Chapter 8 Bitsy #2
Wyatt stepped closer. His shadow completely swallowed her now, looming large and unbreakable against the backdrop of the gray concrete pillars.
He reached down, his large, blunt fingers easily picking up the blunt purple crayon from the dirt.
He turned the piece of wax over in his massive hand, his eyes scanning the crude, hand-drawn lines of the garden on her paper before looking back down at her flushed, tear-stained face.
“You aren't going anywhere yet,” Wyatt murmured, his tone settling into a steady, disappointed register that made Bitsy’s cheeks burn with a sudden, deep flush of shame.
“You’ve spent weeks causing an infrastructure anomaly on my grid, little one.
You’ve forced me to rewrite three separate localized containment routines just to trace a leak that should have been impossible for an outsider to find. ”
He let out a low, dry breath, the sound carrying a deep vibration of sheer impatience.
“And you did it with a piece of junk held together by electrical tape and salvaged copper. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? Tapping a high-voltage line without a regulator? One power surge from the primary terminal and this entire floor would have gone up in smoke, along with you.”
Bitsy shrank back, pulling the oversized hood further down over her face to hide from his scolding. “I—I used a ground wire,” she small-voiced from behind the fabric. “I put the green plastic around it so it wouldn't spark.”
“A ground wire doesn't protect a frequency buffer, little girl,” Wyatt corrected flatly, his dark eyes narrowing as he took another step forward, his heavy leather boot resting right at the edge of her drawing paper.
“You outsmarted a multi-million-dollar security architecture, but you didn't have enough sense to realize you were sitting in an unheated, unfinished demolition zone during a winter freeze with nothing but a thin piece of cotton to keep you warm.”
He reached out, his big hand surprisingly gentle as his thumb brushed against the side of her jaw, tilting her face up. His skin was rough, calloused, and incredibly warm against her freezing, pale cheek. Bitsy shivered at the touch, her wide eyes locking onto his.
“Look at your hands,” Wyatt commanded softly.
Bitsy looked down. Her small fingers were a dark, angry shade of red from the biting wind, the tips slightly blue where she had been clutching the plastic casing of her laptop.
She hadn't even noticed the pain until he pointed it out; her little headspace had kept the cold at bay by focusing entirely on the bright colors of her movies.
“They’re cold,” she whispered, her voice small and tight.
“They look freezing,” Wyatt amended, his voice holding that deep, protective anger that always came when a Daddy found his little doing something incredibly foolish.
“Who handles your schedule? Who allowed you to be out in the industrial sector past nine o'clock on a Friday night in weather like this?”
Bitsy bit her lower lip, her eyes darting away from his intense gaze.
She couldn't tell him about the car. She couldn't tell him about the small back seat where Honey was waiting, wrapped in the small pile of extra blankets she’d managed to save.
If she told him that, the big world would come and take her away, put her in a building with more loud noises and more people who used sharp words.
“I don't... I don't have a schedule,” she muttered, her fingers tightening into small fists inside her sleeves. “I just... on Fridays, I get off early. I'm done at nine, so it's the only night I can come find the quiet.”
“Early?” Wyatt repeated, his voice dropping into a low, incredibly dark rumble as his eyes locked onto her. “Where exactly are you working, little girl?”
“The Brig,” she whispered, dropping her chin toward her chest.
Wyatt’s jaw tightened instantly, a sudden, dangerous tension locking into his broad shoulders.
He knew exactly what The Brig was. It was a notoriously sketchy, grease-stained dive diner down by the docks, a place where the local dockworkers, smugglers, and lowlifes congregated at all hours.
It was the exact last place any sane person would ever want a tiny, fragile creature like her to be unprotected after dark—let alone working until midnight.
“The Brig?” Wyatt demanded, his voice dropping an octave into a hard, demanding cadence. “What do you do there?”
“The tables,” she said quickly, wanting to give him just enough information to satisfy the rules so he wouldn't look any deeper.
“I’m a waitress. I take the plates, and carry the heavy trays, and do pretty much whatever else the boss tells me to do when it gets busy.
Fridays are the only night I don't have to work the late, closing shift. When my shift ends at nine, I can finally go. And tonight I came straight here.”
Wyatt didn't push the answer any further, though his eyes remained locked on her face, reading the absolute terror and submission written in every line of her posture.
He looked back at the screen where his own high-level encryption was still frozen into a perfect, containment loop.
The brilliant, painfully elegant logic of her scripts was undeniable.
She was a genius—a wild, completely undisciplined force of nature who had managed to slip past his lane without dropping a single ounce of line pressure.
But she was also a shivering, tear-stained little girl sitting on a milk crate because the world was too loud for her to handle.
The anger he’d brought up those forty-two flights of stairs—the cold, precise focus that had intended to break fingers and take names—didn't exist anymore.
It had completely transformed, settling into a heavy, dark weight in his chest. It was a sudden, violent need to take the fragile, messy thing in front of him and lock it away where the dirt couldn't touch it.
She wanted quiet? He had entirely more quiet than she could ever handle. But she was done hiding in the dust.
“You like my network, little one?” Wyatt asked, his voice dropping into that low, gravelly register that predictably made her posture instantly straighten.
Bitsy sniffled, nodding her head slowly. “It’s... it’s heavy. It makes the space feel safe.”
“Then you’re wasted carrying trays for the lowlifes at that diner,” Wyatt said flatly, his dark eyes fixed on her pale, tear-streaked face. “And you’re entirely too smart to be freezing your fingers in the dirt of a demolition zone just to find a stable line.”
He paused, letting the weight of his voice anchor her in the cold air. “I don't tolerate leaks in my system, but I don't throw away valuable assets either. I run the network you’ve been siphoning. I built that network. And starting right now, your waitress shifts are cut.”
Bitsy’s breath caught, her wide eyes darting to his face in a sudden flare of panic. “But—but I have to work! If I don't do the tables, my boss will—”
“Your boss is irrelevant,” Wyatt cut her off smoothly, his tone entirely unyielding.
“You’re going to come work for me. I need someone who can think outside the perimeter parameters, and clearly, you can do that with a pile of junk and electrical tape.
I’ll pay you three times whatever that dockside dive is giving you, I’ll give you a warm desk inside a secure office, and you’ll get all the proper training you’ve been lacking. ”
He kept his hand resting where it was, his large thumb smoothing over her pale skin as he anchored her gaze.
“But the very first condition of your employment is that you get out of this freezing air tonight. I’m going to walk you down to the street, and you are going to go straight back home.
Then we are going to figure out a real schedule for you.
No more midnights. No more sketchy docks. And no more hiding in the dark.”
Bitsy stared up at him, her inside self completely overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the offer.
A warm desk? Real training? The big world felt like it was shifting beneath her sneakers, but the steady, protective authority radiating off him made her feel less like she was falling apart and more like she was finally being held in place.
“A... a real office?” she whispered, her fingers loosening just a fraction around her canvas bag. “With a stable line? That doesn't lag?”
“The fastest connection in the city,” Wyatt murmured, his fingers gently moving to the back of her neck, a grounding weight that kept her focus entirely on him. “But you have to pack up your things right now, little girl. No arguments. Close the laptop.”
Bitsy didn't know how to say no to that voice.
Her little headspace took the directive instantly, her small hands trembling as she shut the bulky old plastic casing with a quiet click.
She carefully tucked the purple crayon back into her canvas bag, her heart still doing a nervous little dance, but the terrifying weight of the world felt just a little bit lighter as the giant stood beside her, waiting to shield her from the wind.