5 years ago
"You worry to much," I felt his lips brush against my ear as he walked up behind. I shivered as his hands snuck around my waist. "You need to loosen up a little. Why don't you dance?" His lips continued along my skin until they stopped at my where my shoulder and neck met.
"I'll dance when you play good music."
"Ouch." he said in response.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm rude and you're offended." He laughed resting his chin on my shoulder as he watched me work. "Get off of me, what if Brandon walks in?"
"He won't."
"Why are you so sure?"
"I got a text from him a couple of minutes ago. He told me to tell you not to wait up for him."
I sighed in response. Of course. He was out with his new "friends". And way too busy to help me and Jay do much of anything.
"What's wrong, myshka?" he asked softly. "Worried about your brother?"
"More so pissed off at him." I seethed slamming shut the laptop. "Done. I sent a zip copy to your computer."
"He's just been busy lately." he shrugged as I pulled of his grasp. I left my laptop on the bar counter heading over to one of the couches that were scattered about the empty club. Kicking off my shoes, I crossed my legs underneath me leaning back into the leather seat.
"Busy." I huffed. I watched him walk over to the bar and easily hopped over it. A few seconds later he produced a bottle of beer that definitely wasn't sold here. It was to strong and to cheaply made to be sold at such a high end club. Some Russian beer that he liked and paid extra for and since he was the main draw to the place. It was okay.
"What's really wrong, Kalla?" he asked handing me the bottle sitting next to me. I shifted to let him rest his arm behind me cracking open the top. I took one sip before handing it back to him.
"What do you know about Dedsec?" I asked staring down at my hands.
"DedSec?" Jay repeated with a hum. He leaned back taking a swig from the bottle."Not much actually. They're a self proclaimed hacktivist group."
"White hats?"
"I wouldn't consider them that. They work both sides of the avenue. Kind of like us if you really think about it." He said thoughtfully.
"Yeah well Brandon's been hanging around one of their members an awful lot." I unlocked my phone showing him the pictures. He took it from me swiping through the collection. Some of them I had taken myself, others I took from street cameras. He wasn't being careful with his comings and goings. He must be distracted but by what?
"You are worried about this?" He asked and I hummed in agreement. "He seems extra friendly with her." I leaned into him looking at the photo he has stopped on. She was in a lot of the pictures. In this one she was kissing him on the cheek and he was grinning. "Girlfriend?"
"Maybe, I don't know." I huffed angrily. "You think he would have told me, though."
"You haven't told him about us." He pointed out, he closed my phone setting it down on the couch between us before intertwining our fingers.
"That's different-" I stopped when he shot me a look. "I've wanted to for a while. But he keeps on taking off before I can sit down and have a real conversation with him."
"Give him some time, he'll come around." Jay sighed bringing our hands up so he could kiss my hand.
"You sound so confident."
"I am." He smirked as he shifted in his seat. Before I realized what he was doing he had me pinned up against the cushions of the couch. My hands were trapped above my head in his grip.
"What do you think you're doing?" I couldn't help the grin that he brought to my face.
"I'm going to kiss you." He replied back with the same self proclaimed confidence. Before I could respond his lips were on mine and I instantly melted into the kiss. He let go my wrists to better support himself over me. I let my fingers slip into his hair. My nails raked over his scalp sending a shiver down his spine.
"God I love when you do that." He hissed out letting me catch my breath.
"Jay, what if someone walks in?" I blushed. I couldn't see the door over his shoulder but that didn't mean whoever walked in wouldn't see us. And it was that time of the night where the night club workers would be arriving to set up. And unlike Jay, I didn't do PDA. At least not by choice, he loved to catch me off guard to see how badly I'd blush and stutter.
"Then they'll walk back out." He said with a finality to it. And then his lips were back on mine and all my fears were lost in the sea of emotions he brought up.
Uncle Nelson called it puppy dog love. That he was my first crush and I was young and over emotional. Not to mention an overly hormonal teenager. I wasn't sure what he meant by that but it didn't stop me.
"Hey Jay, Kal, I need to grab some-WHAT THE FUCK?!"
Jay instantly pulled away from from me cursing under his breath. "Brandon." His voice was a low warning as he straightened himself. I fixed my shirt that had rode up in the front.
"I turn my back for one second and you go after my fucking sister!" Brandon seethed. "I guess they were right about you." he sneered squaring up. I could feel the tension between the two of them. Brandon's fist were balled together and Jay sat stiffly. The two of them looked prepared to fight it out on a moments notice. Too much testosterone in the room. If I wanted to stop this from turning bloody I needed to change the subject, and fast.
"And who would that be?" I hissed at him standing up. Just because I was trying to deescalate what was going on between them didn't mean I wasn't still pissed. He'd been ignoring me all month, running off to god know's where without so much as a word as to why. "Your little Dedsec friends?" I sneered right back at him. He looked taken aback and went to speak but I didn't give him the luxury. "Maybe if you weren't so caught up in their crap you would have notice that me and Jay have been dating for the last month!" I snarled at him. I could feel Jay behind me even before he laced his fingers with mine.
"Myshka." He whispered softly in my ear.
"Who are they Brandon? And why are they more important than your real friends?" I asked. "Huh? You've left me and Jay to do all the work, preparing for the shows and everything! Do they have something on you? Is that why?"
"No! Dedsec doesn't work like that." Brandon said going on the defense.
"Then what!"
"I-I've been running a few OPs for Dedsec. The contacted me about join like....a month ago. Damn it." He sighed running a hand through his hair.
"And you are going to join them?" Jay asked and I looked up at him. He gave me a small sad smile. He hated when Brandon and I fought. Jay always believed in family first and that siblings shouldn't fight. They were meant to look after each other.
"I don't know." Brandon admitted. "I'm still testing the waters. There not bad people, really....I wanted you guys to meet them." Jay and I shared a look.
"Set up a time and place then."
</>
4 ½ years ago
I didn't trust them as much as Jay and Brandon did but after few months of working with them it was hard not to like them. I was sitting back at the Club when I got the call.
"Hey, Kit, how's it going?" Brandon asked.
"Umm, good, working on something Scylla sent my way." I replied smooshing my phone between my ear and shoulder.
"Scy's been keeping you busy too?" he joked. "What's she got you doing?"
"Some virus work for a buyer, nothing to hard." I hummed back in response.
"You've come far in the last month." He said complimenting my work, a very rare occurrence. I wasn't the strongest hacker, especially compared to the likes of him or Jay. But viruses were something I excelled at. I could find the smallest of cracks in software and exploit them by introducing my own code. The only downside, it almost always ended with me having completely destroyed their system.
"You saying I was bad before?" I chuckled softly.
"No, I just meant that this has been good for us. Working together, sharing our strengths and skills with each other."
"I'll admit. I wasn't to keen on working with Dedsec in the beginning. But you were right, they're not bad people." Scylla was always eager to help or teach me knew things. The others were just as accepting.
"Stay with them okay. Scy and the other's will look after you."
"What are you talking about?" I rolled my eyes.
"Jay......Defalt, he can be too impulsive. He takes too many chances, puts too many people at risk. For him the end justifies the means."
I shut my laptop taking the phone in my hand. "B, why are you talking like this. What's wrong?" I stared at my lap, a look of concern knitting it's way onto my face. I nervously began to chew at my cuticles, a dirty habit I had yet to break.
"I just sent a file to your phone did you get it?" he replied ignoring my question.
"Yeah, why, what's in it-"
"Don't open it until after, okay?" he said quickly, my finger hovering over the open button.
"After what? Brandon your starting to scare me. Where are you?"
He paused leaving us in silence for a moment before answering."I'm in one of the main ctOS server rooms at Blume." He said it so nonchalantly that for a second it didn't register what he was saying.
"What?!" I cried my fingers clenching into fist on the hand not holding the phone.
"Shhh. Shh. It's almost over now anyway Kal. I got shot but the backdoor is installed. I did what I set out to do." His voice was steady despite the sad air to it.
"You got shot! Where are you? I-I'll call an ambulance-" I stuttered unsure of what to do. Of what I could do.
"Please Kalla, just stop, it's too late now. There's too much blood. They'd never make it in time." The way he said it was almost like he was scolding me.
"Brandon, why?" I choked out trying to hold back the tears. Why would he call me? Why wouldn't he have called for help first, an ambulance or something? Why the hell was he there in the first place? Why was this back door so god damn important in the first place? All these questions swirled around in my head but none of them escaped my lips for fear it would unlock the flood gate.
"Because your....the only one I wanted to talk to. We are the only ones left in the family that don't have a screw loose." he laughed but it quickly deteriorated into a fit of coughs.
"Brandon."
".......bye Kal."
<\>
6 months ago
I crouched behind a stack of crates listening. Ever since Brandon's death Chicago has gotten a lot more...violent. Blume was pissed at such an outright attack on it's system. As a result, it's anger had a rippling effect across the city. Fixers were everywhere and everyone was a target. And right now it seemed like I had a bright red ring of circles painted on my back.
After my fall out with Defalt, I was left more exposed that I would like. But I couldn't stop and I couldn't slow down. Blume had to big of a bounty on me and I to big of a bone to pick with them.
I heard the crunch of gravel and smirked. Grabbing my stun baton, I charged up the voltage waiting for him to come around the corner. There was only silence. I frowned becoming nervous and paranoid. As I leaned forward to peak a hand wrapped itself around my mouth, another one pinning my wrist and stun baton to the crates.
"Shhh. I won't hurt you." a man whispered near my ear and with that released his hold on me. "Stay here, I'll get rid of your tail."
I slowly turned around trying to find who ever had been behind me. They were gone, like a ghost. Carefully, I peeked around the edge of the crates just as I heard the muffled grunts of someone being knocked out. The other man slowly lowered him to the ground before reaching for the gun at his waist. I lost sight of him as he moved into the half built building. But I did hear the quiet pop of a gun with a silencer on it go of seconds later.
"Stay here, my ass." I huffed.
Checking to make sure the coast was clear, I moved to the edge of the wall. Below me was a half a story jump, nothing that I couldn't make. Lowering myself off the edge, I let go hitting the ground with an oof. I took off down the sidewalk heading towards the bigger buildings in the city where I was less likely to die.
I got to a familiar group of buildings and scaled the fire escape landing on the roof. I quickly relaxed taking a seat on a ledge that I'd been at just earlier that day. Bags of half eaten doritos and empty plastic bottles littered the gravel roof from my previous visits. This place was a kind of home to me, safe, somewhere I liked to go on warm nights like these to sit and work.
So of course with that sense of security I dropped my guard and I didn't see him coming.
"I told you to stay."
I jumped, my heart instantly racing. "Stay back!" I mentally swore at myself, how could I be so stupid? I came back here without trying to cover my trail, I didn't even taken a different route. I ran straight home like a dog with it's tail behind its back. "Who are you?"
He held up his hands, showing that they were empty. "I just want to talk."
"That's not what I asked."
"I know you used to work with Defalt-" My mind instantly fired off in hundreds of different possibilities. Did Defalt send him? Or was this man after Defalt and wanted to use me as leverage. "You know his system in and out. And I need to get in."
"What does he have that you need so desperately?" I huffed. "Don't you know, he posts everything. I'm sure it will be somewhere on the internet within the week."
"That's the point, what he has, he can't release it...."
"Why?"
"Because if he does, it will kill my sister." he said. I froze looking down and he knew he had me.
"What does he have?" I asked.
"Blackmail on everyone in this city, including Blume." I looked up suddenly more interested. "You expect me to help you get back this information and not leak it myself?"
"No, I expect you to help me get it back and be patient." He said. "Right now, that information is the only thing keeping her alive but once I find her, it's all yours."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
"Sorry but this just seems a little to good to be true." I said eyeing him warily. "How did you even know where to find me?"
"Your dad and I have worked together in the past. I know what happened to your brother Kalla...." He walked towards me resting a hand on my back. "Help me and I'll help you. That information is step number one in taking down Blume. And it's yours if you help me get it back."
"I'll help."