Chapter Three

Sami

That phone call had raised goose bumps on my skin. Although it had said “Mom” on the screen, I knew better. Mom wouldn’t call in the middle of the night. Given our turbulent history, she wouldn’t call, period. It was Adrian checking up on me. Had to be.

I didn’t know what to think about that. Was he worried about me? Whatever his reason, I didn’t like it. My every move for the last three years had been monitored or tracked. I was done with having an overlord.

“C’mon, really?” Harvard said, and I scrambled to remember what we were talking about.

Oh. Right.

Star Wars.

Wait. Was he bashing my beloved droid?

I swung toward him, outraged. “You don’t think R2’s the galaxy’s best hacker?”

“Well, I mean, he’s an astromech. He fixes things. But greatest hacker?” He lifted a shoulder. “Eh, I don’t know.”

“He hacked the Death Star!”

“True, but the Death Star was a cybersecurity nightmare. There was no network segmentation. Obi-Wan could access the entire Imperial network just by ordering the droids to connect to a computer. And don’t get me started about malicious dongles. If the Death Star IT guys had any freaking idea what they were doing, they’d have installed a security system to prevent unauthorized devices, and R2 wouldn’t have been able to connect to the network at all.” He shot me a sideways glance. “The Death Star was a hack waiting to happen. That doesn’t make R2 the best hacker in the galaxy. It makes him an okay hacker who had the opportunity.”

I grinned at him. I couldn’t help it. He was exactly my kind of people.

He grinned back, his dimple winking. “What?”

I set a protective hand on my suitcase. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”

He snorted a laugh and turned the truck onto a pitted dirt road. We stopped in front of a blocky concrete building that didn’t offer a whole lot in the way of charm. I didn’t know what to expect, but this wasn’t it. “Are we here?”

“Yup.” When Harvard shut off the headlights, I blinked out the windshield at the wide expanse of ink-colored sky freckled with bits of light.

OMG.

I sprung out of the truck, threw my head back, and took it all in. I’d never seen so many stars in my life. The Milky Way was a trail of blue smoke across the black.

Harvard came around the front of the truck with my bag in hand. “Awesome, isn’t it?”

“It’s…” I couldn’t find the right word. I’d always loved the stars, but I’d never seen them like this, in all their glittering glory. “Gorgeous.”

After several moments of just staring up, getting lost in the expanse of the universe over our heads, Harvard grinned again and motioned toward the building. “As much as I’d enjoy staying out here stargazing with you, we’d better get you settled. Training starts tomorrow.”

After one last longing gaze at the stars—as soon as I paid back my benefactor, I was so buying a telescope—I followed him inside. “Did you know in about four billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies will collide?”

He stopped short, and I almost bumped into him there in the doorway. He glanced back at me, then up at the sky. “I…did not know that. Wow. It’s not often someone knows something I don’t.”

“Oh, you’re always the smartest one in the room?” I teased. I couldn’t help myself. He was so amazed and appreciative of my random trivia, which was a nice change of pace. Adrian always rolled his eyes at me when I started talking about the stars.

Harvard didn’t smile as I’d expected. Instead, a cloud descended, shadowing his eyes. “Yeah, I am. Unfortunately.” He didn’t give me a chance to ask what he meant by that. He continued through the door and said, “This is Bristow Hall. It’s the dorm and common area for all trainees.”

The place reminded me of the dorms I’d seen while visiting colleges. Before my life came to a screeching halt, I’d been scheduled to graduate high school at sixteen. At fourteen, I already had several local colleges begging my parents to let me attend.

All that was gone now.

The dorm’s entryway led to an open space that served as a common room. There was a pool table, a dartboard, and a really comfy-looking sectional in front of a big flat-screen TV. We passed a laundry room and a gym filled with weights and treadmills and other equipment I didn’t know the names for. I’d soon become intimately acquainted with all of it, which was something I hadn’t thought much about when I signed on for the training program. I wasn’t out of shape, but I wasn’t really in shape, either. As a computer nerd, my days were spent at a desk, not in a gym.

But here, HORNET was training new operatives. Of course they’d expect me to physically train as well. Even though Harvard looked skinny at a distance, up close he was all lean muscle that flexed with each movement. Not that I was looking or anything.

Turning a corner, I found a long hallway of closed doors.

Harvard stopped in front of one and opened it. “You’re the only female in residence, so you get your own space. The guys are all sharing.”

I stepped inside the room and poked around. It was empty, save for a narrow bed and a dresser. On top of the dresser sat two sets of workout clothes—gray shorts, jogging pants, a zip-up hoodie like the one Harvard had, and a t-shirt that said “trainee” across the back in black lettering. On the floor, two pairs of running shoes.

Oh, yeah. They were going to expect me to sweat. Ew.

I also had a private bathroom, which I appreciated.

I turned back to the door and offered Harvard a smile as he set R2 down just inside my room. “Thank you for coming to get me, for offering to talk me through my freak-out, and for geeking out over Star Wars with me. I had fun.” It was the truth, and I kinda didn’t want him to leave. He felt like my only friend in the world right then, though that was stupid. I had Adrian, who was only a phone call or a few mouse clicks away.

That hint of shyness returned. God, that was endearing. “You’re welcome, Sami. I had fun, too. Get some rest now.”

He started to shut me into the empty room. By myself. I wasn’t ready for that and grabbed the door before it closed. “Will I, uh, see you at training tomorrow?”

His eyes crinkled with his grin. “Count on it.”

My heart did a silly little dance in my chest. I leaned my forehead against the door and listened to Harvard’s steps fade. Without the soothing effect of his presence, I felt myself careening toward panic again. I sucked in a breath and grabbed my phone from my pocket.

“Are you there?” Adrian asked excitedly the moment he answered.

I released my breath in a rush and sat down heavily on the end of the bed. The room was cold and reminded me a little too much of life in juvie. What had I done? And why did I feel trapped again? I hated being trapped. I wanted to be outside under the vastness of the stars.

“Fragment?” He always called me by the online persona I’d created after leaving juvie. Never by my real name. I often suspected it was because he lived more in the digital world than the real one. “Did you make it there? Is it awesome? I bet it’s awesome. I’m so fraking jealous right now. You’re like Sarah Connor–level badass.”

I bent forward and cradled my head in my hand. “Adrian, you shouldn’t have called me earlier.”

“What?”

“You spoofed my mom’s number and called me.”

“No! What?” He sounded genuinely perplexed. “Why would I do that?”

“That’s what I was wondering.”

“I didn’t. I swear to the Starship Enterprise I didn’t.”

I snorted. While my heart belonged to Star Wars, Adrian was firmly in the Star Trek camp. I could picture him raising his hand in the Vulcan salute.

“Wait,” he said abruptly. “Someone spoofed your mom’s number?”

“Yeah. If it wasn’t you…” I didn’t even want to think of the implications, but of course, I didn’t have to. Adrian, being socially awkward Adrian, just blurted my worst fear.

“Think it’s your benefactor checking up on you?”

I hissed out a breath and shot to my feet. I needed to move, but there was no place to go. Just like in juvie. I could already tell I was going to hate this room. “I don’t know.”

But, God, I hoped not. The threat of my mysterious benefactor had hung over my head for the last three years. Three long years of wondering when I’d be called on to pay back their favor.

Adrian was quiet for so long I started to wonder if I’d lost the connection. Finally, he said, “Sit tight. I’ll look into it.”

I stared at my phone as the line went dead.

If Adrian started poking into the identity of my benefactor, we could both end up in jail. I tried to call him back and got voicemail. “Adrian, don’t. I mean it. If it’s them, I’ll handle it. Just…don’t do anything stupid. Please.”

I ended the call and sat down on the end of my bed. He wasn’t going to listen. He’d probably never even hear the voicemail; he never checked it. I texted him, too, but I knew he’d ignore it. He’d been fascinated by the story of what had happened ever since I’d confessed it to him over beers on my twenty-first birthday earlier this year.

Dammit. I never should’ve taken that money.