room. He’s all about stealth and surprise. And he’d never use a key, either, especially for the original lock and not for the new one he installed.
Whoever is trying to break into my room doesn’t know about the upgraded lock Jax installed, which means they’re not anyone I want to be alone in the dark with.
Finally breaking free of my ice sculpture impression, I unlock my phone and open my contacts, but pause, my thumb hovering over the screen.
Who the hell am I going to text? Jax and Jace left to go take care of some business with their dad hours ago.
Xave, Killian, and Felix are still on campus, but Killian and Xave are busy with frat business tonight, and Felix is hanging out with his best friend.
Hastily, I pull up Killian’s contact, but my hesitation cost me precious seconds, and I’ve only managed to type a few letters when my door is forced open with a resounding crash.
It’s too dark to see more than shadows and shapes as figures stream into my room, but based on the sheer number of heavy footsteps, there are a lot of them, and they’re moving fast and with purpose.
I still have the flashlight on my camera on, and the thin beam of light lands on a man dressed all in black with what looks like tactical gear on, including night vision goggles, rushing toward me.
My mind stutters and skips like the old CD player my parents used to have in their ancient van when I was a kid as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing.
Out of pure instinct, I raise the flashlight and illuminate his face as he closes in on me.
“Aaaaaargh!” He falls to his knees and tears off his goggles so he can cover his eyes with gloved hands.
My relief at having a way to fight back is short-lived as a guy in the same all-black clothes and tactical gear, but with his goggles down and bouncing around his neck, seems to almost melt out of the darkness and smashes into me.
The impact is enough to throw me into my dresser, and I hit it hard, the breath whooshing from my lungs as I tumble to the floor and land in a heap on the smooth wood.
My phone falls from my hand and skitters across the floor as pieces of my chess set rain down on me, the delicate glass shattering and breaking as they hit the floor.
My phone landed face up, and the loss of the only source of light in the room is almost as disorienting and terrifying as having the wind knocked out of me by masked men in tactical gear.
I lay on the ground, stunned and gasping as I desperately try to draw in a full breath as they surround me. It’s so dark I can only see the black outlines of their bodies against the nearly black of the room, and panic claws at my tight chest as several of them grab me.
I’m still too winded to fight back as they haul me to my feet and roughly shove me between them like they’re playing a game of keep away with me.
I stumble and trip as they manhandle me, but my mind goes absolutely blank with terror when one of them puts a plastic gag in my mouth and snaps a band around my head to secure it in place.
Seconds later, something slides over my face and head.