Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
VIOLET
Where am I?
My head hurts. My mouth is dry, and my heart hammers.
I crack an eye open, and the world swims and rocks, my body seeming to roll the other way to the world, and a wave of nausea hits me.
Shit. I think I’m still drunk.
I sit up, gripping the bed.
Someone groans next to me as my brain clangs around in my head.
Where…?
I know the room. The bed. The groan.
Last night, Lia and I got drunk on her evil cocktails. We ventured out for food and more drinks before we stumbled back to her place and, as I piece it together, had more cocktails for reasons unknown, and tried to stalk The Ghost online. Not write to him again, just stalk him.
By reading his site.
Things get a little hazy, but I’m sure she took my computer to try to screw with Jack.
It wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. I don’t need to remember anything to know that. Neither one of us can hack.
At the most, we can scream at someone online via an email or forum.
And we spent time seeing if the fallout from Isaac’s new ad campaign had hurt his career. But I don’t remember what we found.
Actually, I don’t remember anything much.
I reach for my computer, but I can’t find it. So, I flop down, my back hitting something hard, making me leap up and turn.
The thumping in my brain gets louder. And then I see what I was lying on.
My computer.
Heart thumping, I grab it, thanking the gods I didn’t snap the screen, but it won’t turn on.
I dig around on the floor for the power cord, and I shove it in.
Nothing happens.
Maybe the battery’s so drained it needs a few minutes.
“Quit moving while I’m dying,” Lia mutters from her side of the bed. “I need peace.”
“Why’s my computer in bed with us?”
“I don’t know. You were still up when I dragged myself in here.” The covers move. “And apparently put myself to bed fully dressed.”
“I’m fully dressed, too.”
“But I live here.”
“You’re the worst when you’re hungover.”
I check the computer again.
It’s still black-screened, still dead.
“Lia, it won’t turn on.”
“Give it time.”
But even at one percent, which it should be past that by now, it comes on, even just to show the power bar and where it’s at. Hell, it shows that when it’s plugged in at zero.
What if something’s wrong with it?
I stop thinking about what we might have been doing, what I might’ve been doing, and start thinking about my assignment. Along with all the research on my computer.
Not in the cloud.
Not saved onto an external hard drive. On this computer.
I reach across the king-size bed and shake Lia.
“What?”
“My computer isn’t working. What do I do?”
“Jack’s brother…”
My heart contracts. “He’s a nice guy, but what’s he got to do with it? You can’t yell out random things.”
She groans loudly. “I didn’t yell. I said, Jack’s brother. Doesn’t he work in IT?”
My heart leaps.
Yes.
Hell. How many brain cells did I murder last night?
Cade’s some kind of IT genius. Even Jack has told me that.
I start to shake as I tumble out of the bed. “He does. Hopefully, he can help.”
“Who? The Ghost?”
“No.” I put the laptop on the bedside table, as I keep trying to power it up. “Cade.”
“Who’s Cade?”
I roll my eyes.
I came straight here yesterday, so I have the clothes I packed up from Jack’s.
“Shower,” I mutter.
“Cade’s a shower?”
“Cade is Jack’s brother. I need a shower. Oh, god, I hope he can help, otherwise I’m fucked.”
“Can you implode more quietly? Dying here?”
I grab some clothes, shower quickly, and dress in jeans and a T-shirt. Then, after shoving my feet in my sneakers, I grab the computer and everything else I need, shove them all into my backpack, and I head out for the subway.
Cade will be able to help, right?
If he can’t, I’m fucked in a major way.
This assignment is due on Wednesday. And not only is the research on my computer, so is the nearly finished assignment.
It has taken me over a week to get to where I am.
There’s no way I can restart it, redo the research, collate it, and then finish it in time.
Not with the internship on Monday. Because something tells me there are going to be long hours Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, so I’ll be burning that candle down to the ground, both ends, possibly with a flamethrower, all in the name of damage control.
I’m sure there’s major emergency meetings going on now, but that’s for the top people with Isaac. I know he’ll want to ride this, play it down. He doesn’t want to drop out of the next election, but I won’t know anything until Monday.
So right now, I need to get my computer back and my assignment done.
I hurry down the street toward Cade’s building. It doesn’t occur to me he might not be home, he mightn’t be alone if he is, until I ring his doorbell.
But the buzzer sounds and the door unlocks and I go in, racing up the stairs to his floor where he’s waiting, leaning against the door frame, curiosity in his dark eyes behind his glasses, his long-sleeved black T-shirt’s crumpled, and his feet are bare.
“Jack’s not here.”
“I know Jack’s not here. And I’m sorry to come unannounced, I came to see you.”
His mouth curls, and he pushes his glasses to the top of his head and motions me in. “Should I be flattered?”
My cheeks burn as I show him my laptop case.
He raises both brows. “Follow me.”
I do, right into the living room where he’s got the coffee table pulled up close to the sofa and his laptop open on it. The screen’s full of what looks like numbers.
“Coffee?”
“Uh…no, thanks.”
He sits down and motions around the room for me to take my pick of seats, but I just stand there, as he finishes something on his computer then closes it. “What’s up?”
“You’re good with computers?”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I need your help. I kinda slept on my computer last night and now it won’t turn on.”
He slowly stands.
Though he’s not smiling, I can feel it behind his neutral expression, the light of amusement in his dark eyes.
“You…slept on your computer?”
“Is there any chance you can help me fix it?”
“What were you doing to fall asleep…on your computer? Is it in pieces? Because I don’t do hardware. I can make some calls for you, but—”
“It’s in one piece.” My cheeks burn hotter. I smooth a hand along my denim-clad thigh while I grip my backpack strap tight. “And I just fell asleep.”
Of course, I probably look like I crawled out of a gutter. I feel like I did, sordid, stepped on, dirty in ways no shower can clean.
And not even dirty in a good way, just soiled and disgusting, and I’m never drinking again.
“My assignment’s on it, and I need to make sure I have it so I can finish. Surely, if I did something to the computer you can somehow salvage the data.”
“Why don’t you access it from another computer?” That smile still lurks behind his benign expression. “I mean, you’ve got it all backed up, right?”
“It’s saved.”
He closes his eyes. “Nope, don’t tell me. You’ve got it saved to your drive. Not online, not in the cloud, not even on an external hard drive or on a USB stick.”
I grit my teeth.
Great, he’s subtly giving me shit for not being him, for not being smart enough or savvy enough to do any of that.
But with school and the internship, I hardly have time to even do the damn assignment, let alone think about saving it in a hundred different places.
I’m so dumb. There’s no one else to blame here but me and my bad computer management skills.
“I didn’t do any of that, no.”
“Fuck, Vi… You’re smarter than that.”
My stomach drops like an iron beam to the ground. And the back of my neck burns as my throat starts to close. “Apparently not. If you won’t help me, can you recommend someone?”
“Hey. I didn’t say I wouldn’t help.”
The humor is muted by sincerity, and it strokes down the spikes that start to rise inside.
“I’m an idiot, I know. The assignment’s due on Wednesday, and I can’t fail it. I want to get into the PhD program, and if I fail, I—”
“Vi?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll help.”
“Oh, thank god.” My knees threaten to buckle, and I let my backpack slide from my shoulder. “You’ve no idea how much it means to me.”
“Well, you do owe me.”
Startled, I look at him and this time, the smile appears, and weirdly, it’s something that also makes my knees a little weak.
It’s got to be the adrenaline moving through me that’s causing it, the relief he’ll help. But the words do throw me.
“What do you mean owe?”
“Two things, tell me how the hell you managed to fall asleep on your computer.” He holds out his hand, and I sit on the edge of the sofa and unzip my pack, pulling my computer and the power cord from my bag and hand it to him.
“I fell asleep studying and working on my assignment, of course,” I say, as there’s no way I’m telling him I got raging drunk and stalked The Ghost. Emailed The Ghost—maybe more than once…
And I’ve got the fuzziest recollection of going onto the fetish site I joined, the one where I just like to post and read things on because there’s no way I’d do anything…before, because I was with Jack, and now, because I’m pretty sure I’m a coward.
I’m not telling him that, either. Obviously.
“You said two things?”
“The second thing is you need to promise me you’ll back everything up, outside your computer. Cloud, email it to yourself, external hard drive, whatever. I’d recommend a mix of all of them.”
“Will do.”
He holds my computer up, like he’s some kind of superhero who can tell things from looking at it, not to mention pick up vibes from me in the ether, but he just gives me a long, teasing side-eye that flips my stomach now that it has risen from its leaden fall.
I’m freaking out a little. I don’t know what I had open.
Shit…
No, I don’t think I’d have had anything open, and even if he poked about online, any of those sites close down if my computer does. I’m sure.
“Any chance I’m going to stumble on something that’ll make me blush on here?”
“No.” I glare at him.
“Not something dirty and wild? Maybe I’ll find you’re into something dark, Vi…”