Chapter 18 Indie
Indie
Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) - Hillsong UNITED, TAYA
Present day
Regina places the cup of steaming hot coffee in front of me.
“Thanks,” I murmur, taking it off her and wrapping my hands around it. She sits on the other side of our L-shaped sofa, blowing out a breath.
“How did you sleep?”
I take a sip, letting it scorch the walls of my throat before I answer, “Like shit, you?”
I tossed and turned all night, waking up in puddles of sweat as the past threatened to rear its ugly head. Thinking about sections of that time in my life with my free will gives me the control; I can shut it down or release the anger. Unprotected in my sleep?
That’s a different story. I’m left vulnerable.
Although I was exhausted before it could get to the worst part. Regina had to pick so many more branches out of my hair. I even had mud caked so deeply under my fingernails from clawing myself up.
I still can’t get it completely out.
The right side of my body is peppered with a rainbow of blue and purple bruises, and my back feels like someone stuck a steel toe cap into it.
“The same. I think I did ten laps of the house with my gun.” She huffs a laugh.
I checked the cameras when I couldn’t get back to sleep this morning; there didn’t appear to be any cars that drove into our street the entire night.
Grabbing my laptop, I place it on the coffee table, pulling up the feeds from the cabin. But they’re offline.
“Do you think he knew someone was coming?” Regina asks, and I slap the lid down.
“Maybe. He’s been prepared for it, but it doesn’t make sense. This guy was prepared for an ambush, not his ex turning up.”
You don’t go to the lengths of kitting yourself out like the fucking army and adding floodlights into a temporary property for one woman.
“Have you contacted Victoria yet?” I ask, taking another sip of coffee.
“Was waiting for the caffeine to kick in.” She holds the cup in one hand, typing with the other on her laptop.
Her fingers rattle off the keys, and the scene from last night replays again in my head.
Being chased by the person you love? It sends a sick thrill of excitement through you, because you know they’d never intentionally harm you.
Running from a gun-wielding maniac who wants to kill you?
Yeah, I almost pissed my pants.
Maybe eventually I’ll be able to add this experience to my character building, like I have with everything else.
“Weird,” she mumbles, and I glance over at her, her brows scrunched up.
“What did she say?” I ask, putting the coffee on the table and making my way over to her.
“The links are dead.”
I stiffen.
“How the hell did she do that?”
That’s virtually impossible; we own the server.
Shifting closer, I look at the screen. Regina can’t get back into Victoria’s chat; the app is showing a disconnected message.
“Did you get her phone number?” I ask. We take it as backup for instances like this.
If the woman might be in trouble, we make sure we aren’t relying solely on a system in case we need to track or help them out.
This is the first time we’ve ever had to use this measure.
Thinking about it, the last few weeks have been…weird.
“Yeah, I’m sure I did,” she says, pulling up a separate tab to find her file.
When she finds it, I get up and grab a burner from the kitchen drawer, then head back through.
She taps her finger off the screen, and I type Victoria’s number into the phone, withholding our blocked one for extra security.
A recorded message filters through the phone, the hairs on my arms shivering.
“The number you have called has not been recognised.”
Oh God.
What if he’s got to her?
Regina is typing away on the screen as I watch her, a million scenarios blurring through my mind on Victoria’s and her child’s fate, when all of a sudden, the pixels shudder.
“Fuck!” she yells, flying back against the sofa and furiously typing away on the keypad.
Panic grips my chest.
“What is it?!” I shout.
All the colour has drained from her face as she completely ignores me.
She types at rapid speed, the whites of her eyes flickering as she puts a code into the system. The laptop lid slams shut as she tosses it to the side, catapulting herself from the sofa to pound up the stairs.
I run to follow her, bursting into her office space when I see her on the computer at the desk.
“Regina, talk to me? You’re freaking me the fuck out here.”
She slaps a key with force, and a black tab pops up on the screen, a green bar scouring at the end and bringing up results on the side.
She’s breathless when she speaks, her shoulders rising and falling as she takes in air. Her hands are even shaking as they hover over the keys.
“I tried to slip in through the block. I have a program I’ve been testing to get through bollards like this, more so for hardwire CCTV. But…Victoria must have something encrypted on her system now. It tried to reverse hack me.”
My blood runs cold, and I drop into the chair next to her, my knees feeling weak.
“Did they get through?” I ask, my heart feeling like a ball of nails in my chest.
If anyone gets into our system, they’ll see everything.
“Doesn’t look like it so far. I kicked in my backup firewall. This program is wiping our files whilst checking for any malware.”
I run a hand through my hair, leaning back against the chair, and try settle my heart rate.
Sweat is beading on Regina’s forehead, and her chin is resting in her hand, fist clenched against her lips.
I don’t speak a word as we watch the bars go up and down on the screen, feeling like we’re watching our death sentence being decided.
Once it completes, she runs it again after ten minutes, and both results come up the same.
“Nothing taken, and nothing planted.”
I breathe a sigh of relief along with her.
“I have everything on a disconnected backup drive, but I’m going to wipe this and go out and buy a new computer, sever any historic links to this one. I’ll also get a new internet router and provider, just to be safe.”
If anyone even gets a sniff of where we are, and what we do, it’s game over.
The only legit piece of information with our real names is our Egnever company.
Regina has made sure to connect our company front and our real one. You’d need solid evidence of me killing someone, followed by me walking into the office.
But if someone’s smart enough to link Egnever and Revenge together—along with our Sumus list and personal background—they’ll instantly know everything’s related.
What our purpose was behind it all, and how to solve our riddle.
“What if…” She trails off, then turns her head to look at me, voice tightening. “What if it’s them? What if they’ve found us out?”
I force a swallow down my throat, shaking my head. “No, there’s no way. We haven’t been able to find them in weeks. They could just be out of state. They’re not smart enough to pull something like this. You and I gave no indication we’d do anything, either. The only person who spoke out was…”
My mouth clamps shut.
Regina nods, a knowing look passing over her, before turning to look back at the screen.
She starts the process to wipe the entire device.
“Clear the laptops, would you, please? It might take a while if they’re all running at the same time. I’m gonna head down to the store and kit us out after I take a cold fucking shower.”
I give her a tight smile, and she rises from the seat as I do the same. She steps towards me, arms reaching round as I bring her in for a hug.
“This was too close, Indie,” she says against my shoulder.
“I know. I think we should put a hold on things for a while.”
We’ve been lucky so far, too lucky. We’ll need to review our entire operation after this.
A chilling thought leaks into my mind.
What if this was related to Clarke’s death?
Regina said everything looked fine when she passed the apartment Elenna was in again, her car still changing parking spots. She did pass on our details to Victoria, but I’m worried this might be something sinister as retaliation.
I keep the thought inside my head for now. Regina’s already shaken up thinking it was our past coming to get us.
I’ll wait a couple of days before I spiral us both into another bout of anxiety.
Regina wasn’t lying when she said this would take forever.
There’s so much shit on my laptop that the factory reset is taking an eternity.
I followed Regina’s orders, deleted every single file, then the recycling bucket, then wiped to set back to original settings.
She left about an hour ago. I just got a text to say she’s pulled cash to buy from different stores, checking which ones have the stuff we need in stock. If she spent thousands of dollars in one place with enough kit to fill a truck, it’d raise suspicions.
I grab her laptop and repeat the same process, taking both upstairs with me to put on charge. I drag myself to the shower, letting the water burn against my skin as I stand silently under the spray.
My mind often drifts towards whether we should keep doing this.
My future at twenty-one never had a revenge killer anywhere near the scope of possibilities. I was young and naive, imagining I’d be working high up in some corporate company, living with the man of my dreams.
But life’s cruel that way; it can chew you up and spit you right back out.
Some people tend to the wounds and adjust.
Regina and I decided we’d bite back.
I’ve never doubted my capabilities like this before. I can fight; I can handle myself. Hell, I can shoot on target. Up against someone who might have specialised combat experience?
No, I’m nowhere near that good.
We have no idea what John’s a part of, but he’s certainly more skilled than Regina and I anticipated.
I can confidently say, he’s not a fucking banker.
Stepping out, I towel-dry my hair, leaving it to dry naturally, seeing as it hurts to raise my arm above my shoulder. Then I slide into panties and a crop top.
I glance over to the laptops resting on my bed; mine is restarting whilst Regina’s has a lifetime to go.
Walking over to the other side, paranoia gets the best of me, and I open the bedside drawer, checking my gun is loaded.
Sliding out the chamber, I count each of the rounds over and over, before I snap it back with force, switching the safety off and staring at it in my hands.
I’ve never had to use this one; most of the guns I use are in the spare room.
This one helps me sleep peacefully at night, and in the early days, I used to have it tucked under the pillow next to my head.
I haven’t felt so vulnerable in a long time, but I’m putting it down to the fact that we’ve had a scare.
Goosebumps ripple along my skin, sharp talons caressing along the curve of my spine.
My survival instincts have heightened over the years, awareness learned to amplify on its own, and I always require them to be on top of their game. I learned to read people better, question their intentions, and always trust my gut, even when others aren’t on my wavelength.
I shake my head, running a hand through my hair.
Stop it, Indie, this is you being paranoid.
My defences have been threatened, allowing little pieces of the past to slip through.
No one’s getting in this house without me knowing. And if they did?
They’d have a death wish I’d be more than willing to answer.
Closing my eyes, I blow a breath up to the ceiling.
When I drop my head, my gaze lands on my reflection in the window. I’m instantly drawn to the silhouette in my doorway, knees threatening to cave.
My earlier threats disintegrating beneath my feet.
I shouldn’t have doubted my instincts.