Chapter 5
chapter
five
SHAY
Three weeks before the graveyard.
Don’t act like you don’t want my cock. You’re so fuckin’ wet. I can see it from here.
I leaned forward, adjusting a parameter from cold dark matter to hot while a cowboy whispered in my ear. Listening to a cowboy dirty talk the woman he’d kidnapped while testing how dark matter models affected CMB-derived age estimates was maybe not most people’s idea of a good Monday.
For me, it was just a tea short of ideal.
After book club, I’d spent the rest of the Saturday nursing my hangover.
On Sunday, the four of us grabbed brunch at a local place known for its insane avocado toast and great tea.
Now I waited for my program to finish running.
Sometimes it was only a few seconds, and other times it was a minute or two. Either way, more time for dark cowboy.
Get on your knees, baby girl, and crawl.
The program finished, and the results weren’t unexpected. I’d run and rerun this experiment hundreds of times. But something going right always stressed me out more than something going wrong. When it was too easy, it usually meant I’d missed something.
I leaned forward, double-checking the parameters.
Yeah, just like that. Fuck, you look so good swallowing my cock—
A tap on my shoulder startled me out of focus.
“Oh!” I slipped my headphones off haphazardly so they hung off one ear, and turned to find my boss, Jenna. “Hey—”
“Such a good fucking girl.” My audiobook cut me off.
Wait.
That shouldn’t be so loud.
A wave of dread rushed through me. Had my audiobook been playing through my fucking speakers? As if to answer, the low, growly narrator continued.
“Be my good little, cumslu—”
I slammed the pause button, cheeks hot as I met my boss’s eyes. Behind her, a group of about ten college students stared.
“Just showing the physics undergrads around and figured I’d check to see if you were done with that file I needed…” She trailed off, a small quirk to her lips. “Didn’t realize you were busy.”
Fucking kill me now.
Jenna was a perpetually cool woman in her early fifties. She was of the Timothy Leary branch of scientists. Boundary breaking. Not concerned with hierarchical bullshit. Looking for real answers.
But still, this was academia, this was a workplace, and they were students.
“Yes!” I rooted around my desk, mentally cursing my ability to explode all over the place in less than eight hours. Pens, scrunchies, the occasional snack, all over my desk and very much the antithesis of what a good scientist was supposed to be.
“Here!” I said, handing her the file.
She took the envelope and tapped it in the air slightly as if to say, Thanks. Then, with a slight smirk, she left, a group of dazed students following after.
I wished I could disappear into a black hole. Spaghettification would still be better than this.
Eames and Olly came into the room just as Jenna left, the delicious smell of Thai following them.
“Did I hear cumslut?” Olly asked, handing me a bowl of pad thai.
I groaned in response, opening the plastic container. A little bit of condensation flicked onto my cheek.
Eames spun around in his chair like a little kid. “I don’t think I’m familiar with that branch of cosmology.”
I stabbed my chopsticks into the noodles. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Olly threw her hands up in surrender. “We only caught the tail end.”
Eames shoved a forkful of noodles into his mouth, speaking through his chewing. “You’re such a CNC slut.”
I made a face at Eames even though consensual non-consent did make a lot of appearances in my reading.
“It helps me focus,” I said, voice high with defense. He shoved me in a just joking gesture.
After lunch, I went back to work, sans dirty cowboy, until the sun fell low beneath the mountains, bathing our office in brilliant orange. I was looking for a stopping place when my phone vibrated with a notification. And then another. And another.
After I’d made my profile, I’d received more interest than I’d expected—or could sort. Every few moments, a new person sent a match request. It was overwhelming. So I’d started ignoring them.
Eames arched a brow just as another vibration sounded. “What’s going on over there?”
I looked at the message that appeared on my screen.
Do you do hair or nails?
I frowned before it clicked. He thought cosmologist meant cosmetologist.
“Just…” I set my phone down. “My mom.”
I knew the moment they heard I was getting matches, it would be a whole thing, and I still wasn’t sure I wanted it to be a thing. Just making the profile had been stressful enough.
A few minutes later, I followed Eames and Olly out, sliding into the back seat of Olly’s old Subaru.
The lights were off when I got home, which meant Lithie was spending the night at the prison. The only light came from our novelty cartoon pickle night-light. It cast an almost pearlescent glow that illumined the kitchen in soft green shadow.
I kicked off my shoes in the entryway and set my bag down just as Lithie’s cat, Stroop, jumped from his perch atop the bookshelf with a meow.
Feed me, human.
“I know you’ve been fed,” I said.
Another meow, this one more petulant.
“Don’t tell your mother,” I said, reaching for his treats and pouring a few into his bowl. “You’re supposed to be on a diet.”
My job done, he ignored me.
My phone vibrated again and I sighed, leaning against the counter opposite Stroop’s litter-and-cat-tree combination.
I should just delete the app. I didn’t know what I was thinking, making a profile. My ideal night was a paperback and tea, not…casual dating. I reached into my pocket and took out my phone, then paused at a message sent yesterday.
The type of men you draw with that profile won’t be nice.
From some guy named Void. I clicked his profile. A skull mask covered his face in his profile picture, and his bio was short and simple.
No names. No faces. One night.
I set my phone down.
A second later, I picked it back up and sent:
Men like you?
He responded immediately.
Yes.
A photo followed his message that sent ice water down my spine. It was me, but not a photo I’d shared on the app. One of me at a book signing with Lithie, Olly, and Eames. From my social media account.
My private account.
I quickly opened my profile to see if I’d accidentally approved a weirdo as a friend, when I noticed a new story alert from me. I never posted stories.
The story was a black-and-white image of a guy choking a girl, who looked to be, uh, really enjoying it. Four words overlaid the photo: Your password is shit.
A hummingbird’s wings flapped against my rib cage. Oh, wait, that was my heartbeat.
It had been marked as sent to close friends, but I had only, like, seventy followers. I didn’t do close friends.
Morbid curiosity had me clicking the list.
There was one person on it, a masked face. Void.
He didn’t just find my photo. He’d hacked into my account. He’d added himself as a friend.
I quickly changed my password, and a message followed almost instantaneously.
Good girl.