Page 69 of Devilish Debt
I am not that same sad, scared kid stuck in foster care.
My factory settings do suck, but I didn’t have to leave them that way.
I worked so fucking hardnotto keep that way.
Notto have to ever look at that root source again.
Yet ever since Salay managed to hack that side of me a few days ago, I can’tstoplooking at it.
Obsessing over it.
Wanting to erase it.
Permanently.
All opening that file has done is make me doubt what I’m capable of doing.
Am I really that much better than anyone else?
Am I really thatgoodat what I can do?
Is there someone better?
Is that why Garcia doesn’t want me the way I do him?
Because he doesn’t wanna settle?
‘Cause he doesn’t wanna purchase the first gen model when he knows he deserves a third or fourth one with the bugs bred out.
Is that why my birth donors gave me up too?
They knew better versions were inevitable?
When Salay breaks the surface again, she runs her fingers through her damp locks, down her buttery caramel brown skin face, and hits me with a scowl.“You ready to let me fucking talk?”
“You ready to admit Icanfucking read?”
“I swear to Neptune,” her back slams itself against the edge, splashing water onto the tile floor, “you and Matlock get off on arguing for no reason.”
“I prefer to get off in your mouth,” Garcia unexpectedly announces upon his entrance into the master bathroom.“Or his.”
The faintest heat hits my cheek, and I drop my face downward, desperate to hide it.
Anxious to zip away some of my dignity.
Look, I know all this shit is being saved in the temp file, but if he moves over anything into a more perma place, I don’t want it to be the way I couldn’t stop from turning shades of flamingo anytime he openly flirted like I’m some clingy virgin that thinks the cam girl he’s been messaging isactuallyin love with him versus his bank account.
I know he’s not.
I just wish he was.
“Neither are an option at the moment,” she sassily announces, summoning my stare back upward.“I’m pissy-”
“Because it’s raining,” the new arrival nods his understanding, loose, untied tie slightly swaying.
“Because I can’t go to the goddamn beach to swim or board or dive – since someone wants to kill me.”
He lets the corner of his mouth kick towards the ceiling in tandem with stopping at the edge of the tub.“And?”
