Epilogue
The HimLock app still messages me unprompted.
Sometimes it’s soft. Other times it’s filthy… But every time, it’s them.
Whisper tells me he’s five minutes away and needs me naked on the couch.
Hollow pings my phone while I’m brushing my teeth, asking what I’m wearing like he doesn’t already know.
Cipher prefers the one-word reminders paired with a location pin that proves he’s watching from the other side of my bedroom wall.
I don’t mute the app or delete the thread that started it all.
I don’t want to.
It’s the proof of our beginning.
Our code-swapped love language.
Our private terminal of obsession and affection, dressed up like technology.
Some nights, when the three of them are busy tearing apart the network to build something even stronger, Roo shows up for sleepovers and plotting sessions.
Tonight, she curls up at the opposite end of the couch, her feet tucked under my thighs. She has her laptop open, hood pulled low over her forehead, dark circles under her eyes like war paint.
She’s on a mission, rebuilding the HimLock AI from scratch.
We’re making a girlfriend this time.
“Something marketable,” she says after we settle on a color scheme, fingers flying.
“Something that appears sweet,” I add, making a list of personality traits users can select to build their perfect girlfriend.
“Right.” She nods, though her eyes stay glued to her screen. “Something that doesn’t ask to be watched… but knows exactly how to keep you looking.”
“So, emotional consent with plausible deniability.” I laugh. “Sounds perfect.”
Roo grins. “Exactly. It's an ethical obsession. We just have to put it in the fine print.”
It was a joke at first, but it grew on us.
And now it’s a project we’re curating together.
We’re running it under the guys’ company and hoping to have the beta ready for testing in a month or two.
Roo insists it’s only a pet project.
A curiosity, she had said.
Not something that would reignite her passion or that she would devote herself to.
But I’ve seen her pause too many times today, observing her trace the same line of code with her finger as she rereads it. In the last five minutes, I’ve witnessed her smiling at a text message one second,and frowning at her laptop screen the next.
“You’re doing the thing again,” I point out.
She doesn’t look up. “What thing?”
“The staring-into-the-void-like-it-shit-your-bed thing.”
“Eris, be serious.” She exhales through her nose. “That’s not a thing.”
“It’s happened before,” I defend and shrug. “And it’s a thing when you do it. What’s going on?”
She finally glances over, mouth twitching. “Hollis texted and told me he’s coming to town for a couple of weeks. That’s all.”
“Liar.” I tilt my head. “Are you sure you’re not mad that you just accidentally built something charming?”
“I don’t build charm,” Roo snaps. “I build dangerous things.”
She goes back to typing, her fingers pecking the keyboard harder than before, picking up speed.
We sit like this for a while, quiet and comfortable.
The kind of silence that only comes from surviving the same fires.
I wait her out because I know something is wrong, but Romily Sokolov is a complicated creature.
She won’t say anything until she’s ready to talk about it.
Or until my oppressive staring breaks her.
It takes twenty minutes.
She snaps the laptop shut so abruptly that I nearly throw my water bottle while trying to take a sip.
I study her expression and quirk a brow. “What is it?”
She doesn’t seem scared.
She looks… intrigued.
“I think someone is watching me,” she whispers, glancing around before she leans closer.
My spine straightens. “Watching how?”
“Online.” Her eyes lose focus slightly, tracking something invisible. “It’s not clumsy surveillance. They know how to stay just outside of the perimeters I’m creating to catch them.”
“You want me to go hunting?” I keep my voice calm. “We can start today, if you want.”
She considers it for a beat before smiling and shaking her head. “Not yet. Let them watch.”
A chill skates down my spine when her hazel eyes remain bright with curiosity. I know that expression all too well.
It’s the same one she wore right before she became someone locals whisper about instead of search for.
I lean back into the couch, nodding in agreement. “Okay. But when you decide to pull the curtain—”
“Oh,” she says softly, eyes gleaming. “They’ll already be inside. I’ll make sure they don’t have a way out.”
And just like that, I know our personal body count is going to rise soon. She won’t let it go or give them a warning to back off.
No.
She’ll give them plenty of rope to hang themselves, and then she’ll kick the foothold the moment they hesitate.
Whoever has just become the center of Roo’s attention surely has no idea what they’re stepping into.
She’s not just a siren in Crimson Bay.
Roo is chumming the digital waters with our enemies, calling all the sharks to feast.