“I get it. That was fucked up to walk in on. But it's over. We got out. We have a week to figure out what we're gonna do and...”

“You. Don't. Get. It,” she seethed, turning to look at me and there were tears in her eyes.

“Explain it to me,” I tried in a soothing tone.

“I knew him!”

“Knew who, doll?”

“The dead guy, Breaker. I fucking knew him!”

Fuck.

I never stopped to consider that there was like a hacker underground. They probably all knew each other in a detached sort of way. “Babe... I know hackers run in the same circles and shit but...”

“No Breaker,” she said, shaking her head. She raked hands down her face like she could claw the image away. “I mean... I knew him, knew him.”

Fifteen

Alex

It was Glenn.

I followed Breaker who followed Lex into the second room, knowing it was probably not a good thing that we were being moved to a second location, but not having much of a choice.

And the second that I stepped through, my eyes fell to the chair.

And they found Glenn.

Glenn the sweet, slightly overweight hacker who taught me almost everything I knew. The only person on the planet aside from Breaker who knew even part of my story.

The guy I used to have sex with.

Weird, awkward, passionless sex.

But still.

I knew what his lips felt like on mine, what his body looked like. I knew his voice when he was excited for me when I finally understood a concept he was explaining or the way he said my name like a warning when he got frustrated with my ever-present runaway temper. I knew that he hated coffee and preferred energy drinks. That he thought crunchy cheese curls were superior to the puffed kind. I knew that his mother still bought him underwear for Christmas and his laptop cost four times what mine did (and mine was expensive to the point of obnoxious).

I knew him.

And he was dead.

By Lex's hands.

Like my mother.

Used as a puppet and bled dry.

Like my mother.

The god damn son of a bitch took everything, everything from me.

“What do you mean you knew him knew him?” Breaker asked, his head tilted at me, water spilling down his face and dripping off his beard. Funny because I was blissfully unaware of my own wetness.

“When I was out on my own... looking for people to help me figure out the hacking thing, I found Glenn. His name was Glenn,” I said, my voice wobbling a little and I winced at it. But I couldn't help it. It kept getting more and more shaky as I went on. “Glenn Gable and he was just a couple years older than me. And he was good and patient and he loved his mother and his hands were always warm to the point of being clammy. And he thought crunchy cheese curls beat out the puffed kind. Which is stupid. Puffs are way better. But he loved them and he downed them with green energy drinks and he used to rub my back when I would sit and stare at the computer all day every day trying to learn what he was trying to teach me and...”

“You dated him,” Breaker said, his voice soft. My eyes went to his, expecting to see mockery there. Because Glenn wasn't super hot guy badass material like Breaker was. But all I saw in Breaker's blue eyes was understanding. Sympathy.

“Yes,” I admitted, the tears that had been stinging my eyes finally winning out and brimming over. “It wasn't good. But he was good to me and I cared about him. And Lex killed him!”

“Oh baby...” he said, his arms reaching for me and hauling me against his chest as his arms squeezed me hard enough to make breathing difficult.

But in a weird way, it still felt good. So I turned my face into his neck and I let the tears come.

I wondered if Glenn's mother would ever know what happened to him. Or if he would just be a missing person and empty casket for her. I hadn't met her, but I had seen pictures. She was an even heavier, feminized version of Glenn. Same dark hair. Same roundish face. Same nice brown eyes. She looked like the kind of woman who cried at greeting cards.

She wouldn't have anyone to buy underwear for at Christmas anymore.

At that, I cried some more.

And Glenn would never get a chance to finally reach the final level in that video game he had become obsessed with the day before Breaker took me. He had bought a case of energy drinks so he could stay up for days and play.

I doubt he had even gotten close to finishing before Lex picked him up.

At that, I cried even harder.

“He's dead because of me,” I cried, my words coming out high-pitched and choked.

“Alex, you can't think...”

“I'm the one fucking with Lex's computers. It's me. He was hired to find me. And he died because he knew it was me all along and he knew he couldn't tell Lex that because he knew what would happen to me. He died to protect me!”

To this, Breaker had nothing to say.

Because there was nothing to say.

There were no magic words that could make that any less true. Any less painful. There was no one left in my life who cared about me even in a detached 'we used to date but it didn't work out' kind of way. There was no one. I had nothing left.

“No one is left to care about me,” I whispered against his skin, just loud enough for me to hear.

But his arms squeezed me tighter. “That's not true,” he said with certainty.

“Yes, it is,” I sniffled, knowing I sounded pathetic and not particularly caring. I earned the right.

“Doll, it's not true,” he said firmly. “I care about you.”

“No you don't,” I said, rolling my eyes even though he couldn't see me. “You don't even know me.”

“I know enough to give a shit, Alex. I might not see it all because you won't let me. But I see you. And what I do see, I care about. I don't care that I've only known you a couple days and it's too soon and it doesn't make any kind of fuckin' logical sense. Especially since I don't give a fuck about anyone but myself and Shoot, but I care and I am going to try to get all of us out of this.”

His words sent warmth through my insides, making me see for the first time how cold a place I had been living in.

But that was exactly the reason he couldn't care about me. I wasn't the kind of girl who deserved that. I was the kind of girl who was surrounded by death and torture and obsessions that brought nothing but misery to myself and those around me.

He might have been bad news, but everything I had learned about Breaker suggested he was a good man.

And I couldn't drag a good man down into my gutters to wade around in the muck with me. It wasn't right.

I had to find a way out for myself. And for him. And Shoot. Whatever it took. No one else was going to die because of me and my mess.

I sniffled back a new onslaught of tears, taking deep breaths to calm myself down. It wasn't the time. To break down. To fall apart. I needed to push back all that dark and lock it away for a time when everyone was safe and away from my mess. Then I could let it out. Let it consume me if it needed to.

“You alright?” Breaker's voice asked and I felt myself nodding even though that answer was a booming, deafening no. “Can we get back on the road?”

“Yep,” I said, pulling out of his arms and turning back to the car, throwing myself in before he could even move a foot.