Page 7 of Rebel
“And miss all the adrenaline? Never.”
She slides onto the couch and opens her tablet. The monitor’s glow paints both of us in blue light. “You’re digging deep, Reb. Want to tell me why?”
I keep my tone casual. “Just tightening security. A couple of donation glitches. Nothing serious.”
“Mmhmm.” She types quickly. Her code scrolls beside mine, clean and precise. “If it’s nothing serious, why are you using the backdoor I built for emergencies?”
“Because it’s faster?”
She smirks. “You’re a terrible liar.”
She’s not wrong. Every lie I tell leaves fingerprints. I almosttell her. About Alex. About the message on my phone. About how someone is moving money in his name. But the words stick in my throat.
Divine doesn’t push. She never does. Instead, she mirrors me, shoulder to shoulder, typing, tracing, scanning for anomalies. The room hums with electricity and unsaid things.
Then her screen blips red. Once. Twice.
Both of us freeze.
“What is that?” I whisper.
Her fingers fly. Code cascades across the monitor. “Firewall breach. Real-time. Someone’s already inside the system.”
My heart slams. “How deep?”
“Deep enough to know we’re watching them.” She swears under her breath. “They’re slick. Whoever it is, they’re not testing. They’re tracing.”
A red alert flashes, then vanishes as Divine isolates the signal. Her jaw tightens. “I can block the route, but we’ll lose the trail.”
“Leave it,” I say. “I want to see where it goes.”
She glances at me, then back at the screen. “You’re playing with fire.”
I almost laugh. Fire is the only thing that’s ever felt honest. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
For a moment, our reflections hover side by side in the glass. Two women who helped rebuild a kingdom from ruin now watch digital smoke rise from the walls.
Finally, the screen steadies. The alert dies. Whoever was inside is gone.
Divine exhales slowly. “Well, that was fun. Next time you want excitement, we could just steal a yacht.”
“Tempting,” I say, forcing a smile.
She closes her laptop, stands, and pats my shoulder. “You find whatever you’re looking for, Rebel. Just don’t get lost in it.”
When she’s gone, the silence feels like a verdict.
I stare at the monitor, at the blinking cursor that won’t stop mocking me. Somewhere out there, someone’s pulling strings tied to my brother’s name, and now they know I’m tugging back.
The cursor blinks once more, then the screen flickers. For a split second, a message flashes across the top line before vanishing.
You shouldn’t have looked.
The cursor blinks once, then stops.
I lean back, my heartbeat drumming in my ears. Outside, the fog thickens around the fence, swallowing the ring lights until only the faint hum of the city remains.
And for the first time since Alex died, I start wondering if ghosts can code.
