The Call of the Void

The Call of the Void- Chapter 19- Hate to Know I'm Responsible

“Where are you going to be?”, Ze asks and it's not with any sort of bitter tone, but with genuine worry. He has no idea what Seamus is going to do now let alone where he's going to go. This house has been his base of operations for years. For him to be kicked out of his own house must be humiliating. Sadly, Ze is finding it a bit hard to justify why he deserves to stay with the act of betrayal he just admitted to Aleks.

Seamus hesitates for a second, looking to Kevin for some kind of answer. Kevin is just as clueless. “I'll call you.”, Seamus finally says as a settling answer. Ze nods obediently, watching Seamus and Kevin walk down the stairs. Seamus winces at the sight of most of his house staff lying dead on the floor and the blood caking the walls. He kneels at the one closest to the bottom of the staircase, gripping the young girl's hand for a moment. Ze recognizes her as Christina; the one house staff member that Seamus could be considered close to. He brushes back shortly cropped strands of auburn hair away from her face before letting her cold hand drop to the floor.

“Let's just go.”, Seamus tells Kevin as he stands again. The knee of Seamus' pants is stained with Christina's- mixed in with some other people's- blood. Kevin nods solemnly, following Seamus towards the grand doors that were once so welcoming.

“Be safe, okay?”, Ze calls out as Seamus holds open the door to let Kevin out first.

“You know I can't promise that.”

“I can hope.”

The slamming of the door closing is deafening.

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“He's a beginner.”, Dan announces as he reads through the lines of code on his desktop screen. “Probably some kid who looked up how to hack into other people's computers using some Youtube tutorial.”

“There's really tutorials for that kind of stuff?”, Jordan asks.

“You're a Youtuber, Jordan. You do ridiculous shit for your own channel. Are you really all that surprised?”, Dan deadpans, turning away from the screen to narrow his eyes at his colleague.

Jordan shrugs. “Just surprised they let that through the picky Youtube filter.”

“Well it's not like that stuff is copy written.”, Dan turns back to his blue screen, going through the white text again.

“Do you think it's our guy?”, Jordan suggests, “Seamus, I mean.”

“You really think it would be our guy?”

“It just seems suspicious that as soon as we get a name, our computers both crash. I'm not saying it for sure, but it's a possibility to consider.”, Jordan taps his fingertips on the plastic table that holds their computers.

Dan hums, considering Jordan's suggestion. “Seems a little far fetched, to be honest. Then again, what do I even know about this guy? Expert computer hacker wasn't exactly in our criteria when it came to Seamuses.” As Dan scrolls to the bottom of the blue screen, he grabs a pen and pad of sticky notes from around his pen holder, slipping it over to Jordan. “Write his name down for me?”