Chapter 42
Lydia
Daniel opened the door and let me in. I didn’t know if I was supposed to hug or kiss him when we met, but I pushed the thought away when I saw his face. Something was wrong.
I walked into the apartment and felt the hair on the back of my neck go up in warning. Jake and Terry looked at me with suspicion, Daniel was worried and angry, and Cole looked relaxed in the armchair. I looked at Cole for a moment, trying to gauge where this was going.
Am I in trouble?
He shrugged and leaned his head back before giving me a look I hoped meant, ‘You’re good.’
“What’s wrong?” I took a step back when Jake took a step forward. Daniel grabbed him and pulled him to the living room where Terry and Cole were seated. He sat on a chair and pushed Jake onto the couch. He was doing this for me, giving me space.
I walked toward them, stopping when I was close enough to talk to them but far enough to feel safe. Not that I’d be safe if they wanted to hurt me.
I trust Daniel, right?
“Kernel wants to talk to you.” Daniel’s voice was low and almost menacing. I would have spent more time trying to understand that, but the words he said caught me off guard.
“What? Why me?”
They were all watching me, Cole in particular. Whatever he saw made him roll his head back in the chair again and close his eyes, like he was bored.
“We don’t know. Do you?” Daniel asked. Everyone else was keeping quiet.
“No. Why would I?”
“Because this is unusual. You understand that, right?”
“You’re interrogating me again. Like you did the day we met. It was stupid then, and it’s stupid now.”
He frowned and sighed before getting up and walking toward me. I didn’t step back this time and held his gaze. “It didn’t make sense to me that I hadn’t noticed you before, just like it doesn’t make sense what Kernel is asking now.”
I looked at the laptop on the table, my laptop. “Then let’s find out together.”
“No.”
“Why? What’s the danger? That he’ll see me? He already did. He clearly knows my name and who I am. Let me talk to him while you’re all here.” I turned to Terry. “Am I in any danger if I talk to him? Is there anything he can do that he couldn’t do before because he sees my face again?”
Terry shook his head, and I looked back at Daniel. “Good. Then it’s settled. We’ll get this over with, and you can stop being an idiot before I lose my patience.”
Cole chuckled, earning glares from the other three.
I didn’t wait for Daniel to answer and sat on the floor in front of the table, moving the laptop to face me. “Do it.” I said it to the room in general.
I could feel Daniel’s eyes on the back of my head when he repeated my command to Terry.
Terry tapped his phone, and the four of them moved to the other side of the table, facing me and away from the camera.
The camera light flashed green for a second and turned off.
“I know you can see me. What do you want?” I asked.
This entire situation was pissing me off. I took a deep breath to try to calm my anger so that I wouldn’t say anything stupid.
Nothing happened. We all sat there in complete silence for two minutes, until a distorted voice startled me. A black window popped up on the screen with a light gray soundwave. It was the color of my eyes.
“Look at the camera. Let your hair down.”
I frowned and took the stick out of my hair. It was only holding up half of it—my usual hairstyle outside of work.
“Your name is Lydia Davis?”
“You already know it is.”
“Where were you nineteen years ago on the fourteenth of October?”
I gasped. It felt like someone sucked the air out of my lungs. I couldn’t breathe.
“Who are you?” My voice sounded strained. I kept my eyes on the camera but could see Daniel pacing behind the laptop. Terry, Jake, and Cole stayed seated.
“Answer the question, Lydia.”
I took a deep breath and looked up at Daniel when I answered, “bleeding in an alley.”
“It’s you.” The voice was still robotic and distorted, but it sounded hoarse now.
I looked back at the camera, ignoring the pained look on Daniel’s face.
“Tell me who you are,” I said.
The distortion went away. “I’m so sorry. I ran away. I’m sorry.” It was a man’s voice, broken like he was about to cry.
The laptop screen went black. Terry blocked the camera and microphone feeds.
I looked up at the four men in front of me and blinked, surprised to feel tears streaming down my cheeks.
Terry was wide-eyed, staring at me, Jake and Cole looked like they were waiting for orders to attack someone, and Daniel ran to me and got on his knees. He wiped the tears away and kissed me softly on the forehead.
“What happened nineteen years ago?” he asked.
I kept my eyes on Daniel, but spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.
“I was found bleeding in an alley in New York. I don’t remember what happened.
There was a little boy there with me and then I was taken to the hospital.
When I got better, I didn’t know who I was or what happened.
I just knew that my name was Lydia. Doctors estimated my age, a judge gave me a birth certificate, and I was put in foster care with the name Lydia Davis.
I never found out what happened to that boy.
He was there, screaming at me to get up.
He was just a little kid, maybe six years old?
He ran away before the cops and paramedics got there, crying that he was sorry. ”
Daniel’s eyes didn’t move from mine. No one said a word.
“Say something. Please.” I pleaded.
Terry cleared his throat. “The boy is Kernel.”
Daniel’s thumb moved over my left eyebrow. “He wanted to know if it was you—the girl he saw with the white hair. The girl he left bleeding in an alleyway.”
“He was a little boy. Before I blacked out, I remember being happy that he got away, that he was safe.”
“He didn’t know if you were safe, though. Is he your brother?” Jake’s voice hit me like a train. What was our connection? Had the boy been worried about me for nineteen years? Was he family?
“What does this mean now?” I shook my head, unsure how to feel about all of it. “Does it change anything? Even if it’s him, he grew up to be Kernel. He got your friend killed and used your algorithms to attack the military.”
The computer pinged and lit up. A chat window opened.
> What do you remember?
I stayed on the floor in front of the camera, somehow feeling safe again with three men I barely knew standing behind me, watching. Daniel stayed beside me on the floor, nodding to me to answer.
I typed my response.
> I remember you telling me to get up. You said you were sorry and ran away.
> I left you.
> I wanted you to.
> After what you did. I should have stayed.
I felt my body start to shake. Daniel moved behind me. His legs went around mine, and his arms wrapped around my stomach. He put his head on top of mine. I took a deep breath, typing my next question.
> What did I do?
> Can we talk again? You’re blocking the feeds.
> Only if I can see you. If you’re really him, I want to see your face.
“There’s no way Kernel will agree to that.” Terry said. “It’s Kernel. I’m still shocked he let us hear his real voice.”
We all stared at the screen for what felt like ten minutes before it pinged again.
> Do you trust them?
Was he referring to the guys? He must know they were with me in the room.
> Yes.
> Open the feed.
I turned around to Terry’s shocked face. “You should still stay behind the camera so he doesn’t know who you are. To protect your family.”
He typed something on his phone and joined Jake and Cole behind the laptop.
Daniel stayed put, holding me. The camera light turned green, and a window opened with the face of a man a little younger than me.
His dark blue eyes triggered a new wave of tears that streamed down my cheeks.
I hadn’t cried since that day in the alley.
“It’s you.” My voice sounded broken.
“You really don’t remember what happened?”
“No. I woke up in the alley with you, and then the hospital.”
The man sighed. His eyes and nose were red. He looked like he was crying. “I was on the front porch with my dad. I got jumped on my way home and lost a wad of cash from selling his product. He was yelling at me and—”
I squeezed my eyes shut at the pain in my head.
***
Everything hurt, but I had to put one foot in front of the other. Shouting caught my attention. A little boy was screaming, ‘Sorry, sorry!’
A big, ugly man stood in front of him, hitting him in the face with the back of his hand.
“You useless piece of shit! You can’t do anything right!”
My feet moved faster toward them. I needed to get there in time. My skin was on fire. Something was wet on my back and side, trickling down my stomach and legs. I didn’t want to look down. I kept my eyes on the man and boy, getting closer and closer.
The man took something out of his pocket—shiny and sharp. “What the fuck are you good for? I should have gotten rid of you when your whore of a moth—”
I didn’t wait to hear the rest. My eyes stayed on the shiny, sharp object in his hand. I ran, blinded by fear for the boy.
***
“I… he had a knife.” My body shook from the unlocked memory. Daniel’s arms tightened around me. I couldn’t tell if it was from me talking to Kernel, a man he probably wanted to kill, or because I was shaking. Maybe both.
Kernel nodded. “He always threatened me with it, but that day was different. He was going to use it right there on our front porch. He was going to kill me and no one would do a thing because of who he was.”
“I ran to you. I remember that. When I saw the knife, I… I don’t know what happened. Is that how I got injured?”