I hunched over in the alley, panting hard, my lungs burning. Staring down at the asphalt, I squeezed my eyes shut and roared. "FUCK!"
I screwed up. I didn't know how it happened, but it did. Fuck, and Eli... I left him there. I had fucking run and left him there.
"God, forgive me," I dropped to my knees and started hyperventilating. I pressed my hand to my heart and felt how it was beating out of control. My mind raced on adrenaline, and somewhere in the distance, I could hear the police sirens blare. Fuck, fuck, fuck, God please forgive me.
He had fought them off and told me to run—told me to fucking run, and like an idiot, I'd done it. I didn't work well on high pressure like he did, but what the fuck had I actually been thinking? He couldn't get caught. Eli couldn't get fucking caught. If he showed up in the system... if his face got recognized, it was only a matter of time before... "Shit!"
Breathe. Fucking breathe. This wasn't the time to panic or lose my cool. I needed to stay level so I could fix this. Had to... I needed to fix my mess. What came first?
"Focus, Caleb," I told myself, taking a couple of deep breaths. What came first? Think. "You need to... you need to open your... laptop."
Assuming they had arrested him by now, he was being driven to the nearest police station for booking and detention until his hearing and then... then I could bail him out. He had a clean slate, no priors, thanks to me. And them. He wasn't in the system, so he'd only get a minor punishment.
But I had to stop his arrest order before it even hit the servers.
Breathing out, I stood up and walked over to a dumpster, taking a seat up against it. With shaking hands I tried to stop them from trembling with adrenaline while pulling my laptop out of my bag which I had thankfully brought with me, thank my foresight. At least a bit of luck was on my side. I opened it and quickly entered my password before taking a deep breath.
Here we go. I was going to fix this.
My fingers flew across the keyboard as I started my search. Looking at the clock, I tried to determine how long it had been. I had run for about ten minutes. Wrestling and arresting Eli had probably taken as much. Then there was the drive to the station. Which one was the nearest? There were four stations nearby in this area, Google informed me. I set my program to watch all of them, hacking into their security footage from the station, checking who came in. Both me and Eli wore hoodies when we walked in public. Big Brother was watching, but as if that wasn't enough... Eli always had another shadow following him.
I keep taking controlled breaths as I worked. So far, the LAPD's criminal database hadn't gotten any new mugshots of an overly inked genius in. The wait was killing me. I kept my eyes peeled on the CCTV, but no sign of him. They would've taken his hoodie off for the pictures. Fuck, what was taking them so long?
I was so caught up in watching the cameras I hardly noticed the little notification suddenly winking by my email. It wasn't until I had been waiting for nearly ten more minutes, my eyes finally caught it and frowned. Glancing back to the cameras, I then slowly moved my mouse to the inbox. Fucking slow governmental protocols...
My mouth dropped. On my screen, I had a letter; not the letter I had been waiting for earlier, but another kind of letter that was just as remarkable, if not better. It was sent to my private encrypted email just one hour after I'd received my rejection letter. Sweet Christmas.
Dear Mr Montrell,
By now I'm sure you've received your rejection letter from my school, the Alexandrettia. I apologize sincerely that we could not accept you, but for the reasons you might think they be, I assure you they are not. It's why I'm taking a moment to write to you personally to explain to you why I decided to reject you.
- As I'm sure you know, I built this school myself with the hopes of attracting and rounding up the smarter individuals of this world and providing them with an education they deserved. The classes and expectations are set high here, and the challenges are challenges created and developed by myself to give my pupils the push they need to exceed their own limitations.
With that said, when I looked at your transcripts and the thesis model you provided in your application, I knew you would not fit in at my school.
- My classes would've been too boring for you.
Staring at the email, I was pretty sure my heart had stopped beating, or maybe it had just jumped out of my chest through my chronically open mouth. I tried closing it, but simply couldn't as I read on.
Mr Montrell, I rejected you from my school because you were too talented. There's nothing I can teach you in my classes that you wouldn't already know. It is that reason I'm writing to you now to propose another opportunity for you. A beneficial and very lucrative opportunity should you accept.
Due to certain complications, I unfortunately can't discuss the matter in an email, but know that your virtual hacking skills has impressed me beyond imaginable and I'd like to connect with you in person. The job I'm offering you is a generously paid- and very rewarding job, working directly alongside me as my right hand in a project I need your expertise on. If you are at all interested, let me know soonest possible. We will set up a date for a meeting to discuss things further.
- Looking forward to hearing your reply; I hope you will consider it. Know that our collaboration could save thousands of children around the world and quite possibly change how the generation of tomorrow is perceived.
Best regards,
Alexander T. Stone
CEO of Stone Inc
Principal of The Alexandrettia
"Fucking hell." I was speechless. Sitting in the dark alley of some ghetto corner of downtown Pasedena, I stared at the email and reread it twice. Holy fucking shit on steroids.
If Trump suddenly decided he was pro-BlackLivesMatter, stopped tweeting and ended all the wars he was starting and adopted a Muslim orphan, I still wouldn't have been as shocked as I was this very second.
The tremors in my body finally stopped and instead it felt like the whole world hit pause. My eyes shifted to the timestamp again, that crucial little number that could've saved everything. The stamp that could've prevented me from... oh Christ, what had I done?
"Shit!" My eyes snapped back to my surveillance when I realized I had neglected them. One of the police stations had uploaded a new mugshot to the criminal database... one minute and 43 seconds ago. "Shit, shit, shit!"
My heart started racing again as my fingers deftly moved across the keyboard. I send a virus out that grabbed the pictures and any and all records made under the file. Furthermore, I ran a scan on all of the servers, seeing if any of them had been hacked or pinged by someone else than me.
One minute and 43 seconds was a short time to the average person. But to the cyber world... it might as well have been ten years. It was out there, it was on the web.
Cursing silently under my breath, I kept working. My program extracted the files and deleted them, deleted any trace of their existence. With a bit more luck, they hadn't seen them. It depended on their servers, their systems and whether or not they were good at—
"Fuck." I stopped breathing when I saw...
They had already hacked it.
Oh God... But how much had they gotten?
My heart restarted. My fingers had never moved faster. This was quite literally life and death, and if I didn't work fast on finding out how much of the file they had been able to hack before my program removed it, it meant Eli could be in possible lethal danger...
"C'mon, c'mon..." I was praying the Lord's Prayer as I uncovered their files, following the digital trace. They couldn't cover their tracks with me... Heavenly Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name... I scanned the police file to see how much of it had been copied. If any fragments were missing... Thy Kingdom come, please God help my ass and give me strength.
I breathed out a cry and leaned back, putting my hand over my beating heart when the results came back. Sweet Merciful God, thank you, thank you, thank you.
All they had managed to get was his picture. It seemed obvious that that would be the first they would go for. He could change his name, he could change his personal information, but unless he underwent extreme cosmetic surgery, he couldn't change his face. If they had been looking for him for four years, they would've been doing facial recognition scans as their first mechanism of search.
And now, they had gotten a ping.
Thankfully, what they hadn't gotten was a location, a name or even an area code. Those things took longer to trace, longer to hack, and I had already taken care of those and removed them from the web. There was no trace of him. All they had was a mugshot from a police database they couldn't get a location on.
"Hallelujah, God I knew you had my back," I sighed out in relief and ran a double check on everything. No more mistakes. I made sure everything was completely gone and that there were no loopholes to find him. And wrote it behind my ear to go thank God properly by swinging by church with some flowers and some proper prayers tomorrow.
My heart finally calmed down as I closed my laptop and got up. Now all I had to do was wait. His bail would be posted as soon as a judge swung by to give him his sentence, which would most likely not happen until the morning. Until then, all I could do was go home, tuck my sister into bed and try and get some sleep myself.
And think about my stupid fucking life choices. From now on, everything was going to change.
Keeping my hood up and my hands shoved into my pocket, I walked to the nearest bus stop that would take me home and took a seat on the bench. I was exhausted beyond belief and my head was hurting. I was never drinking again after this. Fuck, it had just been too close to disaster...
The Alexandrettia.
A sinking feeling started to pull down in my stomach. The principal had written to me and what had I done in return? Trashed his school. Even if I got away clean, there was no way I could work for him now. The pure goddamn guilt. Explaining it to him wouldn't do any good—provided he didn't report me, he'd probably lecture me in how this wasn't how civilized people reacted to bad news. He'd see me as nothing but a no-go vandal with a decent brain. But what was that good for if all I did was drink, smoke and vandalize his school?
Cupping my face, I couldn't believe how bad I had screwed up tonight. For Eli, for myself... for Elana.
I had destroyed every chance of getting her a future and I had almost gotten my only friend into a life-threatening trouble... all because he tried to stop me.
Tonight he had been smarter than me. Tonight, he had been the better genius. I could erase everything that happened online, but I could never erase what I had done here tonight.
I had just sullenly cupped my face when I finally heard the sound of a vehicle approach the bus stop. Looking up, I then slowly frowned when I saw some black van roll up to the curb like an ass. What the dick...?
It was only when the van pulled to a complete stop but kept the engine running my tired eyes fell to what I should've seen sooner. Oh fuck. No license plate. As the right side door rolled open and two people stepped out, it was already too late.
Fuck you, Murphy's law.
I jumped up and spun around on my foot to make a run for it, but as two goons dressed in black from head to toe emerged from the van and stalked towards me, I knew I was too slow.
"Fuck—" I stumbled backwards when one of them grabbed me by my hoodie and yanked me back. I wasn't weak, but they looked like their diet consisted purely of steroids. I lunged out when someone caught my hands and restrained them like I was a fucking bitch. Before I knew it, a black sack was thrown over my fucking head and a pair of burly arms locked around my waist. What the actual shit was happening tonight?
"What the fuck!" I yelled, trying to twist around, but someone slapped some cuffs around my wrists right before snatching my shoulder bag from me. Oh, hell to the fucking no. "Get your fucking hands off my bag, you motherfuc—"
A fist rammed into my diaphragm and I hunched over forward, wheezing. The wind got knocked out of me and the pain weakened me, which frankly wasn't boding well for my chances of escaping whatever this shit was. I felt as the hands that held me started dragging me sideways, hauling me along like some couch they'd found on the street corner. I was thrown against the hard metal floor inside of the van, hearing the slide door slam shut quickly afterwards. I was legit being fucking kidnapped.
"Drive," Someone barked.
I saw nothing through the black burlap sack as the car set into motion. I was still trying to get my lungs to uncurl, and as the air finally seeped back into my mouth, I managed to angrily rasp; "W-where the fuck... are you taking me?"
"Knock him out," The same hard voice said just as the van made a sharp U-turn.
Before I could protest, someone chopped me over the back of my head, hard. They hit a spot right below my hairline that made a blinding pain shoot through my skull. Fuck me sideways.
A groan slid past my lips, and then it happened; even in the darkness, I saw the small black bursts pop behind my eyelids as they closed, darkness calling me down. It was the second before I passed out I realized my damn mistake.
Note to self; Learn karate.
~~~
- My location.
My stupid self had forgotten to block my location before I started hacking. Everything had happened so fast, and I had been running on adrenaline, fear and Gatorade, I had forgotten to conceal my damn IP.
It was that realization that hurt the most of all as the burlap sack was yanked off and my aching head tried to adjust to the light. It wasn't particularly bright, but I imagined the karate chop back in the van hadn't done me good. I groaned painfully and tried to sit up, only to find myself restrained to a chair. "What the..."
My senses sharpened and I looked up, my head whipping around to take in my surroundings. An abandoned building structure? That wasn't seedy at all. It was then my eyes fell to a person that was walking towards me. A woman smiling calmly, but banefully. Any female with that look was lethal, that much experience had taught me.
My slowly eyes shifted when I noticed the two men behind her who had kidnapped me, the ones resembling human equivalents of bulldogs. They stood against the back wall of the cellar-like structure with their hands folded behind their back. Make that guard dogs. There was a last and fourth person in the room, a guy sitting suspiciously in a corner by himself, propped in front a desk table with... with my fucking laptop.
"Get your hands off my shit!" I shouted, the sound of my furious voice booming through the empty structure. I automatically started wrestling with my restraints, the cuffs that tied my hands and feet to the metal chair that appeared to be a part of the floor. "What the fuck are you doing?! What is this shit?!" Oh, but I had a pretty good idea.
"Mr Montrell," The woman from before stepped up in front of me, hands folded diplomatically behind her back like her guard dogs. "I think we are due for a talk."
"A talk?" I turned my attention up to her, my eyes gauging out. "I'm not talking worth shit while that dumbass has his hands on my laptop. Stop touching it!"
Of course they didn't listen one bit, but kept trying to molest my baby. It was literally torture to watch. Elana was my baby sister, but my laptop was my actual baby. Seeing someone else open her up and putting their hands all over her, trying to hack into her... my eyes saw rape and my very triggered brain was responding to it.
"Tell your mama's boy to get his hands off my laptop," I snarled at the woman who remained impassive, smiling to me patiently. I had never hit a woman before, but the urge had never felt stronger... too bad my mom raised me better, God bless her soul.
"Mr Montrell, if you would calm down, we could start our conversation and explain why we have secured your company tonight."
"Damn, that's a fancy way of saying kidnapped." I bet she called a blowjob fellatio.
"We apologize for the harsh means, but these are unfortunately harsh circumstances," The woman, who conveniently enough hadn't introduced herself yet, replied. "About an hour ago, we got a positive ID on a facial recognition scan on a wanted person of interest to the government. That very same scan along with the entire file disappeared from the web not minutes later, however. Our techs managed to trace the signal back to your laptop," She elaborated, carrying an accusing tone, not to mention eyes that could cut. "Care to explain yourself, Mr Montrell?"
I glared flatly up at her. "Whoops?"
Her lips visibly flattened. "Mr Montrell, we have reason to believe you are involved with Mr Elijah Greyson. Do you deny hacking into the public servers of the police records tonight in search of his files?"
"Do you?" I reciprocated.
Her glare hardened. I could tell she wasn't liking my snide replies, but guess fucking what, I didn't like being kidnapped, beaten and handcuffed. At least not without a blunt of weed and a safe word.
"Look," I said, my eyes flicking to my laptop again when I saw their technician grunt in frustration. That's right, asshole. Bet you're not used to your victims putting up a fight. "Let's drop the pretense here. I know who you are, and given the fact that you know my last name, you know who I am. Why don't we skip to the part where you ask me what you really want to know so I can tell you to go fuck yourselves asswise—do please forget the lube."
The lady in front of me slowly bent down towards me and put her hands on the armrests. She glared sternly at me. It appeared she was through with the games as well. "Where is he, Mr Montrell? Don't make it hard on yourself and just tell us where he is."
"You mean make it easy for you guys and screw over my friend?" I translated. "Yeah, no thanks, I think I'll pass."
"You realize by refusing to comply, you are going against the U.S government and risking prosecution from the state and the homeland security office?"
"Don't threaten me with a good time, sweetcheeks."
Ms Holier-than-thou narrowed her eyes at me when I appeared unaffected by her threats. "Nobody has to get hurt tonight, Mr Montrell. Just give us an address and we'll let you leave with all of your belongings."
"Nobody has to get hurt?" I snorted out a laugh. Never mind the fact that my head and diaphragm was already killing me. "We both know what happens if I tell you where he is, and yet you gotta be downright dumber than a dick if you think I'm ever going to give him up."
The lady who in my head official had earned the name Bitch, narrowed her eyes and slowly leaned back. "What is it that you want, Mr Montrell? Hm?" She took a step back and crossed her arms. "We know what we want, but the question is... what do you want in life? Or rather... what does your little sister want?"
My blood froze the second they mentioned Elana. A veil of red slid over my eyes, something I thought was only a figure of speech, but oh, no. It was quite real, and Bitch just turned into Red Bitch before my eyes.
"You leave her out of this," I got out with a seething voice, wrath messing up my speech. My lungs quaked and my hands started shaking. I knew she was trying to get a reaction from me, and it was working. "She has nothing to do with this."
"Like I said, nobody has to get hurt tonight," That sickly smile returned to Red Bitch's lips as she started walking back and forth, assuming a calm demeanor. She thought she had the fucking upper hand. "The only thing you have to ask yourself is, what's more important to you? Your family or some boy? You are very resourceful, Mr Montrell, but so are we. We will be happy to pay you any fee for the information we're looking for. But think fast," She added, "The offer only stands until our tech guy breaks into your laptop and collects it himself."
"Guess we have all night then," I replied, not resisting the smirk that slipped onto my lips as I slowly glanced towards their guy practically growling at my baby. Take that, bitch. Virtual parkour.
"Mr Montrell, the clock is ticking. Decide now."
"Actually, I'd like to hear just what your angle is here," I voiced with some afterthought, leaning back in the metal chair as well as I could, mirroring her calmness. These idiots thought they could mess with me? Shit, they were about to be schooled. "You've stated some facts, well allow me to repay the favor, sweetcheeks;" I smirked again and met Bitch's eyes as they shrunk to slits. "You know me, you know I know Eli and you know I know about you guys. You also know I have a sister, but do you actually know anything worth shit that'll make me budge? Where is my sister? Where's Eli? Hm? Where's your fucking leverage?"
Red Bitch looked to be minutes away from fuming. They could threaten me, they could torture me, but all that would result in was absolutely zilch. I'd sooner die than speak, because what they fucking failed to realize was that Eli wasn't just some boy. He was my fucking family. Elana loved him as a brother and so did I. They didn't know where neither were, so what were they going to do? They couldn't hold them over my head if they couldn't harm them.
"Our leverage," Red Bitch spoke, snarling the words out through her teeth. "Is right here, Mr Montrell; We want Elijah, and we will stop at nothing to get him back. Even if it means taking you in his place."
The smirk momentarily dropped from my lips. "What?"
Red Bitch on the other hand smiled again. "Don't think we don't recognize your genius. We know you're a smart boy, Mr Montrell. We'd be happy to see just how smart. I wonder what Mr Greyson will do if he learns we've found ourselves a new candidate."
"You mean lab rat?" I sneered. "I fucking know what you did to him, you sick fucking perverts. I know what you did to him when he was a goddamn kid!" I roared and started wrestling in my restrains again, so much so that Red Bitch took a step back to avoid my fury. "You fucking defiled and tortured him to the point of fucking mutilation, and you have the goddamn nerve to call yourselves scientists! FUCK you!"
"GODDAMN IT!" The technician suddenly yelled, slamming hard on a single key on the keyboard. I turned my eyes to see that he had plugged my baby up to his own laptop to send a virus directly into it - only to get hit by a surprise party. "It fried my fucking computer!"
A laugh broke from my lips, seeing Red Bitch rush up to his side and watch what was happening when you tried to mess with me and my shit. His computer started making weird beeping noises until they finally culminated and started playing a tune; The one I had programmed it to play.
Star Spangled fucking Banner.
"Home of the free, bitches," I laughed, leaning back in the chair again and simply watching the mayhem evolve. Computer guy ripped his cord out from my laptop, but it was too late. The computer kept singing, kept beeping the National Anthem like a fucking tribute to my freedom.
"Proletariat who?" I wheezed, doubling over when the tech guy shot me a glare that could murder. If things weren't so serious, it would actually have been funny as hell.
"You listen here," Red Bitch finally stood up, straightened her suit and marched up to me, her heels clicking rapidly against the concrete. "You are dealing with things way beyond your imagination, and what you are disrupting tonight is beyond your understanding! Now, here is how it goes, Mr Montrell; Either you give us the information we want or we find a way of making life miserable for you till the day you die," She came right up to me again, leaning down to my face. "You and your sister. You won't have a safe place in this world to hide."
A part of me knew this wasn't an empty threat. I knew that they had the power to do this; Eli had told me enough stories. They were the government and they were more powerful than they seemed; If there was something they wanted, they got it.
- But that was before they met me.
"Come at me," I whispered, leaning forward so that I was right up in her face as well, my breath touching her sickly stupid face. "Come fucking at me, bitch."
With that, I leaned back again, watching her stand up and grind her molars to dust. She glared maliciously at me for a few moments, and I knew then there was nothing more that she wanted than to beat the living crap out of me. Or have her guard dogs do it. After another moment, she instead turned on her heel and started marching towards the exit of the building.
"Keep an eye on him. Don't let him move a single inch." I saw her frisk out her phone just before she left.
"Tell them I said hey!" I shouted after her, my smirk returning as I knew this had to be her last move. Calling her superiors. She knew I would never talk, knew I would never crack under interrogation, and they weren't getting any further with my laptop. What options did that leave them with? Time to ask the big-ups.
Almost ten minutes passed where I simply watched the tech guy try and salvage the remains of his laptop which had finally stopped playing the anthem. Then, I heard the click-clack of her heels finally returning, coming closer and reentering the building. The second I saw her, my heart dropped into my stomach.
She was smiling again. Never a good sign.
"Pack up his things," She told, turning towards the guard dogs. "Release him. If we can't make him talk, we've got no choice but to let him walk."
What the balls?
"That's it?" I quipped, seeing the two muscle pieces move towards me, coming at me with a key to my cuffs. "You just let me walk away?" Yeah, no. They definitely had a play up their anus.
Turning back to face me, Red Bitch gave me a cold smile that made my insides freeze while they unchained me from the chair. "Let's hope you can find your way back to where you belong. Wouldn't want that poor sister of yours to start missing her brother."
Just as the last cuff was unleashed and the tech guy came up and shoved my bag with my things at me, it hit me; I knew what their game was.
Fuck.
• • •
Bada-boom-bada-bing, Caleb just got into a serious thing.