Page 45 of Never Never

I exhale. “Well, then I guess I’ll just figure it out. How hard can it be?”

“Hard. Harder than most people think.” Blue pauses to eye me up and down, and I’m not sure if the expression on his face is about my hair, my clothes, my jewelry, or the fact that I’m still a tiny bit damp with tequila. “Especially if you’re trying to keep a low profile.”

I sigh. That part might be hard, I’ll grant him. “Yeah, I’m not much for laying low.” Something about the way he says it itches the back of my brain. “Why? Something happen?” I nod at the screen. “You got another stalker?” There was one chick, I remember, a while ago. Got obsessed with him and found out where he lived. Threatened to, uh, off herself right on the street if he didn’t come get her. I don’t exactly remember the details, only that he got her some kind of help. And put up all those exterior cameras afterward.

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?” I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “Oh, some To Catch a Predator shit? What, are there feds on the platform now?”

“No. I don’t mean feds. Well, I do, but.” He shrugs, still not looking at me. He stares at the white-blue expanse of screen, not blinking. And whatever weird shit I’m preparing for him to say, it’s not what actually comes out of his mouth.

“Hook’s got people on there.”

“What?” Now I sit up properly. “What do you mean, on there?”

By way of explanation, Blue scoots his chair to the side and taps open a new window on his screen.

“I mean exactly what it sounds like.” He scrolls through what must be his inbox. “I mean, like, people messaging me about shit.”

“Messaging you about what shit?” I cry, suddenly incredulous. The list of messages looks almost endless. I jump up and reach for the mouse to scroll, but he snatches it out of the way just in time.

“Is that your account, motherfucker? Back off.” He sighs. “Just low-level threats, trying to make me—I don’t know—divulge something. Feel scared. It’s not working,” he adds unnecessarily.

I scowl at him and fold my arms. “Well, I would hope not,” I say, a little hotly. “How long were you planning on not telling me about this?”

“I am telling you,” Blue says. “Now.”

“Okay, and what if I hadn’t just barged in here?”

He shrugs, and in that moment, I find his flat, steady affect so fucking annoying. I almost want to punch him in the face. But I don’t, because it might be the only thing bringing any money into this crew right now. Instead, I just tense my fist.

“If I thought it was a problem, I would have brought it up,” Blue says evenly. “I’m handling it.”

“You’re handling it,” I say. “Christ, Blue. There’s like,” I glance at the screen again, “I don’t know, dozens.”

“Most of them are probably bots or burners,” Blue murmurs.

“As if that makes a difference,” I say. The fact that he can do that…

Blue swivels his chair in front of the screen and tilts his head at me, really fixing me with that penetrating stare of his, like an asshole.

“Sorry,” he says, “but five minutes ago, you could not have cared less about Hook intervening in your business, despite the fact that he quite literally threw a cinderblock through your window. But now you find out that he’s been trying to scare me on the internet, and all of a sudden it’s Defcon Four.”

“I was worried before,” I say. Was I? I don’t fucking know. I scratch the back of my neck. “This is different. It’s…” I reach for words, not sure exactly what makes it different. Only that it is, and that it’s worse, and that it’s not fair, and that Blue should have told me.

“…different because suddenly you’re not in charge of it?”

I rip my eyes from the screen to his stupid face. “No,” I say. But he’s kind of right. “Maybe,” I amend quickly. “I don’t know. I just don’t like people being up to shit that I don’t know about. Is that such a crime?”

Blue breathes out. “It’s probably not psychologically healthy,” he says. And I can’t for the life of me tell if his deadpan tone is for sarcasm or just the way that he talks.

I work my jaw. A pulsing feeling of anger, of frustration, of can’t-sit-still running up the sides of my neck and into my temples. And as it does, I catch a flicker of motion on one of his second monitors, the CCTV, the aforementioned stalker cameras.

Motion detected. In the back alley. But Kit’s in the shop, and I just saw Fox. So…

Oh, of course. It’s Tink. Her.

I can feel my nostrils flare as I breathe out.