14. Chapter 14
Addy
“Princess! If you keep going like this, you’re going to pull my arm out of its socket! Can we please not?” I implored the one-hundred-pound Saint Bernard as she trudged mercilessly along to … well, wherever she wanted, I suppose.
She hadn’t asked me, and I certainly wasn’t in a position to make her listen to me.
I shouldn’t have accepted the request from her owner, but times were hard and they paid well. Considering this furry giant’s behavior, it wasn’t difficult to guess why he paid so much more than the going rate.
Princess didn’t give a single flying fuck that my whole right arm was burning from trying to hold onto her leash, nor that I’d almost tripped and face-planted multiple times.
Didn’t so much as turn her head.
“Great. You’re a dog’s accessory. How much lower can you sink?” I muttered under my breath, attempting to keep pace with Princess while simultaneously trying not to get us killed by traffic.
My phone started buzzing, so I took it out of the back pocket of my jeans and discovered my sister’s name flashing across the screen.
Huh.
“Hey, Savannah!” Despite my arm being almost pulled out of its socket, I tried to sound cheerful.
“Adelaide. Glad I caught you for once. I hope you’re doing well?”
“Amazing!” I lied straight through my teeth. Savannah never called me, and I wasn’t going to ruin this one-off by hinting at the truth.
“Good, good. I’m very glad to hear that.”
“Yeah, how about you? Everything good up there? How’s Nathan?” I never warmed to her husband, who was as rude as he was wealthy, but I didn’t deliberately try to be rude in return.
“We’re doing fine, thank you,” she replied primly.
There was a brief pause.
“What—”
“Listen, the reason I’m calling you is because I wanted to discuss plans for Christmas.”
My steps faltered, but Princess plowed on mercilessly, dragging me along with her.
“Christmas? That’s months away.” I laughed airily.
“I’m aware. Nathan and I would like to spend it with his family in St. Barths this year and we wanted to check in to make sure you’d be going to see Mom for the holidays so she’s not alone.”
I had no words. Alone? She was literally surrounded by our family. If anyone was alone, it was me.
“You are going, right?” Savannah pressed.
“Tell her it’s her turn. We can’t keep changing our plans, and she hasn’t even been there once.” I heard Nathan’s voice drone in the background.
Wow. Thanks, Nathan. Not all of us have bucketloads of money at our disposal.
But I bit my tongue. “Uh, I wish I could. I really do. But I don’t really have the money right now and—”
“I thought she had a job?”
Savannah shushed him, and her voice was muffled as she said, “So did I,” like she’d put her hand over the speaker.
“I do have a job. Jobs to be exact, but I don’t have enough saved to—”
“Really, Adelaide? You don’t have enough for one trip? It’s freaking Christmas and it’s months away!”
My shoulders tensed, and I could feel tears pricking my eyes. I blinked furiously. There was no fucking way I was going to cry.
I took a deep breath. “I really wish I could, but I don’t think it’ll happen, to be completely honest. But Mom’s not alone. I mean, the whole family lives right down the road. She won’t be alone and you guys can still go—”
“I knew she’d pull this shit! She’s so irresponsible. When the hell will she fucking grow up?” Nathan seethed in the background.
“I know, I know.” Savannah tried to calm him down. Her reaction hurt more than anything Nathan could have thrown at me.
“You know what?” I said loudly. “It’s been really nice talking to you, but I need to go.”
“What? We’re not done here, Adelaide!”
“Yes, we are. I won’t be able to go see Mom but there’s no reason for you to not go on your trip.” I mustered up as much friendliness as I could.
“That’s so selfish of you, Adelaide.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. It felt like someone had suckerpunched me, right in the fucking sternum. I may be many things, but selfish wasn’t one of them.
Great. Another thing I’d be anxious about disappointing people over.
“I’m sorry to hear that’s the way you feel. I’m not trying to be selfish. I just can’t afford to fly for nine hours and see Mom.”
“Bullshit!” Nathan scoffed.
“It was nice talking to you.” I tried to keep my voice steady, but I could feel it wavering slightly, and I resented that. “I’ve got to get going. Bye, Savvy.”
Then I hung up.
Foolishly, I clung to the hope that calling her by the childhood nickname I’d given her would remind her things hadn’t always been this way. The truth was, she used to be different.
My sister had always had a dominant personality, but she used to be kind and understanding … until she met Nathan. I missed the way things used to be between us, but sometimes people changed.
Princess tugged me along without ever looking back and we finally ended up where she had apparently wanted to go: a path leading down to a beach I’d never walked on before. I turned my head from left to right, taking in the scenery. Sometimes I forgot how close the ocean was.
A cool breeze blew my hair wildly around my face and I closed my eyes for a moment, trusting Princess not to drag me to my death. Breathing in deeply, I savored the salty air.
When I opened my eyes again, I let out a shriek and jumped back. A stocky figure, slightly taller than me, had appeared at my side.
“What the fuck!” I cast a wild look around, trying to make sure no one else had snuck up on me.
Any sane person would have offered me some kind of reassurance or some sort of reaction. But the man stood stock-still with his face impassive, his hands buried in the pockets of his leather jacket and his cold, piercing eyes fixed on me.
Interesting choice of clothing in eighty-degree weather, but I digress.
I took a tentative step backward, glancing at Princess, who was completely uninterested in my dilemma, sniffing the ground as though there weren’t a random stranger accosting her leash holder.
“Ummm … can I help you?”
Maybe he was lost? The man continued to stare at me and I felt a twinge of unease now.
“Riiight. I guess I’m just gonna—”
Suddenly, his hand shot out and I squealed, jumping out of his reach and almost tripping over the leash in the process. I waited for him to grab me, my muscles tense and ready to fight him off. But it never came.
“You always this … jumpy?” he asked, his voice betraying a slight Russian accent.
In his hand — the one I thought he was trying to grab me with — he was holding a piece of paper. He quirked a brow in an entirely unimpressed fashion.
“I mean, when a strange man materializes out of thin air next to me on a deserted path, uh, yeah?!”
Was he for fucking real? Only a man could fail to see how alarming this situation might be.
He scoffed. “If you had survival instinct, you would not have asked me all these questions.”
“Excuse me? I so have survival instincts.” I propped my hands on my hips and glared at him.
“Da. Survival instincts of dodo.”
I gaped at him. “Of what?”
“Dodo bird.”
“Aren’t those extinct?” My brows furrowed. I was talking to a crazy person, wasn’t I?
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Da. Had bad survival instincts.”
Princess chose that exact moment to pull hard enough on her leash to make me stumble sideways. Guess we were leaving.
“I’d say it was delightful to meet you, but I’m kind of feeling insulted.” I threw him a fake smile over my shoulder while following the massive dog, acting as though I was leaving of my own accord.
“You not leaving.”
Princess, dragging me along in her wake, begged to differ.
“It seems our opinions are not aligned in this matter.”
I caught a glimpse of his exasperated expression before there was another big tug on the leash, actually forcing me to look ahead so I wouldn’t fall flat on my fucking face.
A mumbled curse in Russian, followed by quick footsteps, rang out behind me, and a hand grabbed my wrist and forced both me and an unamused Princess to stop.
“What do you—”
He pressed the paper into my hand and my fingers closed around it reflexively.
“Take. Follow instructions or I’ll be back.”
Ominous.
I raised my brows. “Is that a threat or…”
“Not threat. Just promise. Let’s not make him angry, da?”
Him?
“Who are you—”
But he had already turned around and was striding off in the opposite direction.
“Hold on! You can’t just disappear like this without an explanation!”
All he did was lift a hand lazily. “Follow instructions, Miss Romano.”
The stranger left me standing in the middle of the trail, dumbfounded. I chanced a quick glance at the paper in my hand, as though it might bite me.
“What the actual fuck?” I looked at Princess as though she might offer me some sort of explanation, but all I got was a reproachful look out of her slightly droopy eyes before she turned and jerked me along once more.
I stuffed the paper into my pocket, debating on whether it was wise to read it now. Curiosity killed the cat, did it not? Then again … cats had nine lives, so did it really matter?
My thoughts were spiraling.
What did the note say?
Who was it from?
Should I even read it?
Fucking hell, I wasn’t built for shit like this. If this were a horror movie, I’d already be dead.
Before I knew what I was doing, I had pulled the piece of paper out of my pocket and unfolded it, my eyes flying over the printed words.
Install Axiom on your phone. It’s not in the app store — use the link on axiom.chat through a private browser.
Open it. Don’t sync contacts. Don’t enable backups. Set a six-word passphrase you won’t reuse anywhere else.
When it asks for an invite key, enter: HOLLOW-STATIC-7.
Notifications off. Read receipts off.
Burn this after.
I turned the page over. No signature, no name, nothing.
What the fuck?
I navigated to the link, but it didn’t provide much more information besides indicating it was some kind of secure, heavily encrypted messaging app.
This had to be a scam, right? What else could it be? Who could possibly need to talk to me via an encrypted chat?
Everyone I knew could shoot me a normal fucking text. I didn’t know anyone who used encrypted whatever the fuck it was.
Unless…
He did have a Russian accent.
I stopped in my tracks, rooted to the spot so firmly even Princess had to comply, for once.
No, that was preposterous. It was ludicrous to even consider.
I read the printed words again, trying to find anything to either confirm or dispel my suspicions.
The strange man was long gone, but I still found myself glancing over my shoulder once more, just to be sure.
Ugh. I almost wished he stayed so I could’ve asked him more questions. He didn’t seem very forthcoming with answers, but at least I wouldn’t be standing alone in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a massive fur ball to direct my thoughts at.
Alone again. I set off in Princess’s wake once more. She looked as though she had had enough of my antics for the day.
After reading the note a third time, I slid it back into my pocket. Princess conveniently decided she had enough of the beach and dragged me back toward her home. My brows were set in a permanent furrow as I retraced my steps.
Of course, I wouldn’t do it. There were so many reasons why I shouldn’t even think about doing it. Like … well, they’d come to me eventually.
But … if I didn’t do it, I’d never find out who he was. My eyebrows furrowed. I couldn’t bear the thought of living without that knowledge; I had to find out whether there was any truth to my suspicion.
I snorted at the thought and at my pitiful attempt to fool myself into believing this was merely a suspicion. Was there really any doubt as to who these instructions were from? Who else would have a reason but Sasha.
I didn’t know whether to be impressed or scared by this display of power. How far did his reach extend? He found me, had the means to get this message delivered to me, and was somehow outmaneuvering the system.
Had he always had the means to contact me outside of the system? And if so, why had he waited until now? Because he finally trusted me? Or because I had pushed him too far?
I could tell myself I shouldn’t do it until the world stopped fucking spinning but I might as well stop lying to myself.
After dropping Princess off at her house — my right arm was probably now at least an inch longer than the other from all her pulling on the leash — I hurried home.
Pulling my phone and the note out, I followed the instructions and entered the private chatroom, staring at the blinking cursor.
Guess I was the cat after all, and the only real question to ask was how many lives I had left.