Cruz gripped my shoulder, a gesture he meant as comfort. His gaze landed on Marshall. “When was Sage rescued?”
“Eight months ago.” Marshall blew out a long breath. “She was rescued eight months ago when Circuit was finally successful in hacking one of Kade’s distributor’s laptops and traced outgoing emails to an IP address in Miami. FBI found Sage huddled in a cabinet beneath the kitchen sink.”
The millions of hair follicles across my body stood up in unison. “We saved her.”
“Yeah, Wren. We saved her.”
Silence filled the sticky air. If the rest of Circuit were here already too, silence still would’ve fallen over us like a thick fog. The only sound that could be heard was the low hum of the fan running that kept Cruz’s computers from overheating.
We’d all been hacking more than a decade, and we all joined Circuit with one common goal. It was why I became Specter.
To eliminate evil.
I guess we could’ve been considered some form of vigilantes. Using illegal tactics to attempt to make the world a better place. And for the most part, we did. We helped people. Broke the law to achieve a greater good. And that’s what gave us our purpose. But giving a girl back her life?
That’s an entirely different processing unit. An entirely different server.
Hell, an entirely different realm.
Cruz clearing his throat lifted the fog. “She’s been trying to thank us?”
“I believe so.” Marshall confirmed. “She’s back living with her parents and brother in the home she grew up in. Doesn’t work or attend school.”
“How come we heard all about Kade’s trial and nothing about Sage?” Ace leaned back against Marshall’s desk, crossing his arms over his chest. My best friend was doing his best to keep the tremble in his voice light.
“Sage requested the privacy. She agreed to testify and give up everything she’d heard in the time she spent with Kade as long as her story was never told.”
“She didn’t want people to know she was kidnapped and rescued after living with a monster?”
“No, Ace. She didn’t. And she kept her part of the bargain to get what she wanted. The stories she told lined up with certain timelines the FBI had already worked out. She knew exactly where Kade kept his laptop. She even knew the password to get into it. That one device had all his contacts in it. Not only is Kade doing life in prison, but so are six of his cronies and five of the distributors Kade worked with all because of her.”
“And she got zero recognition.” I mumbled, shaking my head slowly. She’d spent almost two years of her life surviving behind massive gates when she’d done nothing to warrant being locked behind them. As if she were a wrongfully committed prisoner. Sage had all her power stripped away from her in the time it took for a gun to go off. All her choices and the outcome of her life was put into the hands of another. And the moment her power was dropped back into her lap by the click of a mouse, she’d wanted no recognition for the good she did with that newfound power. I couldn’t help but wonder why. And I felt like leftover trash at the bottom of a dumpster when my mind had filed her away as someone who was crazy.
The more my trash brain considered it, the worse my thoughts felt. She wasn’t looking for a trophy. She didn’t want a pat on the back or a high five for telling the truth. She wasn’t vengeful. She was thankful and didn’t need strangers coming up to her on the streets with empty apologies and side hugs to feel it.
“I read something back at the bureau about her not wanting to answer questions or be a miracle story on the news.” Marshall shrugged. "Seems to me she just wanted a life.”
“And we gave that to her.” Cruz squeezed my shoulder before rubbing his jaw. “It makes sense she’d want to thank us. What doesn't make sense is how she found out it was us.”
“Ahhh.” Marshall wrung his hands together in a slow motion. “The FBI told the court they received information from an anonymous source.”
“And?”
“And that they believed the source was Circuit because we’d helped them in the past.”
“Aren’t we tainted evidence or something?” Ace wondered, tapping his foot like he does when he’s anxious.
“Technically, yes. But Sage wasn’t. She was a witness, and the shit she gave up about Kade was enough to put him away for life without ever having to consider the shady way his whereabouts were discovered.”
“Damn.” Ace shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “Holy God damn.”
Sage’s disappearing act and anonymous gifts suddenly made so much sense. It all became so clear. Like the stormy clouds drifted away and opened up to make room for the sun. We’d given Sage her life back, and she was expressing gratitude.
But there was still something that didn’t make sense.
I opened my mouth to ask, but Cruz’s conflicted voice beat me to it.
“How does a girl who was held captive for over a year find Circuit and one of its members when the FBI can’t even do it?”
“And why me? Why Specter?” I cut in. “Why did she choose me?” There were thirteen people in Circuit. She had the pick of the litter and she chose me.
Why?
Marshall grunted, popping his neck. “I’ve dedicated the last eight hours to this case. I’ve gone through her phone records, went deep into the computers that reside in her home. I’ve checked out her extended family and went through an old classmates list. I searched the shit out of her brother and looked into Trish Summers. I burnt the fuck out of my corneas staring at the damn screen and could only form one sentence that relates to how Sage found you.”
“What?” I burst out, throwing my arms in the air, impatient and anxious and overwhelmed.
Marshall’s warm brown eyes hit my frantic green ones, and he cleared his throat before answering.
“I have no damn idea.”
8
Sage
“Do you remember that time in fifth grade when Darren Scott was picking on me? We were sitting in the back of Ms. Franklin’s classroom, working on our world map project and Darren wouldn’t shut up about my skin tone? He went on and on, making cracks about me being albino or the descendant of a saltine cracker. The little shit basically had me in tears while you were fuming from the inside out. Before I could blink out a tear, you grabbed a crayon, lunged across the desk, and shoved the thing directly up his nose. You were so aggressive, blood gushed out of his little nostril in a nanosecond. I’d always known how awesome you were. It’s why I clung to you the second I saw we had matching backpacks in kindergarten. But it was the moment you launched your body across a row of desks and shoved a cyan crayon up Darren Scott’s nose did I realize that you were an absolute badass.”
I sniffed roughly, unzipping the small purse that was slung across my body and pulled out a cyan crayon. I pressed a kiss to it and placed it next to a crown of flowers.
“You were always doing reckless shit that had me quivering in my knock-off Uggs and calculating how long I’d be grounded if I ever got caught sneaking out with you. But I never did. Because somehow luck followed you everywhere. Until one day, it didn’t.” I wiped a runaway tear with the back of my trembling hand and laid down next to her. “It should’ve been you, Trish. It should’ve been you because you would’ve fought for yourself. You probably would’ve rewritten Taken, kicked all their asses, and saved yourself before Liam Neeson ever showed up. And what the hell did I do, ya know? I didn’t do anything to warrant earning a cyan crayon.”
I rolled to my side, propped my head in my hand, and closed my eyes. Instead of the square stone that merely had her name and the day she was forced to turn in her crayon, I saw her. Her round face beamed when she smiled at me, warm hazel eyes meeting mine with a smirk. She shook her head, her short brown hair smacking her in the face. The blunt bangs that went across her forehead swayed with the motion. She threw her head back and laughed when she saw the crayon, lifting it between her rainbow fingernails.
“I brought it becau
se I think for the first time since like ever, I did something that may qualify as badass.”
I pictured her eyebrows raising and the quirk of her purple painted lips. She propped her head in her hand, mimicking my position as if she were ready to hear my story.
“You remember how I told you it was an organization of hackers that found Kade? Well, I’m pretty sure I found a guy who’s in the organization. At least, I sure hope I found him because if not, I’ve been leaving random hundreds of dollars' worth of gifts.”
I forced a smile. She was the only one I’d ever smile at these days, and she always smiled back.
“I guess if it isn’t really him, I wouldn’t want to know. Julie says it’s a big deal that I’ve left the house on my own and took the initiative to do this. That’s why I brought the crayon. If you were here, you’d say only a true badass tracks down a dude who they believed to be in an illegal organization after they spent sixteen months imprisoned in one.” I snorted. “The tables have turned, my friend. And I don’t have much to give you as an explanation on why I did it. Just felt right, I guess. To thank the people that helped me. Kind of like I would if someone held the door or stopped if I got a flat tire. You thank people for kindness so that’s what I’ve been doing. It gives me a purpose, Trish. I’m a badass with a purpose to deliver gratitude. What color crayon should I bring for that?”
I could almost hear her loud laugh, cackling over the low sound of the light wind, moving between the trees.
“Ya know.” I rolled to my stomach, picking at the grass and tearing it in two. “You’re never gonna believe where I found him. It sounds way too good to be true, so I’ll remind you now of the spit shake we did in seventh grade after I borrowed those wedges without asking. No more lying to each other. So, here’s the truth. I found him in a hospital. Swear on the last pretzel stick, he was right next to me in the ER like six weeks ago. There was one of those flimsy curtains separating us. I was there because, no surprise here, I had a panic attack after a nightmare and clunked my head on the floor when I fell out of bed. My mother insisted I get checked for a concussion. So there I was, laying on a hospital bed for like the fourth time in less than a year, waiting for a doctor to come when all the lights went out.”
She rolled her eyes at me like I was making the whole thing up for pure entertainment.
“I promise, Trish. The damn lights went out in the ER. I was laying there, clutching the edge of the bed while my dad went to figure out what the hell was happening and why generators weren’t flipping on. And then I heard it. A girl’s voice on the other side of the curtain.”
“Turn the lights back on!”
“I can’t turn the lights back on, Lilah!”
“What the hell are you talking about? You hack into shit in a creepy underworld and call yourself Specter for fun and can’t turn on some lights?”
“Holy shit, Gracie! You have no chill at all! Will you shut the hell up?”
“Oh, relax. Nobody knows what the hell we’re talking about. And that’s if anybody can hear us. So, get your phone out and get to work.”
“First of all, this isn’t a hacking situation. This is a walk to a breaker box and flip a switch situation. Nobody in Circuit would attempt hacking into a breaker box. Second of all, shut the fuck up!”
“You just said Circuit! Not me! Ha!”
“Lilah, I swear to God, shut up.”
“Come on, Wren. This place is dead. Lighten up.”
“Next time you slice your finger trying to dice a damn onion, you can drive yourself to get stitches.”
“It was like three seconds later when the lights came back on and their conversation stopped, but I swear to you, I was shivering. My body felt like needles were pricking it all over. I was acutely aware of everything, all my senses heightening just in case he started talking again. He never did, but there was something inside me that was telling me two things. One thing was that his friend should not be allowed to speak in public places, and the second, Specter was a piece of those who saved me.”
I was working on nothing but assumption and a conversation behind a baby blue curtain. The guy who lives in apartment 905 may be a janitor and not even know how to use Google, but no part of me wanted to believe that. My entire being was banking on Specter being who I thought he was. When I told Dr. Julie all this, she was undeniably stunned. I thought her eyes would never go back to their normal size. I knew what she was thinking. Her big brain was overheating, thinking that occurrence was once in a lifetime. Something that was luck of the draw and just didn’t happen.
Well, people also didn’t get kidnapped in a Wells Fargo by a dude who runs a drug ring, but that happened. They also didn’t get rescued on the day they were supposed to marry the drug captain. And they sure as shit didn’t happen to overhear some girl exposing the man who helped save her by overpowering the FBI.
But that was my life.
Shit that didn’t happen to others happened to me. It was one unexpected event after another, and while I was grateful for some of those events, the uneasiness regarding the future was absolutely exhausting.
“I don’t know, Trish. Maybe that’s why I’m clinging to Specter. Because he’s something good that came out of the bad hand I drew in life. And at least with him, I won’t get any unexpected events. He doesn’t want people to know who he is so he isn’t gonna look for me. Things will stay the same, and I’ve become so desperate for something to be the same as it’s always been.”
I turned and looked at her. She frowned when she spotted the tears rolling freely down my cheeks. I sniffed and attempted to smile through them.
Her hand extended towards me, and I closed my eyes. I waited for the warmth of her touch and her slender fingers to brush them away. But it never came. When my tears ran dry and eyes peeled back open, she was gone.
And she was not coming back.
I was all alone. This cemetery was filled with souls. Souls that came from people who'd spent a lifetime being loved and cherished. How long each of their lifetimes lasted was unknown. What I did know was that their lifetime wasn't long enough. People leave this earth too early. Life takes those we love before we're ready. And if by some miracle, we know exactly when it's coming, there's nothing that would prepare us for the moment our hearts get ripped in two pieces.
I sat up, eyeing the crayon while I cried softly. Grief is such a bullshit emotion. Nobody knows how to handle it. Not the person grieving and not the people who try to offer condolences. The entire thing was just unbearable and overwhelming. I felt like a crazy person half the time and was so sick of people telling me they’re sorry. Sick of people telling me time heals all wounds and that she was in a better place.
No.
Trish’s place was here. Her place was at Trinity Washington University where she could be enrolled in elementary education. Her place was inside a classroom filled with dorky posters and screaming children. Her place was here. On Earth. With all her family and the best friend who’s clinging to a crayon.
Trish was my best friend since Kindergarten. We were five years old when we met. I spent thirteen years loving her as if she were my twin sister. Thirteen years of memories were inside my brain, and if one more person made another crack about how long it’s been since she’s been gone, or how long I’ve been grieving her, I’d take a page from her book and shove a cyan crayon up their nose.
I had thirteen years with her, and it all dispersed with a gunshot and a pool of blood. As far as I was concerned, I should get thirteen years to grieve her. To let go of my best friend.
But even then, I worried it wouldn’t be long enough.
9
Wren
“Dude, what are you wearing?”
I stared into Ace’s face as he worked double time not to smirk at me. His lips were pressed together, but there was no feasible way I could’ve missed the twinkle in his eye that told me he was about to say something he probably shouldn’t.
“You look like Ken.”
>
I gaped at him. “Ken the Barbie?”
“That’s the one.”
“Fuck you, dude! I’m a ginger! I do not look like Ken.”
“It’s the outfit. Not the hair. You look like golfer Ken.”
He made himself comfortable on my couch, widening his legs and grabbing for the remote. I looked down at my outfit in horror. I thought I looked nice. So maybe most guys avoided wearing canary yellow polos to work, but I liked yellow. It was a happy color. You couldn’t look at a dude wearing yellow and give him attitude. The sunshine shirt was like a shield that’s purpose was to repel negativity. And when it was tucked into light-colored khakis secured with a dark brown belt, I looked damn professional.
“If I’m golfer Ken, then you’re masseuse Ken.” I flipped him off and plopped down into my recliner, pulling the lever.
Ace came right from work. His body was slumped into my suede gray couch, covered in bright white pants, a white T-shirt, and a white smock thing that had big black buttons and Tranquility’s Spa logo on the right side of his chest. His shoulder length blond hair was tied in a knot on the top of his head, stray pieces falling down his neck. If either of us looked like a goober, it was him.
“Man bun, masseuse Ken.” I corrected.
“Tell me, Wren.” He shifted his body, flipping off the television and raising his eyebrows. “You think the hotties are more likely to play with a masseuse or a golfer? ‘Cause I’m betting on the former. Besides, these locks give them something to hold on to.”
It took all my effort not to laugh. “I can’t even with you.”
He winked at me, heaving himself off the couch. “Want a beer?”
“Yeah.”
He headed towards the kitchen, yanking open the refrigerator. “Can I see your ID, sir?”
“Piss off.” I barked.
He came back into the living room, cackling as he handed me a bottle and threw himself back on my couch. He popped the top of his beer off and took a long swig, adjusting his junk. “That outfit makes you look even younger. And you wonder why you got carded when we tried to see The Purge.”
Specter: Circuit Series Book One Page 6
