Page 71 of A Perfect World
Unknown: You’re not infallible
I scoffed, shoving my phone in my pocket and stalking towards the gym.
Last night, Serina spent hours trying to teach me the basics of coding. With Jack and Marty at their weekly fraternity chapter meeting and Courtney rehearsing for her upcoming performance, I figured I could learn it quick enough to hack Dad’s old email and see if anything useful could lead us to the person behindBlackthorn.
At first, Serina allowed me in her head to see if I could trace her thought process, but I only succeeded in spurring a thousand anxious thoughts and setting off her glow in defense of my invasion. Rather than lure me in with the high pitched ringing of her siren song, it spiked a massive migraine. Unfortunately, our only option was learning the hard way, and if coding was irritating, hacking was abitch.
Thankfully, Serina was a sorceress, casting spells with fingers flying over keyboards. At some point, I gave up so she could run wild.
“You can’t be good at everything, Ollie,” she teased. I grunted, eyes aching from hours of staring at letters and symbols. Serina’s head tilted as she studied the screen. “That’s interesting.”
I perked up. “Good interesting or bad interesting?”
She cringed.
I groaned, dropping my head back to stare at the ceiling.
“Blackthorn must be using a VPN.”
I massaged my eye sockets. “Please use English.”
“Virtual Private Network,” she said, failing at hiding her smirk as she dug into a bag of pretzels. “I traced the emails, but the location changes with each one sent. If he’s using a VPN, he can claim to be anywhere in the world, when in reality he could be right next door.”
“Because that’ll help me sleep at night,” I muttered, locking onto the bag of pretzels and levitating them into my outstretched hand. She rolled her eyes.
“Show off.”
“Coming from the one showing off her hacking skills.”
“Touché. Now give me another mission, I’m itching to find out who these assholes are.”
We’d failed spectacularly at finding any more information, forced to give up when Jack returned and insisted on playing a new song, he wrote to cheer up Serina.
I pushed the glass door to the gym open, the thick musk of sweat and rubber sucking me into the realm of grunting lifters, girls in matching gym kits and guys flexing in the floor to ceiling mirrors. Borderline jogging, I rushed for the locker room.
I’d never admit it, but gyms put me on edge- especially the locker rooms. Too exposed, too many eyes filled with too many thoughts. For the most part, they were innocent, little comparisons or jealous mental remarks. But sometimes, they made my skin crawl.
I stripped with blinders on, quickly stepping into my shorts.
A hand slapped my bare shoulder.
My eyes ignited.
“You're early.” Jack smirked, jerking back at the sight of my eyes. “Whoa, you good?”
My heart still pounding, I nodded. “Yea.”
He squinted at me. “Bullshit. You’re all twitchy.”
“Twitchy?” I deflected.
“What's got your nuts in a knot?” he asked, arms over his chest. I pulled on a dry-fit t-shirt and tossed my phone at him. He barely caught it, fumbling.
“Read.”
His face scrunched navy eyes darkened to midnight as they darted across the screen. “Motherfucker.”
I finished lacing my sneakers and led the way to the boxing mat, Jack tailing behind scrutinizing the texts.
