I went after him. It’s true. I started it. I’m just as bad as he is. Worse.
—Page 31 of Tessa Waye’s diary
It’s almost eleven o’clock, and I’m too wired to sleep. Todd’s working late. Lily and Bren have gone to bed. And my stalker still hasn’t taken my bait.
How is that possible? I push away from my computer and rub my aching neck. It still doesn’t help. The muscles feel like knotted ropes. Am I dealing with someone who knows about Trojan horses? Maybe the email account hasn’t been checked? Maybe—
Something scrapes outside my window, and I stiffen. In the dark, the tree branches twitch like spider legs.
It’s nothing. Has to be.
Another scrape.
What if it’s whoever left the diary?
In my head, I tie up the words, but they still escape. There’s no way anyone would dare. I mean, Bren is right down the hallway. Todd could come home any minute. It’s too risky.
So why have my palms gone damp?
I roll my chair a little farther back and stare at the open window. The lamplight catches just the edges of the trees, but nothing else. I opened the window earlier because it felt so stuffy after Carson left. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Something below the window rustles. It’s even closer than before.
It’s moving up.
I drop both feet to the floor, digging in with my toes like a runner ready to sprint. It’s maybe three strides to the window. Two if I really stretch. So I’ll run over and slam down the window. Easy, right?
Unless I get grabbed.
I make the distance in two strides and seize the window’s edge. Outside, the tree shakes hard, and a hand slaps flat on the sill. A scream climbs up my throat . . . and lodges.
It’s Griff.
“Sorry.” His face bobs into the light, the surrounding darkness making his smile look even whiter. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
He’s dangling half in, half out of the tree next to my window. His legs are tangled in a branch, and both forearms are braced on the windowsill. He looks seconds away from laughing.
Like this is some joke.
Like I’m some normal girl who doesn’t have to worry about being stalked.
It kind of makes me want to punch him.
“If you weren’t trying to scare me, then why the hell are you climbing a tree outside my window?”
Griff’s smile freezes. “I wanted to see you.”
My heart rate spikes. “What the frick for?”
“You never answered me.”
Never answered him? It takes me a full five seconds before I realize what Griff’s talking about. The text. I never responded. I bite down on my lower lip, trying to think of something to say. I ought to ask him why he thought I would answer. I ought to tell him to piss off.
But I don’t. Or maybe I can’t. I mean, the guy is dangling from my bedroom window. He scaled a tree for me. And all for what? So he could make sure I’m okay? I don’t get it. I chew my lower lip a little harder. “Why do you care? It’s not like we talk that much.”
“Yeah, I know. I think we should fix that.” Griff leans a little farther in and looks around. Heat surges across my face when I realize I have dirty laundry to his left and discarded paperbacks to his right. “So can I come in?”
“Uh.” No! My room is a mess and Bren would have a heart attack and you shouldn’t even be here. “Okay.”
Griff’s grin slings wide. “Great!”
He heaves himself up a little and pauses, gaze speared to mine. Suddenly, we’re close again, and the air between us curls.
His left eyebrow rises. I wish I could do that. “Um, a little space?”
“Oh!” I shuffle backward and my lab partner slides, hands first, onto my floor. He’s still wearing the faded polo and khakis from earlier. I’m not usually a fan of anything preppy, but this . . . really works.
Griff looks up at me, his grin crooked, amused. “Didn’t think you’d actually agree.”
Yeah, well, that makes two of us. I scoot to the side and drop into my desk chair, sitting on my shaking hands. “What do you want?”
Griff shrugs, still looking around the room like he’s studying some museum exhibit. I mentally will him to look at me.
What does he find so freaking interesting anyway? I tell myself I don’t care what he sees, but inside I’m praying I haven’t left any underwear lying around.
“I always wanted to see where you lived now.”
“Why?” He’s staring at my bed, and the heat in my cheeks, already scalding, turns nuclear. “Were you expecting a coffin or something?”
“Of course not. You sleep hanging upside down, right?”
I give Griff a stony look, but it doesn’t hold. He’s funny. I’ve always had a soft spot for funny. A smile starts to worm across my lips, and Griff catches it. The earlier crooked, evil grin stretches even wider, and I have to remind myself not to gawk. But this is Griff. In my bedroom.
Wanting to talk. “Why are you being so . . . so . . .” I refuse to say the word flirty.
Griff smiles. “Because I wanted to the moment I first saw you, but mostly because Matthew Bradford threw your lunch into the school fountain last week, so you let the air out of his car tires.”
“Tire. I did only one.”
“Yeah, I know. I did the other.”
“How did you . . .”
“Know you were there?” Griff stands up, and for the first time, I notice his polo isn’t fashionably faded so much as frayed and worn. He doesn’t look thin. He looks hungry. “I was one car over, hiding out instead of going to lunch. You’re the first girl I’ve ever met who’s smart and never plays stupid. You’re small, but you don’t back down.”
Griff switches his attention to my bookshelf, tracing his fingers over ten different Stephen King novels and pausing when he hits Jodi Picoult’s entire oeuvre. If he asks, I’m going to swear they’re Bren’s.
“So is that a good enough answer?” he asks.
I start to speak, but my computer chirps and my heart leapfrogs into my throat. Someone just clicked on my virus link. Someone took my bait. I spin my chair around and hear Griff move a little closer.
“What is it?” Griff’s on the other side of my desk with Bren’s battered copy of Eat, Pray, Love in one hand. He eyes my computer with interest. “Something going on?”
“No, nothing.”
Except it isn’t. It’s everything. I press into my chair until the plastic pinches the knobs of my spine.
My Trojan horse virus worked. The email receiver must have clicked my link, which means I’m in. I can see what they see, get into their files, go through their lives.
And take back my own.
“What are you doing?”
I jump, twist in my chair and realize, too late, that Griff is next to me now. He’s close. Close enough for me to smell his mint gum. Close enough to make me panic.
This won’t work. I need to get rid of him. I stand up, keeping my body between Griff and the computer screen. “You have to go now.”
He cocks his head, smiling like I’ve just said some joke he’s desperate to understand. “But I just got here.”
“You have to go.”
Griff’s eyes flick beyond my shoulder to my computer, and then return to me. He thinks I’m being weird. Hell, I am being weird, but I don’t care. I need some privacy right now.
“Okay, fine, but close the window after me.” Griff’s devious grin has returned. He straddles my windowsill with more grace than you would think such a thin, tall guy would have. “You never know who might climb up that tree again, Wicked.”
Wicked. It makes my heart do a silly, flippy thing. I open my mouth to retort, but Griff’s already gone. The tree shakes twice as he scales down the trunk, and then there’s nothing. I shut the window, check the locks, and close the blinds. When I turn around, the air is straitjacket tight. It feels like those moments before a movie begins, like the whole world is waiting.
But I’m not waiting anymore. I kick my chair out of the way and, still standing, hunch over the keyboard, pulling up another program. I punch in a few lines of code, accessing the remote computer’s webcam.
“Come on, you little bastard,” I mutter as the computer processes, turning my code into a rope bridge into someone else’s world. Another few seconds and the black camera window at the top of my screen flickers.
I’m in.
Now I can see them.
Or rather, I can see her, and when I do, my stomach hits bottom. Suddenly, I’m hollow.
I know that girl. I knew her when she was in third grade and I was in middle school. I knew her when we passed in the grocery store and no longer said hello. I knew her.
I know her.
The girl who clicked on my virus is Tally Waye. Tessa’s sister.