Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Elsie swore as her keys slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the welcome mat. Briefly, she considered attempting to set down her armload of bags to retrieve the keys, but decided against it, choosing to give the door several kicks instead. She heard a muffled call from within and shifted her bags around as they threatened to unbalance and follow her keys to the ground.

The door swung open and she scrambled inside, brushing past the man at the door as she beelined to the kitchen where she deposited the bags on the counter. Behind her, she heard the door start to shut and called, “Could you grab my keys? They’re on the mat.”

“Yeah, I got it. Catch!” came the response and she turned just in time to see the glint of metal flying through the air before her keys landed in a heap at the doorway to the kitchen. 

Elsie strode over and scooped them up, “Nice throw,” she said dryly. An arm draped loosely around her shoulders and she slapped it lightly before pulling away. Caiden followed her back to the foyer, leaning against the wall as she toed off her shoes. “How was work?” 

“Pretty busy, the ordering system decided to go nuts just before the lunch hour rush so we had to go back to writing orders by hand. Mila was very much not happy about that, by the way. Apparently, I write like a chicken on crack. But—” A badly repressed bark of laughter cut her off and Elsie raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Caiden. He attempted to turn the laugh into a cough, failed miserably, and wheezed loudly instead.

“I’m sorry, but holy shit Els have you seen your handwriting?” She tried to keep her glare up, but she met Caiden’s gaze and snorted, loudly. This set Caiden off again and they ended up on the ground, collapsed against each other, fighting for breath and desperately trying not to look at each other for fear of restarting the cycle. 

After they’d managed to stop cackling they stayed on the ground, sitting in silence. Elise rested her head on Caiden’s shoulder, content to just bask in his warmth. He shifted slightly and wrapped his arm around her in a loose hug, pressing a light kiss to her forehead. She grinned up at him and hummed, wanting to stay like that for just a bit longer. Unfortunately, her stomach had other plans and began to grumble.

Elsie groaned and reluctantly pulled away, “What, tired of me already?” Caiden teased.

“Nah, just got tired of breathing in armpit stench,” She smirked at the affronted look on his face and promptly danced backward to avoid his half-hearted swat at her ankles. “Guess I’ll just have to eat Mila’s lasagna on my own then,” she sang, turning to walk back to the kitchen.

That got his attention.

“Wait, Mila gave you food?” Caiden called. Elsie grinned when she heard him scramble to his feet. She grabbed one of the bags she’d set on the counter and reached inside, retrieving the still-warm ceramic dish. Caiden had already grabbed the silverware, not bothering with plates because they both hated doing unnecessary dishes.

She set the lasagna on the table and sat next to Caiden, grabbing a fork as Caiden peeled the foil off the dish. Both of them looked forward to the days when Mila sent Elsie back from the Traveler’s Hearth with a dish of something or another. It wasn’t that the two couldn’t cook, it was just that neither of them was very good at it. 

“Damn, this is delicious,” Caiden sighed between bites, “We have to ask for her recipe sometime.”

Elsie laughed, “As if she’d trust us not to burn down the house trying to follow it. Remember the time we tried to bake that cake for her birthday?” That had been an…interesting learning experience on how not to make caramel and how to use a fire extinguisher.

Caiden grimaced, “We spent so long scraping off that burnt sugar.” Elsie shuddered in agreement, neither they nor the pan had emerged from that particular experience unscathed.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket and Elsie swallowed her bite of lasagna before fishing it out. It was Mila, asking if they had a good dinner. Elsie smiled at that, touched by how much the older woman took care of them. Mila had taken Elsie under her wing the minute she’d walked into the restaurant nearly four years ago as an anxious 21-year-old looking for a job and when Caiden had come into her life a few months later Mila had adopted him too. Elsie poked Caiden mid-bite and snapped a selfie when he looked at her, sending it to Mila before he could protest. 

“Rude,” he grumbled. Elsie responded by blowing him a kiss before turning back to her dinner, bumping his shoulder lightly along the way. They managed to get through about a quarter of the lasagna before getting full. Elsie rewrapped it and set the leftovers in the fridge as Caiden took the forks to the sink to clean them with the rest of the day’s dishes.

“I’ll be in my office,” she called on her way out, “Just gonna check emails and stuff real quick.” Caiden made a vague sound of acknowledgment, not bothering to respond as he scrubbed a bowl from breakfast. 

The office was technically some type of walk-in closet, but Elsie had converted it into her office and added a few modifications when she’d moved in. She pressed her pinkie to the scanner she’d attached to the lock and typed in her password when the app on her phone prompted. The lock disengaged and she swung the door open to reveal a rather normal-looking room. It could easily have been passed off as a gamer’s room, with the three-monitor setup, massive desk, and the mess of cables partially organized behind the monitors. 

She shut the door behind her and retrieved a laptop and phone from the locked cabinet in the corner before settling at the desk. She placed the laptop in its docking station, linking it to the larger system, and logged in quickly, powering on the phone as the monitors blinked to life. A few text messages were waiting to be read and Elsie scanned the messages quickly. She ignored the spam from a gym in a town she’d never heard of, blocked and deleted the chat of her last client from both her own and the client’s phone, and reassured her newest client that she’d have the information he wanted by tomorrow as long as he paid on time. Then she put the phone down and turned to the monitors before her. 

The screen on the left displayed a page of code, and Elsie frowned at its stillness. Her breaching program should’ve been busy chewing through the firewalls and encryptions and the bright red error message at the bottom couldn’t mean anything good. Elsie scowled as she read it. Why did a supposedly normal insurance company have firewalls strong enough to keep her out? She’d have to take a look at it later when Caiden wasn’t waiting for her to join him for movie night. The middle screen was empty, she normally ran her coding software or did research on it, but she’d just been waiting for her program to get through to the insurance company’s “secure” data last night and hadn’t bothered to leave anything on that particular screen. 

The final monitor was also the most important, split-screened between two programs. The one Elsie’d lovingly labeled “Fucking Bastard Imbeciles” was bustling with activity, not that she was surprised because it was the FBI and they did tend to be rather busy. She was glad to see the chat scrolling by though because it meant the program was still running correctly and her backdoor hadn’t been noticed. The last time that’d happened it’d taken Elsie several days to hack her way back into the email, phone, and security systems to relink them to her program. Most days she relied on a secondary program to check for mentions of her alias or old identity and she did just that, not bothering to comb through the emails, chats, and transcripts that had accumulated. She glanced at the second program, finding nothing new, just her message from years ago, “Are you guys safe?”

It had gone unanswered.

Elsie rubbed a hand over her face and stood, checking her phone to see how long she’d spent in the room. Barely over ten minutes, not bad. She turned on the program that hid the monitors’ displays and left the room, trusting that the door would lock behind her.

Caiden was already settled on the couch when Elsie walked in, his brow furrowed as he responded to a text. She plopped beside him and opened her messages, letting Mila know that they’d loved the lasagna and reassuring Georgia, her coworker, that she was taking her shift tomorrow. By the time Elsie sent the last message Caiden had finished his own and was scrolling through the movie library. She bumped his shoulder with her own, “Everything ok? You looked pretty concerned there.”

“Just an issue with work. Something’s happening at the office and…” he trailed off, “Actually, it can wait. I’m not gonna drag work into our movie night.” 

Elsie tipped her head, silently asking him if he did want to talk now and Caiden responded with a small shake of his head. She knew him well enough to know not to push him to talk when he didn’t want to so she asked, “So, what’re we watching then?”

The worries about work were quickly forgotten in their playful battle over what movie to watch. Caiden wanted to rewatch The Hobbit for the fifteenth time, which Elsie shot down because she did not want to be up all night on another Lord of the Rings marathon. She suggested starting Star Wars since neither of them had seen it, but Caiden pointed out that it would take all night too, despite Elsie insisting that they could just stop on the first movie. They eventually compromised with Interstellar, a classic that they both thoroughly enjoyed. 

Cooper had just left his family when Caiden’s phone began to ring. He declined the call and turned back to the movie before Elsie even asked who was calling, but it started to buzz repeatedly instead as someone barraged him with a slew of texts. Elsie grabbed the remote and paused the movie.

“You should probably see what that is,” she said, “That many attempts at contact in a minute can’t mean anything good.” She saw him huff in exasperation, but Caiden did she suggested, opening his messages to read the texts. Elsie saw his face tighten with worry and then he was off the couch, scrambling toward their bedroom, calling a hasty apology to her as he left. She frowned at that, it was unusual for Caiden’s work to bother him after hours. Usually, her hacking business caused the most disturbances in their daily routine, not that Caiden knew that, but it did. 

Elsie waited a few minutes for him to come back, but when she only heard the sound of multiple voices speaking from what sounded like a video call she left the couch for her office, figuring that she might as well get some work done. It felt nice to be back in her element, coding new bypasses into her old program and watching it eat into the insurance company’s firewalls. She sat back with a small smirk as the final encryptions fell and the entirety of the company’s data spread out before her.

She grabbed the phone she’d left on the table and opened it, intending to double-check what information her client had asked for. Her gaze caught on a new notification and she frowned. Someone had added her to a conversation in the messaging app she’d never deleted. Her clients knew to message through plain text messages and never used secondary apps. By this logic, whoever this person was, they weren’t part of the illegal information market.

The first thought that popped into Elsie’s head was that the FBI had found her and she swore, dropping the phone back onto her desk to scroll frantically through the FBI’s communications for the day.

Nothing. 

There was nothing in their messages that even hinted at finding her. She didn’t believe it, not one bit. Who else would be messaging her on a number she only used for her hacking business? But then again, the FBI would know better than to use something as suspicious as a popular messaging app, they would’ve used normal texts to lull her into a false sense of security. Coming at it from this angle would be ridiculous and as much as Elsie liked to rag on the stupidity of the FBI, they weren’t that stupid. 

That meant that whoever was messaging her was either someone new to the whole illegal information thing, which was unlikely as her contact info was hard to find for even experienced clients, or someone who had messaged the wrong number. Elsie glanced at the message again, a simple “Hello? Are you there?” from a profile with the name Thomas. It seemed harmless enough, and she could easily hack his profile and phone if this Thomas proved to be suspicious. 

She opened the app and checked out the account still logged into the app. The profile had no picture and the name simply read “Vivienne”. It would work well enough for this short conversation so she opened the new chat with Thomas and typed a hesitant greeting.

Vivienne: Hello, I’m here

Who are you?

No response, but Elsie hadn’t been expecting one to be instant. The first message had been sent nearly half an hour ago. She closed the app and returned to her client’s chat, noting that he wanted to know the details of one Aiden Crownford’s life insurance policy. She snorted, her research into her client’s identity had revealed that he was Aiden’s son, he was clearly debating killing the old man for his wealth. Years ago she would’ve balked at the idea of helping a future murderer in any way, but today she had no trouble screenshotting the beneficiary details and sending them over in an encryption that wouldn’t let her client see the contents until money was deposited in her account. 

Thomas: Uh

Hello

No matter how I put this it'll sound crazy

I've gone over this so many times in my head

Wait a sec

I have to add the others first

Please don't go

Elsie stared at the messages as they appeared. It was strange, to say the least. Thomas typed at a frantic pace and he sounded nervous. The phone pinged several more times as Thomas added four more people: Cleo, Dan, Lilly, and Richy. She couldn’t help but wonder what the hell she’d just walked into because this was definitely not hacking-related considering the sheer number of people now in the group chat. 

Lilly: Hello

Richy: Hey

Dan: Seriously guys? a real genius idea this…

Thomas: Dan, please shut up

Elsie was confused as all hell, but she figured she should at least try to get some information from this mess of a chat. 

Vivienne: Who are you? 

Dan: ...

Cleo: Oh is that him?

Dan: Seems that way, doesn't it?

One final ping from the addition of another person called Jessy and the chat fell silent for a few moments. Elsie took the time to hook the phone up to her laptop, activating a program that would alert her to anyone trying to access the phone. It wouldn’t hurt to be prepared just in case she needed to throw up defenses against a cyber attack.

Thomas: Alright, sorry

Jessy is at the bottom of my list

Jessy: Oh, err

Hi guys

Thomas: Alright that's it

Vivienne: What's going on?

Thomas: Well

How Can I put this…

Dan: Oh that's a real good start 

👌

Lilly: Who are you? How do you know my sister??

Vivienne: What are you talking about?

She wasn’t even faking the confusion, Elsie sincerely had no idea what the hell was going on with these people. As a hacker, she’d experienced her share of accusations, from being told she was a pervert to an accomplice to murder. This one, however, was new. No one ever assumed that she knew someone.

Cleo: Lilly…

Lilly: What have you done to her?

Thomas: We need to ask, how do you know Hannah Donfort?

Elsie frowned, Hannah Donfort…she was almost certain that she’d never met anyone who used that name, but it held a ring of familiarity that she couldn’t place. It would be safer to tell these people that she didn’t know Hannah, would probably make them realize that they had the wrong person and stop bothering her. So she lied. 

Vivienne: I’ve never heard of her

Dan: Seriously guys

Cleo: Stop it Dan

Thomas: Hannah's my girlfriend

And she disappeared

Three days ago to be exact

Vivienne: I'm sorry to hear that

A missing person’s case. Now that was interesting. She’d helped with several over the years, obviously through illegal channels, but she had found a few people in her time. This group didn’t seem to be asking for her to hack into cameras or track Hannah’s phone though. If she had to guess, this group thought she had something to do with the disappearance itself. 

Thomas: Yes…

Thanks…

She gave me your number

Listen

I got a message from her mobile last night

Containing only your number

Nothing more

Dan: Maybe you should mention that the phone disappeared with her

Thomas: Yeah

Elsie grimaced, a text sent after a person disappeared tended to mean nothing good. Usually, it wasn’t even sent by the missing person. She didn’t like that this group was putting so much hope on a random message that Hannah probably didn’t even send, especially because it had led them to her. 

Thomas: I tried to call her right away, of course

It was answered. but nobody said anything

Cleo: Please, think hard

This is her. Hannah Donfort

How do you know her? Why would her missing phone send your number?

The image took her by surprise, they must be desperate to trust a stranger they’d known for literal minutes with pictures of their missing friend. Actually, now that she thought about it, Elsie might be the weird one, most people did use their own images for profiles to show strangers all over the world. Hannah looked like a normal person, with pale skin, brown hair, and what looked like blue eyes. Still, her face didn’t ring any bells in Elsie’s mind.

Vivienne: Have you mistaken me for someone else?

Thomas: No it's your number

Definitely

Cleo: Maybe your encounter was just too long ago?

Dan: See? It is going nowhere, I told you

As you all know I'm the last person that should be saying this, but

You really should have left this with the police

Thomas: Yeah, right. 

You know exactly why I didn't 

Dan: And that doesn't make you seem suspicious at all Tommyboy, does it?

I'm done

Good luck!

With that Dan left the chat, shortly followed by Jessy who hadn’t spoken at all, and Lilly, who had gone silent after her initial accusations. Elsie was getting whiplash from the conflicting attitudes of the people in this chat. Half of them seemed to be certain that she was going to provide them with the clues to find Hannah, and the rest ranged from indifferent to completely skeptical. On the bright side, this did hopefully mean that they were tiring of her and would be leaving her alone soon.

Richy: One down, three to go

Uh four

Considering our new friend here

Ah, shoot

I don’t think we ever introduced ourselves properly

Vivienne: It’s fine, I saw your names from your profiles when Thomas added you

Richy: Oh

Right

I forgot about that 😅

What’s your name?

If you don’t mind telling us

Your profile doesn’t say

Elsie only hesitated for a few moments before deciding that it wouldn’t do any harm to tell them the name of the account. It would match her current identity anyway if they did try to dig into her history.

Vivienne: My name is Vivienne, but you can call me Vi

Richy: Hello Vi!

😁

I'm Richy

And I must apologize for our fabulously rude behavior 

This isn't us🧐

Cleo: What are you doing, Richy?

Richy: I don't know

I just thought that…

Vivienne: Yes?

Richy: Well

Hannah sent us your number

That's got to mean something, right?

Shit, I don't know

Cleo: I guess what Richy is trying to say is

You're our only lead to Hannah

Richy: Yes

Sort of

Thomas: Yes…

Vivienne: If you think so…

Richy: I know how weird this seems

It's not easy for us either

I think it might really help if you stay

Stay…

...sounds strange

It was strange, really fucking strange. And what was stranger was that Elsie was actually considering staying to help. Maybe it was their desperation or the entirely too familiar idea of not knowing where someone you cared for was, but something about this group tugged at Elsie’s heartstrings. She could just help a little bit, dig into a few cameras and Hannah’s electronic history, leave the group with the information, and then wipe everything else. With that in mind, she agreed to help. 

Thomas filled her in on a couple of extra details, from which she learned that Hannah had just sent him Elsie’s number out of the blue, days after disappearing. What’s more, was that the number had been erased from Thomas’s phone not long after it was sent. She had asked him if he’d been the one to delete it, but Thomas was adamant that he did nothing to it, insisting that it had vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Elsie didn’t like that little detail. She could do that easily, but from what she’d learned so far no one in the group had that kind of hacking ability. Which left the unsettling conclusion that there might be another hacker involved in the kidnapping. 

She had wanted to ask Thomas more about the disappearing message, but he’d run off to pick up his little brother from school. She’d been confused about that too since it was nearly 8 p.m. where she was, but Duskwood, the town the group lived in, was in a different time zone 2 hours behind and Thomas’s brother played soccer after school. 

She glanced at her own phone when Thomas went offline, spotting a message from Caiden saying that he had to go to the office and would be back as soon as possible. Elsie frowned at that, the fact that he’d had to go in at night wasn’t good at all. She opened a tab on her middle monitor and searched up the publishing company he worked at, surprised when the first result was from a local news station. She clicked on it and froze when she saw the headline of the livestream “Local publishing office goes up in flames: Was it an accident or arson? More at 9”

Elsie called Caiden so quickly that she was surprised she didn’t open the wrong contact. It rang several times before his familiar voicemail message started. She suppressed a scream of frustration and kept her voice calm when she spoke, “Caiden, I just saw the news. Your building’s on fire, please just…” her voice faltered, “Just let me know that you’re okay? Call me, text me, anything. I’m giving you 30 minutes before I go looking for you okay?”

She let the phone drop to her lap, gnawing on the inside of her cheek as she stared blankly at her monitors. Her eyes drifted back to the monitor on the left, the final chat with her friends from so long ago still as empty as it was when she lost contact with them. The livestream on the middle monitor played on mute, the building burning silently. The flickering flames on the screen cast dancing shadows over the walls, making the room look like it was burning in a shadowy blaze. Elsie slammed her eyes shut to avoid it all. 

Big mistake. 

The image of the office building twisted and suddenly Elsie wasn’t at her desk anymore. 

Her heart raced violently, thumping a frantic rhythm beneath her ribs. The flickering streetlights provided just enough light to see the figure running down the street, towards the warehouse, away from her. She lunged forward in a silent cry, needing them to come back, to get away from the building because it was about to go wrong. A name ripped from her vocal cords and echoed off the buildings, but the figure doesn’t turn. She can’t move, can’t reach him, can’t get him to hear her, can’t can’t can’t—

The explosion turned night into day, putting the streetlights to shame as the warehouse went supernova. Her ears rang, concrete rough beneath her hands from where she’d fallen, and her backpack dug hard into her shoulders. The flames grew taller and taller, filling the air with noxious clouds of dark smoke. She could smell it, could feel the heat on her face. She whimpered, throat raw from screams she couldn’t remember. 

Debris from the building rained down around her and she flinched away from the miniature comets. A strange yet familiar laptop slammed into the pavement beside her feet, its screen shattered beyond repair, smoke trailing from the motherboard. She stifled another cry, reaching out for it despite the heat she could feel radiating from its melted casing. More debris fell around her, landing with a series of pings and buzzes, sending vibrations through her already shaking body. 

Her phone started to ring, the familiar tune cutting through the cacophony assaulting her ears. She listens, confused, because that’s wrong, it’s all wrong. Her phone was supposed to be on silent, completely shut down, and there should be sirens by now, sirens and the whir of helicopter blades, and— this isn’t how it happened .

Elsie snapped back into the present, her phone was still ringing. She answered without looking at the contact, hoping her voice wasn’t too shaky, “Hello?”

“Els, hey,” Caiden’s familiar voice kept her from floating again, “Sorry, I just saw your messages. I’m fine, everyone’s ok. We saw the smoke before we even got to the building, no one was inside.” He sounded worried and tired, but Elsie clung to the fact that he was alive, that she was hearing him and didn’t have to watch the news to know if a body had been found.

“That’s—” her voice cracked and Elsie cleared her throat before starting again, “That’s good. What’s the damage looking like?” 

He was silent for a beat too long, “Els are you ok?” She cursed his perceptiveness, although she should’ve expected that since she knew his tells as well as her own after more than three years of dating. 

“Not really,” she admitted, “But I will be.” She could hear people talking in the background of his call, “Go take care of whatever you need to do, I’ll be here waiting when you’re done.”

Caiden hummed, sounding hesitant, but someone called for him and Elsie heard a small huff of annoyance. “Alright, I’ll be back as soon as I can. Love you.”

“Love you too. Knock on the office door when you get back, I’ve been working.” She ended the call after that and took a deep breath. Her heart rate had decreased significantly in the past few minutes and Elsie was starting to feel normal again. 

It wasn’t often that she was plagued with memories from her past, but certain things set it off. Today she’d found out that destructive fire was one of them in the worst way possible. 

Elsie glanced up at her monitors and winced when her gaze caught on the empty chat, the old messages staring back at her. She reached forward for her mouse and for the first time in years minimized the window, leaving her FBI surveillance program alone on the monitor. The livestream was still playing on the center monitor and she turned that off too, needing to get as far away from any sort of fire as possible. 

She needed a distraction.

It came from the worst possible source: the defense program she’d initiated on the phone when Thomas first contacted her. Her stomach twisted and Elsie opened the alerts warily, already resigned to the fact that she’d fallen for someone’s trap by answering that damn chat.

To her surprise, none of the failsafes she’d attached to the phone’s location, files, or camera had been activated. According to the program, the only thing that had happened was that someone had hacked into the messaging app and added two chats. 

Elsie didn’t believe it, at all. 

She checked the phone’s code three times before accepting that whoever had hacked her hadn’t tried to get her information or install malware. Elsie still didn’t fully trust that the phone was safe, but she opened the app and read through the new chats anyway, rationalizing that she’d know if it was a trap sooner or later through the FBI program.

The first chat looked strange, warped, and dark compared to the normal chats she’d acquired. The contact information at the top indicated that Jessy and Dan from earlier were the ones it belonged to. Elsie frowned as she read through their short conversation, Dan was solidifying her initial assumption that he was loud and brusque, his texting style reminded her of the rougher clients she’d hacked for. Jessy was an interesting character. Elsie hadn’t seen enough of her messages to get a feel of who she was yet, but she didn’t seem to want to be involved in the whole searching for Hannah thing so Elsie doubted that she’d need to know much else about the woman. 

A new message notification popped up as she continued to scrutinize the chat. It came attached to a profile named ??? with a Guy Fawkes mask as the picture. 

???: Well…how did you like it?

Elsie stared at the message. She’d figured that a hacker was involved with the whole number disappearing thing, but for them to be so bold as to actually contact her? That was fascinating. 

Vivienne: I don't know what you mean

???: The chat between Jessy and Dan.

I made that possible for you. Thanks to me you could read along.

She raised an eyebrow at that. They’d just practically admitted to hacking her phone as well as Jessy and Dan’s chats to a stranger within seconds of contacting them. Whoever this was, they were either new and completely overconfident or someone so good that they had no reason to fear repercussions. Continuing to chat with either could result in mistakes, mistakes that would jeopardize the life she’d built. The logical side of her was screaming for her to distance herself from the whole mess, especially since another hacker had just appeared, but her reckless, curious side screamed louder.

Vivienne: It was somehow exciting 

???: Glad you enjoyed it.

To be honest, I've been hoping for such a reaction.

You have piqued my interest.

It is important that you know things the others do not.

Vivienne: Could you just speak plainly?

Piqued their interest. Elsie gnawed on the inside of her cheek, she couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing yet. At least they hadn’t shown any signs that they knew who she was or what her profession was. 

The phone rang and startled her out of her contemplative moment. The infamous mask grinned up from the screen, its taunting gaze daring her to answer. Against her better judgment, Elsie did just that, holding her breath to prevent whoever was on the other side from hearing anything from her side other than the quiet hum of her setup.

The voice that crackled through the phone’s speakers was wildly distorted and Elsie winced at the sheer volume of it before managing to turn the volume down. It sounded male, although she knew it would be easy enough to just code the voice changer to sound male. He was talking about how he’d witnessed Hannah’s abduction and that he would be able to provide her with access to chats, emails, and other digital data. 

It almost sounded like a strange resume and Elsie smirked at the thought, imagining a line of fellow hackers applying to help her solve a potential kidnapping she wasn’t even sure she wanted to be involved in. 

He asked for her to trust him, and damn this guy was asking the wrong person for that. Or maybe the right person, fellow hacker and all. Although Elsie had already decided that she wouldn’t be telling him that particular fact. So instead of telling him to get a better voice changer, she played into the role of normal Vivienne who probably thought hackers were only in movies.

Vivienne: Do you know how suspicious that whole thing was?

???: These measures are for my self-preservation. Try not to let them distract you.

I will grant you access to Hannah's cloud storage. With a little tact, you should be able to access her data.

Vivienne: That sounds illegal

???: That doesn't matter.

It serves a higher purpose.

And on top of that

If you are concerned about the consequences of doing this, no one will ever know.

Elsie rolled her eyes, that was about the least reassuring thing anyone had ever told her, and she’d experienced several horrendous attempts at reassurance. 

Hannah's cloud stores all kinds of files. You have to decrypt each one to be able to access them.

I don't know what you're going to come across. Be prepared for the worst.

But chances are you'll find something very helpful.

Vivienne: How exactly am I supposed to do that?

You’re the hacker here, not me

???: I will be sending you a program shortly.

Use it to get into Hannah’s cloud.

If you find a file in Hannah's cloud, make sure to send it to me.

I must be able to trust you on this.

A program. Despite her attempts to quell the excitement growing in her chest Elsie still found herself hanging onto this hacker’s every word. It’d been a long time since she’d worked with anyone like this, sharing programs and information for a common goal. She was looking forward to seeing the other hacker’s code, already itching to decipher each line to pick apart the way this hacker thought.

Vivienne: I'll send you everything conspicuous

???: Good.

We are running out of time.

And only for safety's sake: 

All this is between you and me.

Running out of time? That was a strange thing to say. Was the other hacker also on the run or did he just have other priorities to attend to? She added that question to her growing list of unknowns involving Hannah Donfort and her ragtag group of friends. She really was getting in over her head, wasn’t she?

The phone pinged again and she opened the message to find a file from the hacker labeled “Termin8” and Hannah’s cloud username. She plugged the phone back into her setup, pulling up the new program’s code on her main monitor. 

On the surface it looked fairly standard, composed of the usual bastardized data protection codes and functions that would allow it to bypass the most common firewalls and encryption methods. When she looked closer Elsie was surprised to find several alternative paths and failsafes hidden in the code’s heart. It looked like this code could vary the way it attacked various data shields, something Elsie had never managed to code as compactly as this hacker had. In fact, she’d only ever seen one other hacker create programs as sleek as this. 

Opening the program on the phone opened a new app that provided her with a small console to enter commands. There was a short blurb of text filled with jargon telling her what commands should work and roughly when to use them. 

The hacker was clearly a genius, but damn, he had to have never worked with anyone other than maybe other hackers. If Elsie hadn’t been coding for close to a decade she would’ve been completely lost, even with her experience she was still confused. Maybe it was a good thing that she’d been the one pulled into all this, she would hate to see a random person struggling to decipher the hacker’s shitty instructions.

Elsie ended up having to tediously read through the code to understand what to do, which was a chore but she did get a few ideas for improving her own programs. Once the program was running successfully, busy breaking into Hannah’s cloud, Elsie started looking for a new project to occupy her time.

She was deep into tweaking the code of an old voice changer when someone knocked on the door. Elsie entered the command to hide the displays, shut her laptop, and darted to the door, opening it to find Caiden standing in the hallway. He looked worn and tired, but she didn’t see any visible injuries.

Relief flooded through her veins. She stepped forward, wrapping her arms around him tightly. It took a moment for Caiden to reciprocate, but when he did she felt all the tension leave his body. 

“Hey,” she said quietly, “Everything ok?” 

He flashed her a small smile, “Could be better. I…We have to talk.” It was only a moment later when he seemed to realize how that sounded and added, “Nothing bad, my office is kind of burnt to a crisp right now so my work situation’s about to change massively and I wanted to ask you about working from home.” 

“Alright,” she said as she pulled away, moving to close the door behind her, “I can grab us some snacks and we can—” 

Caiden grabbed for her hand, but Elsie managed to reach the doorknob and pull it shut. She frowned and looked up at him in confusion. His eyes were darting from her to the now-closed doorway, “Could we, ah, talk in the office? It’s kind of what we have to talk about.”

“What?” Elsie unconsciously moved to be more between him and the room, “Why do we need to be in the office?” Her voice had gone defensive.

Caiden ran a hand through his hair, “Well, I’m gonna be working from home for the foreseeable future and I figured that since you have an office I might be able to, uh, borrow it.”

She almost refused. The office held all of her secrets, allowing anyone in, even if that person was Caiden, would inevitably be disastrous. Then she looked at him again, at the face of the man she’d spent close to half a decade with, and decided she could trust him. He would’ve gotten curious about the locked door sooner or later, it would be better if she just let him in now, culled the curiosity before it had time to fester. 

So she said, “Ok,” pressed her pinkie to the scanner again, and reentered her password, trying her best to ignore how Caiden was watching her every move. The door unlocked and she led the way, flipping the lights on this time so they didn’t have to sit in the dark. 

She watched Caiden’s face carefully, following his gaze as he looked around. She wondered what he was seeing. Everything looked the same to her, the same messy boxes of miscellaneous computer equipment stacked in the corner next to a plump beanbag, the same wall of notes and project ideas stuck to the wall with sticky notes, the same rug stained with coffee spread across the floor, and the same setup Elsie had just gotten up from. 

She gestured for him to sit at the desk and dragged the beanbag to the desk. When she looked up at Caiden she found him staring at her setup and the phone she’d left out. Elsie didn’t like the look on his face, she couldn’t get a read on what was going through his mind.

She poked his knee to get his attention, “So what do you think?” she waved around at the room, “Welcome to my hideout, if you stare long enough at the monitors a portal to Narnia will open.”

It didn’t draw a laugh like she’d hoped, but Caiden did stop scanning the room to look at her. She offered a hesitant smile and asked, “So what did you want to talk about?” Caiden took a moment to answer and when he did his voice was stiffly measured, a far cry from his normal inflection.

“It can wait. Elise, what is all this? Why the hell do you have so much security on the door? This,” he motioned at the whole room, “might look like a normal office, but that sure as hell isn’t normal.”

Elise. Elsie winced at that small reminder. She’d never told him her real name. As long as Caiden kept calling her Els she could keep pretending that it was for Elsie, not Elise, not the name she lied to him about. It didn’t help that Elise wasn’t even the real name for the identity she’d assumed, she’d changed Vivienne’s middle name from Leah to Elise just to justify being able to tell people to call her Els, so she could keep pretending that she hadn’t lost her identity years ago. 

“It’s…a long story,” she stalled, “We should talk about your thing first.” The look on his face told her that Caiden very much did not want to do that. 

She ran her hands over her face, “Any chance you would believe me if I told you I was just secretly a pro gamer?” 

Caiden snorted at that, “And I’m secretly the president. Els, you have a fucking fingerprint scanner on the door, the largest computer setup I’ve ever seen, and,” he picked up the phone from her desk, “A second phone, none of which I’ve known about in the four years I’ve known you. None of that tells me you’re a ‘pro gamer’.”

Elsie’s leg bounced a frantic rhythm as she struggled to think, “And what does all of that tell you?” 

Maybe if he couldn’t figure it out she could make another cover, spin up some reasonable story for why she’d kept this room so hidden. She knew it was a stupid thing to hope for, Caiden wasn’t an idiot and he knew more about her than probably anyone else. 

“My first guess would be an assassin, but you’ve never been gone for long stretches or out at odd hours. The locks on the door suggest some kind of secret identity, and the electronics everywhere…well, they pretty much give it away. You’re a hacker.”

Of course, he’d guessed it. Elsie hadn’t really expected anything different, but hearing him puzzle it out made her panic more than she’d expected. She met his gaze and found that she couldn’t hold it, squeezing her eyes shut instead. 

He seemed to realize that she wasn’t going to talk without him prompting her and asked, “I’m right, aren’t I? All of this, you’ve been hiding a whole other life from me.” She responded with a short jerk of her head and his expression shuttered. “Four years Elise—”

“It’s Elsie,” she admitted, regretting her words when his face darkened at the revelation. “Caiden, I didn’t mean to—”

“Didn’t mean to what?” he demanded, “Lie to me for years? Pretend to be a whole other person? Four years and you never thought to do the right thing and tell me?”

“I wanted to!” she snapped, “I wanted to so much, but I didn’t know how you’d react! I thought I could keep it under wraps until I was ready!”

“Until you were ready?” his voice was incredulous, “This was something you should’ve told me when I asked you out! I should’ve known before I got involved in all this!”

She forced herself to take a deep breath, continuing to escalate the situation would do no good. 

“You’re not involved in any of it. I’ve kept everything separate for years, you would never have known if your office hadn’t burned down. Nothing about your life has ever or will ever be affected by this.”

“And how can I trust that when you’ve lied about everything else?” he snarked. Maybe if she had been in a better headspace she would’ve seen the hurt and betrayal in his eyes, but at the moment she was blind to such things in her anger. 

Elsie scowled at him, patience long worn thin from the emotional rollercoaster that had been today.

“I,” she stated clearly, “Would never do anything that would put you in danger. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me because it’s fucking true.”

He was silent for far too long before he spoke again, “Convince me that you’re not lying again. I want to know everything. You owe me that much.”

And he was right. She’d fucked up big time. 

Elsie took a few stuttering breaths, focused on the wall just over Caiden’s left shoulder, and began to speak. 

She was surprised at how much there was to say. She tried to start when she’d met him, but it was easier to go back further; start from the very beginning. It was strangely easy to tell the story of her early hacking days, to describe how she’d been drawn first into a world of code and then into its criminal underbelly, swallowed before she knew what she’d gotten into. 

Elsie told him about the group she’d been part of, their domination of the information trade that had paid for their college tuitions. Not that she’d been able to use her degree for anything legal yet. She told him about how it all fell apart. The one job that had them digging far too deep into the inner workings of the FBI. They had found webs of corruption at every turn, unearthing connections to cartels and international drug trafficking rings that attracted the attention of those same corrupt officials.

It had all gone wrong after that. She’d been months out of college, living in a decent apartment for the first time when the FBI hacked into their communications, bulldozing the firewalls and protections that had kept them safe for years. They’d had to go on the run, scrambling to make new communication channels and coordinate without their usual resources. Elsie glazed over the first few months of her time on the run, mentioning as little as possible to keep the memory of explosions and silent chats away. 

She told him about changing her identity, becoming Vivienne Elise Cranst, and finding Mila when she finally stopped running. She relived her struggles with money and homelessness when she was living off a waitress’ wages, cut off from the small fortune she’d acquired from before. That’d been why she went back to hacking. Elsie knew she was good at it and it put money back into her bank account, enough to get her off the streets and later into the house they now lived in.

Finding Caiden had been…not quite an accident, but not wholly unintentional either. She’d been missing her friends, lonely from being in a new town where she knew no one, and when Caiden had appeared with an offer of friendship she hadn’t turned it down. 

When that friendship later turned into something more she didn’t run away either. But now he was looking at her with an indecipherable expression and Elsie realized she wasn’t the only flight risk anymore. 

He hadn’t believed her at first and Elsie didn’t blame him. She nudged him aside and disabled the program that hid her monitors. The look on his face as he took in the FBI surveillance program would’ve been hilarious in any other setting, but Elsie didn’t have the energy to laugh. 

“That’s about it,” she finished lamely, “You know everything now.” She hazarded a glance in his direction and found him staring intently at the code she’d been working on as if it held the secrets of the universe. He didn’t seem to have noticed that she’d stopped talking.

Elsie couldn’t stay still anymore. She pushed off from where she’d been half-leaning against the desk to pace around the narrow room, anxiety clawing at her chest. She was nearly ready to start climbing the walls when Caiden finally spoke.

“I need time to think.” It wasn’t the worst thing he could have, but unease still flooded Elsie’s body. She studied his face and saw hints of confusion and exhaustion seeping through the cracks in his emotionless facade. He shifted as if ready to get up and leave, but the phone on the desk buzzed a few times, catching his attention.

Caiden turned to look at Elsie, an eyebrow raised, “Do I even want to know what that’s about?”

Elsie grimaced, “It’s probably not bad. There’s only one thing that could be for and it’s not technically hacking related.”

Caiden picked up the phone and read the notifications, “Who’s Thomas?”

She swiped the phone from his hands and unlocked it, “A guy who messaged me out of the blue asking if I know anything about his missing girlfriend. Apparently, she sent him my number and he memorized it long enough to actually contact me.” She handed it back with the messenger app open to Thomas’ chat.

“And you know this isn’t hacker stuff related because?” 

“One, it’s not an SMS, everyone uses those because they’re easier to erase if you know what you’re doing. You don’t have to mess around with any app software or track down rogue data in other servers. And two, because this group hasn’t once asked me to hack Hannah’s phone or anything else, which would be the first thing they would’ve done if they knew.”

Caiden was staring at her with something akin to awe tainted with regret. “I guess you really weren’t lying about the whole hacker thing,” he mumbled.

She glanced at him in confusion, “I thought we already went through this. You just heard my entire life story, I have no reason to lie about being a hacker.”

“I know,” he said as he handed her the phone, “I guess part of me was still hoping that this was some kind of joke.” 

Elsie took the phone, “This is my life, you know. The same normal life I’ve been living for years. Yours too, technically.” 

Caiden rose from the chair, walking past her to the door, “That’s different. I never knew what was going on, you did all of this without giving me a choice in the matter.”

“You have a choice now,” she said, fighting down the anger and anguish churning through her chest. He was going to leave, she could see it in his face, in the stiff way he stood, not quite looking her in the eye. She should’ve told him sooner, maybe then he would’ve stayed, wouldn’t have been scared off by her past.

The door didn’t even slam shut behind him when he walked out without another word. 

Elsie collapsed into the chair like a puppet with its strings cut, exhaustion seeping through every inch of her body. She idly flipped the phone over, opening the messenger app on autopilot. Cleo had added her over an hour ago, and Thomas seemed to have returned from picking up his brother. She quickly acknowledged Cleo and turned back to Thomas’ chat where he was slightly ranting about how he didn’t tell the police about her because it would make him a bigger suspect. 

She sighed, she really didn’t have the energy to deal with this right now, but if she kept talking to him she wouldn’t have to go outside to face Caiden again, if he was even still in the house. Elsie’d never had a problem with running away from her problems before, so she asked Thomas about the rest of the group.

As it turned out, Thomas didn’t want to talk about the others, saying she might “get the wrong impression”. He was also terrible at talking about himself and Elsie got the impression that the man had somewhat of a nervous, flighty personality. Neither made it any easier for her to get a grasp on why their little group was so dedicated to shunning the police to find Hannah on their own. Obviously, Elsie had perfectly logical reasons for avoiding law enforcement, but this group was about as normal as normal could be. 

With that avenue of questioning at a dead end, Elsie had only one thing left that she wanted to know from Thomas: what exactly had happened when Hannah disappeared?

Thomas: An unknown number added us all to a group chat

He didn't say anything at first

I started texting him and wrote "Hello stranger" or something like that, no idea of the exact wording

...nothing

Then he finally started writing. One sentence, nothing more.

"Hannah is in danger"

Vivienne: The kidnapper...?

Thomas: Logical assumption

I'll get to that in a minute

I was immediately in a rage

I asked him if this was a bad joke

Nothing. No answer

I threw some threats at him while I was on my way to her

To Hannah of course but she wasn't there

Richy was already sitting in front of her door. His garage is less than 5 minutes away

She’s been missing since then

Vivienne: I'm really sorry...

Thomas: Just thinking about it hurts

The unknown sender left the group chat

Then he returned shortly after and sent a voice message, babbling that he was a friend or something like that

Wait, it might be best if I just forward the message to you

He sent the audio file and Elsie reached for the earbuds she usually kept on the desk. Her fingers met empty air instead. The earbuds were in the living room, she’d left them there yesterday after getting distracted by a video Caiden had shown her. She glanced at the door and heard the sound of Caiden pacing somewhere nearby. Instantly she decided that the earbuds weren’t worth it and pressed play, holding the speaker up to her ear.

The hacker’s distorted voice pierced the air of the office for the second time that day. This time he sounded different, less formal. She could almost hear a hint of panic beneath the static. 

But that wasn’t right. He had to be faking because who else had the ability to delete the message with her number? Unless there was another hacker involved. That’d have to be some kind of record if there was another hacker in this mess.

The phone pinged away, fully ignoring Elsie’s contemplation. Thomas seemed to be sharing his own analysis of the hacker’s message.

Thomas: He could be lying but I don't think so

Shit, I don't know what to believe anymore

So this guy is some kind of hacker

I know very little about these things

Vivienne: Me neither, but I've had the honor of meeting him already

Thomas: I see

That figures

I wouldn't trust this guy as far as I could spit

That, Elsie could agree with. She made a mental note to try accessing whatever device the hacker was using to contact them as soon as possible. If she was lucky she’d be able to get in and out with him ever knowing that she’d snooped. Actually, she should probably modify her own programs to be less obvious if the hacker decided to try hacking her. 

Thomas made a few more comments before logging off, mentioning that he needed to eat dinner. It was nearly 10 for Elsie, still early enough that she didn’t feel like going to sleep so she returned to updating her voice changer. It was easy enough to tweak the pitch and timbre to make her voice sound completely different, the hard part was doing it subtly enough to still sound natural. 

She was briefly distracted from her work by the phone buzzing with several new notifications, but a quick glance told her that it was just another spy chat courtesy of her new hacker friend. It didn’t look very important so Elsie returned to the voice changer, adding the final touches and testing it several times before installing it on the phone to automatically activate for calls. She wanted to be ready if the hacker or the group decided to call her again. 

By the time she finished with that, it was half past 11 and she could feel a headache pulsing in the back of her head. Elsie rubbed her temples in an attempt to relieve the discomfort, blinking hard to make her eyes stop burning. She’d definitely spent more time staring into code before, but apparently, her eyes had decided to give up early today. 

She checked the phone one last time, pausing as she realized that she’d completely forgotten about the new chat she had to read. With a faint groan of annoyance, she opened the app, jabbing her finger viciously to select the chat. Her tired eyes scanned the texts uninterestedly until she saw her fake name. 

Cleo thought she was the one who’d kidnapped Hannah. Now that was interesting. 

Elsie hummed as she read; Cleo had some good points like the fact that her joining the group would make it easier for her to get more information. Elsie actually thought that’d be a smart thing for the kidnapper to do if they could get away with it, which was partially why she didn’t trust the other hacker involved in all this. 

Richy seemed to be more interested in finding out why Hannah had sent her number. He insisted that it must have been intentional and had actually been Hannah and not her kidnapper. Elsie wasn’t quite sure if she believed all of that. She figured that if she ever got kidnapped she would’ve tried to send something other than a random phone number.

Both Cleo and Richy were waiting for her to mess up, Elsie knew that, had known that since she watched Thomas add his friends to the chat. She wasn’t worried. After all, she couldn’t accidentally reveal anything because she didn’t know anything to reveal. 

A few of the others seemed to be on, if the status indicators in the group chat were accurate, but Elsie had no way of knowing what they were doing without having to hack into each account. She decided to be done for the night, already looking forward to a long shower and her comfortable bed. 

She walked into the bedroom and froze. Caiden was sitting on the ground, several suitcases half-packed at his side, arguing with someone on the phone.

“—no, just a few days! For fuck’s sake I’m not asking for your firstborn child,” he threw another shirt into the suitcase, “I have a car idiot, and my job’s remote right now. Yeah, less than a week, I promise. Fuck, I’m not talking to you about this on the goddamn phone—” 

Both he and Elsie froze when he looked up and saw her standing in the doorway, “I’ll call you back, bye.” He ended the call and Elsie offered him a small smile, not moving from where she was leaning against the doorframe. 

“Do I have to be worried about you ratting me out to the FBI?” She meant to say it teasingly, something to lighten the mood, but the question came out more uncertain than she’d anticipated.

The way Caiden’s face changed from confused to horrified shouldn’t have made her feel so warm inside, but the way he violently shook his head gave her hope that he didn’t hate her that much.

“God no. I wouldn’t do that to you. I might not…” he paused as if searching for the right words, “Agree…with what you do. But I’m not going to be the reason you end up in prison.”

Elsie snorted, prison would be the least of her worries if the wrong FBI agents found her. The client, who’d turned out to be a whistleblower, had suddenly gone missing shortly after he presented his findings to the FBI’s director and reappeared in a body bag weeks later. The report had also disappeared, which meant that she was one of, if not the only, person who knew about the FBI’s internal corruption. To put it lightly, she had a massive target on her back.

“Going on a trip?” she managed to say more casually, keeping her voice light even as her chest pinched.

Caiden frowned, “Eli-Elsie, I love you, I’ve loved you for years, but tonight was…a lot. I need some space, ok? Time to process.”

Elsie nodded and swallowed the lump in her throat, “So, we’re,” she gestured vaguely between them, “done then? I mean, I just assumed you wouldn’t want to stick around, but if you still want me I’ll be here and—” she cut herself off before she embarrassed herself any more than she already had.

“I’m not sure,” those might have been the words Caiden said, but Elsie could see the truth in his eyes. He was done, they were done. 

“Ok,” she stepped past him to reach her nightstand, tugging open the bottom drawer to pull out a small bag. She rifled through it and retrieved a card. It was black and looked like any other credit card, but she’d hooked it up to a ghost account that drew from the hidden account she’d started stashing the profits from her hacking in after losing access to her first bank account.

Elsie stood and held the card out to Caiden. He hesitated, “Elsie I can’t take this. I have my own money, I don’t need yours.”

“Please just take it. Use it to get a hotel or gas or buy an apartment. I’d feel better if you weren’t running off into the night having to rely on your savings.” He looked like he was going to argue, but Elsie wrapped her hands around his, curling his fingers over the card. “You don’t even have to use it if you don’t want to. Just have it there for emergencies, okay?” 

She could see the reluctance in his nod, but he tucked it into his pocket. She stepped back, “I’ll leave you to your…packing.”

Elsie turned toward the dresser, swiping a loose shirt and a pair of shorts to sleep in before heading to the attached bathroom. She’d just crossed the threshold when a hand caught her shoulder, spinning her around so fast she nearly slammed into the door. 

The half-formed question on her lips died when Caiden kissed her.

She melted into it. This was normal, familiar, and right now she could pretend that it was any other night. That they were just making out before bed, wanting to end the day close together even if they were going to cuddle all night anyway. 

When they broke apart, gasping for air but still pressed against each other she realized that she was crying, that Caiden’s eyes were filling as well. Elsie wrapped her arms around him, burying her head in his shoulder. He rocked them slowly back and forth, his cheek pressed against the top of her head. Her hair felt wet. She screwed her eyes shut, feeling more tears slide down her face.

“I’m gonna miss this, miss you,” she breathed into his neck so quietly she wasn’t even sure if he could hear her.

He must’ve heard because she heard him whisper, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” repeating it over and over again in a voice that shook. Elsie just hugged him tighter, smothering the sob that threatened to escape.

He was the first to pull away. Elsie let him.

The door shut between them, Caiden returned to packing his suitcase and Elsie turned on the shower. 

When she stepped back into the bedroom he was gone.

Chapter Text

The hacker’s program had found a file while Elsie slept. 

She placed her breakfast on the desk and sat to open the file. It was a picture of Hannah, sitting against a filthy wall in a white dress, smiling softly. The photo had clearly been taken by a professional and came from Hannah’s cloud, but Elsie didn’t think it was part of Hannah’s disappearance. She sent it to the hacker anyway, since she didn’t actually know what he might find useful.

Elsie ate her bagel while she did her usual check of the FBI’s activity and ensured that she hadn’t gotten any new client messages. Normally she would do this after breakfast, but with Caiden gone she’d decided that she could at least be productive while eating. 

She was definitely not avoiding the fact that it hurt to think that she’d be eating on her own now, not at all. 

The phone pinged loudly and Elsie jumped mid-chew, nearly choking on a glob of bagel. She swore loudly and swallowed her food before grabbing the phone. The hacker had answered.

???: Did you find this picture in Hannah's cloud?

Vivienne: Where else would I have gotten it?

???: Mh, it doesn’t look like it’ll be too helpful.

Elsie couldn’t help the spike of indignant annoyance that rose at the comment. She knew the photo wasn’t that important, but hell, it was his program that spat it out. She paused, why was she dealing with his program anyway? Couldn’t this hacker just do that on his own?

Vivienne: So you got something more useful?

???: Touché.

Keep sending me what you find, we can sort through it later.

Vivienne: Got it

???: All right, then.

Good luck.

Vivienne: Wait, I want to talk to you

???: Talk?

About what?

Vivienne: I have questions about your little program

???: My program?

Did it break?

Vivienne: No

Just

Why am I doing this?

Can’t you do it on your own?

???: I could.

But this way I get another set of eyes on the information and I am free to look into other leads.

Vivienne: That makes sense

???: Was that all you wanted to talk about?

Vivienne: About the program, yes

But I want to know something about you

???: What?

About me?

Vivienne: You're interesting

Not to mention suspicious, but Elsie wasn’t going to tell him that.

She saw the little ellipses dance on the screen, pause, then disappear. So the hacker either didn’t know what to say or didn’t have anything he wanted to tell her. Interesting. 

When he didn’t respond for over a minute Elsie began to worry that she’d scared him off. She kept forgetting how skittish most hackers were, it had been years since she’d last worked with another one after all. And her last group had been…special. They had been her closest friends since her junior year of high school and had long stopped being cautious around her, just as Elsie had done with them. There was none of that with this hacker, she would just have to wait for him to come back on his own. 

To her surprise, he was back a few minutes later.

???: You are aware that I won't tell you anything about me, right?

Vivienne: You're not scared are you?

???: You have one question.

Elsie wasn’t expecting that, at all. She would’ve bet that the hacker would go offline or tell her to drop it. Anything but actually agreeing to answer a question.

Now she was scrambling for an appropriate question to ask. Anything personal was off the table, obviously. The guy was hesitant enough about even agreeing to a question that she knew asking anything about him would send him running for the hills. Elsie’s gaze landed on the lines of code still running on her other monitor and her mouth quirked into a tiny smirk.

Vivienne: What kind of program do you use to hack?

???: I honestly didn't expect this question.

A combination of different programs and operating systems depending on the task and target.

Most programs are available for free and are actually meant to find security issues such as Cain & Able, Aircrack, Wireshark, Kali Linux.

Why did you want to know?

Vivienne: No special reason

Just curious

She had heard of most of those, they were fairly common among the hacking community. She’d even used a few before. Now that she knew what the hacker used, Elsie could kind of see remnants of those programs’ codes in the app he’d given her for Hannah’s cloud, at least for the ones she was more familiar with. 

???: I can't believe I just said that.

Actually, I shouldn't tell you anything about me at all.

Vivienne: I’ll know your identity soon

???: That certainly won't happen.

I shan't be that careless again.

Shan’t? Elsie stared at the word. If she was capable of raising her eyebrows independently she would’ve had one so high it’d be in her hair. Who the hell used the word shan’t in a normal conversation?

???: Good. 

I still have a lot to do. Is everything clear now?

Vivienne: You don't go out much, do you?

???: No. At least not lately.

That…made a lot of sense. She probably would’ve turned out the same way if she hadn’t had her friends to keep her a sane, normal person in her early hacking days. Elsie wondered how long this guy had been on his own for him to be this awkward. It made her want to socialize this hermit of a hacker, maybe that’d be a good side quest since she did have to work with him for however long it would take to find Hannah.

???: I have more important things to do. 

I've told you something about me again...

I will go now.

Otherwise, I'll probably end up telling you my name or worse...

Vivienne: Thanks for talking

???: See you soon, Vivienne.

Elsie frowned at the chat as he went offline, secrecy was expected with hackers, it came with the job, but this level of paranoia was abnormal. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d freaked out over telling a client a little detail about herself. It even usually had the benefit of making more nervous clients feel more at ease. It wasn’t as though the hacker had accidentally told her his name or address.

She wasn’t kidding about wanting to know his identity soon either. Elsie was itching to flex her hacking muscles against someone who knew how to keep people out; every other person or company she’d hacked in the past few years had had laughably weak protections and she usually didn’t even have to do anything to her basic breach program to get all of their data. Typically, she’d just leave her program to run overnight or while she was at work and come back to reap the rewards, like some kind of fucked up mobile game. 

Truthfully, she would’ve loved to try larger targets, but being too good at breaking into secure systems attracted the kind of attention she didn’t want; not to mention the fact that she’d never been the best at hacking in. Her specialty had always been in document and data doctoring, which had been a literal lifesaver when she needed to cover her tracks and forge a new identity. As a trio she and her friends had been menaces; all of them had been above average at breaking into things but Mythron had been their designated breacher and retrieved data, while she did all kinds of forgery jobs for clients, and Yaris sold custom firewalls and encryptions. On her own Elsie was still a decently well-rounded hacker, but nowhere near as good as her friends in their fields. 

It would have to wait until tonight, she decided, there wasn’t enough time before she had to go to work. She actually didn’t know what time it was, she’d been so lost in her thoughts. 

It was 8:46. She was supposed to be at work at 9.

Elsie made it on time. Well, she made it to the restaurant’s parking lot on time. She clocked in three minutes late. The other waitress for the day, Brianna, laughed at her when she saw Elsie rush in. Elsie very maturely stuck her tongue out at her in response. 

When she got to the back to drop off her backpack and jacket Mila was there prepping the kitchen with Otto and Reggie. The older woman looked surprised to see her, “You’re late Elise, I thought you were sick.”

“What? Just because I wasn’t here early?” Elsie plopped her things into her locker, “I’ve been late before.”

Mila shook her head, “You’ve always been early unless you have to call out sick.”

Elsie frowned, surely she’d been late at some point in the last four years. She wracked her memory and found that she couldn’t remember ever being late. She usually left the house a few minutes after Caiden did, just enough time to read new messages or start her breach program and early enough that she got to work around 8:50. She liked being there early, it gave her time to chat with Mila and help set up. 

“Huh, I guess I haven’t been late before,” she offered a faint smirk, “Maybe I’ll change things up from now on, be late every day instead.”

“Elise you’d have better luck convincing me to sell the store.”

Elsie snorted, “You don’t know that, I can be late when I want to.”

Brianna stuck her head through the order pickup window, “Who’s being late?”

“Elise wants to try being late to work every day,” Mila called to her. Elsie scowled when her fellow waitress giggled at the statement.

“What’s it with everyone thinking that I’m chronically early?” she demanded.

“You’ve never been late to work before today,” Mila said.

Brianna added, “You give customers their check the minute you see them finish their food.”

“You even graduated college early,” Reggie chimed in, Otto nodding vigorously in agreement at their side.

Elsie glared at her coworkers, affection, and exasperation fighting in her chest. She spotted an older man opening the door and bustled out of the kitchen, “We have customers, I’m going to go do my job and not gossip about my lateness.”

Behind her, she heard Mila loudly whisper, “She even leaves the conversation early,” and fought off the urge to throw her shoe at them.

As she approached the table Elsie recognized the man as Timothy, one of their regulars who came in nearly every day. She greeted him by name and left him alone after confirming that he wanted his usual veggie omelet and iced tea, knowing he enjoyed starting his day by watching the town wake up through the windows. 

Since the restaurant wasn’t that busy yet Mila would have time to talk with Elsie as she made the man’s food and for once Elsie wasn’t excited about that. Mila knew that something had to have happened for Elsie to have come in late, she would want a proper explanation. 

Elsie was proved right the minute she told Mila the order. 

The older woman grabbed the ingredients and promptly asked, “What happened?” not even faltering slightly as she whipped the omelet together with practiced precision. 

“Yesterday was a bit crazy,” Elsie admitted, “And I got lost in…some stuff leftover from last night this morning. I completely lost track of time, it won’t happen again.”

Mila squinted at her, “What kind of crazy? You’ve had crazy nights before and you still made it in on time.”

“I…” Elsie hesitated, “Caiden and I broke up.” There was a small clang from Mila’s spatula missing the omelet and hitting the pan instead. “Not his fault, or mine really,” she hurried to add, “Just something about my past came up and we decided it’d be better to split up.”

Mila passed her the completed omelet and a cup of iced tea, “I can tell that you’re not telling me everything, Elise.”

Elsie grimaced, “It’s a long story, I don’t have time to tell it now. Maybe after work.” Secretly she hoped that Mila would forget (the chef was getting older, and her memory might not be what it used to be) because if she told Mila anything, she’d have to tell her everything. Considering how Caiden had reacted, Elsie wasn’t exactly excited to possibly lose another person in her life. 

The look Mila gave her promised that the older woman would not forget about the conversation. Elsie groaned internally and went to serve Timothy his breakfast. 

Brianna had the only other customers in the store covered for the moment, so Elsie took advantage of the calm before the brunch rush to run to the breakroom and check her messages on both phones. Logically it was unlikely that anyone from the group had decided to text her at this hour, considering the fact that it was only half past 7 in Duskwood, but Elsie felt like checking anyway. 

To her surprise, she saw a message from Thomas, sent about 10 minutes ago. 

Thomas: Hey, am I interrupting anything?

Vivienne: Not right now, but I don’t have much time to chat

Thomas: I promise this won’t take long

I've been thinking about you and that you're one of us somehow

It came to my mind that I could send you some more pictures of Hannah

I want you to get to know her as well as possible... circumstances permitting of course

Now that I’m telling you this it sounds kind of stupid

Elsie bit the inside of her cheek, it was slightly stupid, but also somewhat sweet. Seeing more pictures of Hannah probably wouldn’t do anything to help her find the missing woman faster, but it seemed like it would help Thomas. Maybe this was his way of thinking that he was doing something to help find Hannah. She was a bit surprised that the group hadn’t gone all out and made a search party to comb every inch of Duskwood yet with how insistently they’d drawn her into helping them.

Vivienne: No, that sounds like a good idea

Thomas: 🙂

I'll upload them now

Check them out when you have time

The pictures started coming in, but Elsie heard the bell on the front door jingle and hurriedly shoved the phone back into her pocket to greet the customers.

She didn’t get another break until after the lunch rush had made its way through, leaving a mess of dishes and trash on the tables. Brianna had helped her clear the tables and bring all the plates, bowls, cups, and utensils to the industrial dishwasher they had in the back. The dishwasher for the day, Riley, walked in the backdoor as they finished unloading the first batch. Brianna took the time to tease him about his lateness before leaving Elsie to watch the restaurant for a quick break.

Since there were no customers in the building or pulling into the parking lot Elsie tucked herself into a corner where she could see the door and pulled out her phone. Unsurprisingly she had a slew of messages from the work group chat in which Brianna had created a poll titled “Is Elise chronically early?” The results were currently at 87% Yes, 10% No, and 3% Maybe?, Elsie rolled her eyes at the hijinks and voted No. 

A moment later she heard Brianna shout, “Your vote doesn’t count!” from the other room.

“Yes it fucking does!” she yelled back. 

She pointedly ignored whatever Mila added to their conversation and opened her messages with Caiden. The last text was from yesterday before everything fell apart. He’d asked her if she wanted to get take-out for dinner and she’d replied with a cryptic “I have surprise food ;)”. 

Elsie gnawed at her lip and debated texting him. Was it really a bad idea to text an ex if they’d broken up sort of mutually? It wasn’t like either of them had cheated or violated the other’s moral code…or did her hacking count? Caiden had apologized before he left and never told her to stay away or anything the romcoms he’d forced her to watch told her to expect from a bad breakup. Maybe they were still ok as friends? They’d been friends before. 

She typed out a short “Still alive?” and resolutely shoved her phone back into her pocket, determined not to look at it for the rest of the day, or ever, really. 

The urge to check it threatened to overwhelm her instantly. 

Elsie did her best to push it aside and pulled out the other phone, figuring she could look at the pictures Thomas had sent instead of obsessively checking for a reply. Opening the app, Elsie found that Thomas and Cleo had had a whole conversation about the photos that he’d sent. Cleo seemed to be just as mistrustful as she’d been yesterday, instantly assuming that Elsie had reacted weirdly to the pictures when Thomas admitted that he felt strange sending the pictures. Thomas didn’t seem to have a clear idea of what he thought of Elsie and appeared to be trying to get everyone else’s opinion before making up his mind. Elsie wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but it wasn’t like she could advise him about trusting her. 

There was also a new chat waiting for her from Jessy. Now that she hadn’t expected.

Jessy: Hi Vi!

It’s Jessy

Vivienne: Nice to meet you, Jessy

Jessy: 😄

I worried you would think badly of me because I left the group chat yesterday🙈

I was a little weirded out

It's a strange situation, but I wanted a chance to talk to you properly 😁

Yesterday Jessy hadn’t seemed to want to be involved with the rest of the group’s interactions with Elsie in the group chat and she’d left as soon as Dan had. If she hadn’t cared about what Elsie thought of her yesterday, it didn’t make sense for her to contact her out of the blue today. Cleo’s message from last night about the kidnapper wanting to get more information rose to the front of her mind. Could Jessy be involved somehow and she was contacting Elsie now because she wanted to know what Elsie knew?

Vivienne: Why did you change your mind?

Jessy: I think for the same reason that you stuck around 

Curiosity

I just have a little time to chat if you want

But I have to warn you: I'm at work

And if Richy comes, I'll drop the phone

That name sounded familiar; Elsie had to assume that Jessy meant the same Richy who had asked her to stay and help. She wished she had a notebook or something to help her keep track of all the relationships between the people in this little group. A smile flickered on her lips as she thought of setting up a whole corkboard like a crazed conspiracy theorist.

Vivienne: Where do you work?

Jessy: At "Rogers Garage". That's Richy's parents' workshop, but he runs it

Everybody calls it "the junkyard"

I take care of things in the office like the phone, post, bills...

In other words: anything Richy can't do by himself 🤭

Vivienne: That sounds stressful

Jessy: No, not really

I have nothing to do atm

Richy still shouldn't see me using my cell 😆

Vivienne: I won't tell him ;)

Jessy: 😄

Um ok. Now that you know something about me. It's your turn 🙃

Vivienne: What do you want to know?

Maybe the hacker’s paranoia was rubbing off on her because Elsie could feel her skin itching at the thought of all the questions Jessy could ask. She reminded herself that she had a whole life that wasn’t entirely fake (and that she wasn’t a badly socialized hacker who probably didn’t leave their room).

Jessy: 🤔

All right, let's see...😄

Summer or winter?

Vivienne: Spring

Jessy: Heeey

It wasn't on the table 😤

She smiled at Jessy’s reaction, it reminded her slightly of Brianna or maybe Addy. Would the kidnapper have such a bright personality? Elsie’s knowledge of charismatic serial killers and her dealings with shady individuals gave her conflicting answers to that question so she ignored it, for now.

Vivienne: Just thinking outside the box :)

What are your hobbies?

Jessy: Hmmm

I really like to travel

A few months ago I even got to go to Paris!
Wait, I have pictures!

True to her word Jessy sent a picture of herself at the base of the Eiffel Tower, leaning against a railing. Elsie studied the woman in the picture. Jessy looked normal enough, with red hair, and hazel eyes, pretty by Elsie’s standards. The fact that she’d gotten a chance to visit the Eiffel Tower made Elsie jealous; she’d wanted to travel to Europe for most of her life but hadn’t had the opportunity to before and now tempting fate by going through airport security wasn’t on her bucket list. 

Jessy: How about you? Do you also like to travel?

Vivienne: I've never really taken a proper trip before

Not unless you counted backpacking through countless towns and cities to avoid the FBI while technically homeless. Elsie sure as hell didn’t.

Jessy: Oh 😕

Maybe you'll come to visit me then

😉 I'm just kidding

Grr Richy's coming

I'm afk

Elsie blinked at Jessy’s offline status for a few seconds after the last message. This group was giving her whiplash with their rainbow of personalities. She hadn’t even met all of them properly yet. Actually, she was only missing Lilly. Elsie’d talked with everyone else at least once. It probably wasn’t a good thing that Hannah’s sister hadn’t wanted to talk to her yet, especially since she’d instantly assumed that Elsie was the one who took Hannah, but that was a problem for later. 

On a whim she decided to check the hacker’s program, hoping that it’d found something new. To her dismay, Elsie found it showing an error message instead. She couldn’t do anything about it without her setup and Elsie found herself wishing there was some way for her to bring her laptop to work without literally bringing it.

The thought made her pause. When was the last time she’d gotten so invested in anything like this? She’d never felt the urge to take her hacking to work before, not even for the clients with more interesting requests. So why was she so interested in this case? She wasn’t even getting paid for it. She couldn’t afford to be this invested, especially not with another hacker involved. All it would take is a slip-up or two while talking to this hacker and he’d know. She didn’t want to give him that kind of power over her, fellow hacker or not.

The rumbling of an engine drifted through the store and Elsie sent the hacker a quick message telling him that the program was broken. If he could fix it she wouldn’t even have to reveal that she knew anything about coding. Then she pushed off from the wall and stepped back into the main part of the store.

There was a new car in the parking lot, a standard black SUV. Cars like it that usually came to the store belonged to parents driving their kids and teammates to or from sports games. It was a bit early for them to be around, only 2:32, but she had seen it happen.

Elsie poked her head into the breakroom, “Hey Brianna, there’s a car in the lot, do you want them when they come in?” Her coworker looked up with her phone still held up to her ear and shook her head, pointing to the phone and mouthing ‘I’m on a call’. Elsie nodded and returned to the dining room, scanning the tables for trash she might have forgotten to clean up after the rush.

The bell on the door jingled and she called out a cheery, “Hi, please take a seat wherever you’d like! I’ll be with you in a—” 

Elsie’s breath caught in her throat, her body jerking to a stop mid-step. 

The two black-suited men paused, staring at her with mild concern.

She plastered a smile on her face and forced herself to move, “Sorry! I’m a bit of a mess today!”

Elsie winced, that was far too pitchy, too panicked. They’d realize, they’d know who she was. 

Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

“No worries,” the taller one said smoothly. His voice was low and if Elsie’s existence wasn’t being threatened by the very fact that he was there she’d probably find it soothing. 

He and his partner took a seat in one of the booths at the back of the restaurant, near the bathrooms. Elsie couldn’t help but notice that those were also the seats with the best view of the entire store. They’d be able to see everything.

Her hands shook as she picked up two menus and utensils. She debated asking Brianna to take them instead, but it’d look even more suspicious if she ran out on them; it’d be better to face them now and amp up the innocent waitress act. But it did beg the question of why they were here. Hell, they shouldn’t even know that she was alive, much less that she was posing as Vivienne. Elsie’d been so careful and she hadn’t seen anything about the FBI knowing anything when she checked that morning. If they’d found enough to send these two here it must have happened while she was at work and it had to have been enough information to get them to her town or even her work. She was certain that none of her devices had been hacked, which only left one way that they could’ve learned where she was.

Caiden.

Elsie’s stomach twisted. She could see his face, green eyes sincere, “ I’m not going to be the reason you end up in prison. ” He wouldn’t have lied to her, right? She’d known him for four years, had let him know her inside and out. He wouldn’t have. The Caiden she knew would never have betrayed her like that. 

But last night had changed things. 

She couldn’t be sure anymore. The fact that two FBI agents were sitting in her workplace was a testament to that. 

Caiden would have known her schedule. He could’ve called in and reported her while he knew she’d be at work, unable to see her FBI monitoring system. 

Anger began to boil deep in her gut. Anger and hurt. 

She could take the break up, could understand why Caiden would want to get out of a relationship when the FBI could come crashing in at any moment. What she couldn’t, and wouldn’t, take was having everything she’d built up for all these years destroyed because someone she’d trusted had decided to stab her in the back. 

Elsie took a breath. She couldn’t do anything about that now. Right now she had to act like these agents were normal customers. She could do this.

“Hi, I’m Elise, I’ll be your server today. Would you like to start with some drinks?” She smiled at the agents, noting that neither had nametags or anything that would identify them. At least she didn’t recognize either of them.

The taller one smiled at her, his eyes were so dark the brown looked black. “That would be wonderful. I’ll have a coke.”

“And for you?” she asked the other agent while noting the first agent’s order.

“I’ll take a coffee, black please,” his voice was softer than his partner’s but more gravelly.

Elsie nodded and wrote that down too, “Take a look at the menu while I grab those for you, feel free to just yell for me if you have any questions.”

The two thanked her and Elsie walked to the kitchen, hoping that her legs weren’t visibly shaking and that she hadn’t left too quickly. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt lightheaded, which made no sense, but Elsie’s brain wasn’t exactly being logical at the moment. 

Mila could tell that something was wrong when Elsie told her the drink order, but Elsie didn’t need to talk about it right now so she shook her head when Mila asked her what was wrong. If she stopped to think properly she would break down and she couldn’t afford to do that while the FBI was watching. So instead she tried her best to breathe rhythmically while the coffee brewed.

When the drinks were done she took them back to the agents, finding them in the middle of a quiet conversation. They instantly stopped talking the moment they noticed her and she saw the shorter agent glance from her to something on his phone. Her chest clenched but she kept her face pleasant as she gave out the drinks. 

“Are you ready to order or would you like some more time?” she asked, holding her pen and pad at the ready. The taller agent ordered a classic cheeseburger while the other agent went with Mila’s famous spaghetti. Elsie wrote it all down and collected the menus, barely remembering to ask, “Do you need anything else?” 

The agents said no and she escaped to the kitchen again, rattling off the order to Mila before rushing to the breakroom. Thankfully Brianna had left and was back in the dining room, giving Elsie privacy to slump into a chair and no so gently faceplant into the table. 

She ripped her phone out of her pocket and opened the phone app, ignoring the notification containing Caiden’s response to her text in favor of just calling the man. It rang twice before her brain woke up again and she hastily ended the call. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Elsie chided herself as she pulled out the other phone, if the FBI were here they had to be keeping tabs on her phone. She was rusty, the last four years had made her lose her paranoia and caution. That was dangerous. 

She dialed Caiden’s number from the other phone, knowing that it at least would tell her if the call was being monitored by a third party. It rang several times before Caiden picked up.

“It’s me,” she said before he could ask who was calling.

“Elsie? Did you get a new phone? Why are you calling?” The confusion in his voice made the anger she’d buried early reignite.

She snorted derisively, “You fucking know why I’m calling. How could you do this to me? You promised yesterday that you wouldn’t tell anyone!” 

“Hey! Whoa! What are you talking about? I didn’t tell anyone about your…uh…thing. I swear!” She hated that she couldn’t hear any trace of dishonesty in his voice. He had to be lying, there was no way the FBI had found her without his help.

“Oh really? So would you mind telling me why I just had to serve two FBI agents?” Elsie expected a long pause after that, long enough for Caiden to form some new lies and try to weasel his way out. She wasn’t expecting his instant response.

“What? Elsie. Listen to me. I didn’t tell anyone . If there are FBI agents here they found something on their own. You have to know me well enough to know that I’m not lying.” He sounded serious. Caiden seldom sounded serious. He had always had an undertone that made it sound like he was constantly smiling and Elsie did know him well enough to know that Caiden didn’t know that he had that undertone. He didn’t have it now.

Shit.

“Elsie, what? Are you in danger or anything?” She must have sworn out loud. “I know what I said last night, but if this is bad I won’t leave you to deal with it alone.” Elsie smiled bitterly, why did he have to be such a good person? It would be so much easier for her to hate him if he was an asshole.

“No, I’ve got this. I promised that this wouldn’t ever affect you, I’m not breaking that promise now,” she tried for a bit of humor when he didn’t respond, “Plus, it’s not like this is my first time dealing with this kind of stuff.” 

“Els…” she winced at the old nickname.

“I know what I’m doing, I swear. I—” she heard Mila calling for her, “I’ll call you back later, gotta go.”

She hung up before he could respond and scrambled back to the kitchen. Otto handed her the completed dishes and eyed her uneasily when she met his gaze. His hands lifted, signing “Something wrong?” Elsie shook her head at him to indicate that she didn’t want to talk about it and just grabbed the plates with a brief word of thanks. 

The agents were chatting again when she approached. This time they didn’t stop until she got to their table and she heard the tail end of a story about the shorter agent’s kids. Elsie set their food before them and started to step away after making sure they were settled.

“Wait,” her heart skipped a beat, “Would you mind staying for a bit?”

Elsie swallowed, “Let me check with the other waitress, but I should be able to since we’re not busy right now.”

Brianna had no issues with Elsie pausing to talk with the agents, but she did look concerned when Elsie asked. Elsie wasn’t sure it was a good thing that she was getting so good at reading concern on people’s faces. 

She went back to the agents and settled into a chair at an adjacent table. The taller agent spoke again before she had time to formulate what to say.

“My name is Peter Finrik, and this is my partner Adam Smythe. We are FBI agents from the cybersecurity department, sent here to investigate some suspicious signals detected from an address in this town.”

That was bad. Internally, Elsie’s mind raced, searching for any moment when she had been careless, any time when she could have accidentally done something without properly encrypting it. Externally, she frowned, “What do you mean suspicious signals?”

Adam answered this time, “Unfortunately we suspect that a highly wanted hacker is hiding somewhere in town. This hacker has been evading capture for quite some time, this is our most recent lead on where they are.”

“You are Vivienne Elise Cranst, correct?” Peter asked, glancing between a file on the table and Elsie’s face.

She swallowed, “I am, yes. Am I in trouble?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that Miss Cranst,” Elsie’s brain stuttered and she nearly missed the rest of what Peter was saying, “The signals appeared to have come from near your house. We wanted to come get your permission to search it and your yard for signs of the hacker.”

Was this a trick? Could they really not know that the signals came from her?

“Is…” she slipped a bit of fear into her tone, “Is this hacker dangerous? Do you know how long they’ve been there?”

Peter smiled at her reassuringly, “Don’t worry Miss Cranst. He doesn’t have a record of being violent. From what we know he usually just moves around a lot, we’ve received similar signals from him all over the country.”

Elsie didn’t miss the pronoun use. He. The FBI either never knew her real gender or someone else had sent off a signal from her location. Considering the fact that she’d made damn well sure that the FBI knew her old identity, the second option was more likely. Her mind drifted to the hacker with the Duskwood group. He was pretty jumpy, was it because the FBI was after him too? Did he do something to broadcast a signal from her house to throw them off his trail?

She must have been quiet for too long because Peter asked her about permitting them to search the house again. 

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to let you search the house until later this evening,” Elsie couldn’t let them see her office. It was way too obvious. If Caiden could figure it out the FBI could definitely do the same. She needed time to hide it or disguise it.

At their confused expressions, she blurted the first excuse that came to mind, “I, uh, just went through a breakup last night and my ex told me they were getting their stuff moved out today. I gave them until 8 pm and I’ll be with a friend until then.” It wouldn’t be hard to get Caiden to pretend to move stuff around. He might even actually move out. That thought made Elsie’s heart clench, but she pushed it aside. She could also get Mila to let her go over to her house, they needed to talk anyway. “You are free to search around the outside if you’d like.”

“Ah, I see. That shouldn’t be a problem. We will wait until you return,” Adam’s tone was sympathetic, “Here, take our cards. Call us when you get back to your house and we can come search then.”

Elsie took the offered cards, sliding them into her pocket. She still couldn’t believe that they weren’t here for her. For good measure she sat with the agents for the rest of their meal, conversing with them about their families and past dating experiences when they tried to give her advice.

It was fucking surreal. 

The agents left just before four, telling Elsie that they would be patrolling around her neighborhood just in case they spotted the hacker. She thanked them and saw them out to the parking lot, accepting the generous tip they handed her.

Her body moved on autopilot as she returned to the table and started to clear it. Elsie’s mind churned the entire time, coming up with a plan. She dropped the dishes off with Riley and returned to the breakroom after making sure that the dining room was still void of customers. It was unusual to be so slow at that time, but Elsie wouldn’t be surprised if the FBI somehow got everyone to stay away while they were eating.

Once she was alone again she pulled out the other phone and called Caiden. This time he answered instantly.

“Elsie! You doing ok?” Elsie subconsciously relaxed at the concern in his voice, if he was still this worried he’d be more likely to help her.

“I’m okay,” she reassured, “I do need to ask you for a favor.”

There was a slight pause, “What do you need?”

“Nothing dangerous or anything. The FBI isn’t here for me, but they got a signal from the house and want to search it. I told them that you were going to be getting your stuff today since we…you know…” she trailed off awkwardly, “Anyhow, you don’t actually have to move anything, but if you could go over and just pretend you are that’d be great.”

“I can do that, no problem. I was already planning to ask you when I could come over to get my things,” the casual way he said that made a surge of hurt rise in Elsie’s chest and she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, fighting back the tears that wanted to form. Caiden didn’t notice her silence and continued, “I’ll grab my brother’s truck and be over soon.”

Elsie swallowed hard, “Yeah, that’ll be great.”

“See you later then?”

“Wait,” now was quite possibly the worst time for her to open this can of worms, but she had to know, “What are we now? To each other, I mean.”

Caiden was silent for a long moment. When he finally spoke he sounded almost shy, a faint wobble present in his words like there’d been when he first asked her out, “We’re friends. We can still be friends…if that’s ok with you?”

Elsie couldn’t help the smile that stretched across her face, “Yes! Of course! Shit, I was worried that you wouldn’t want anything to do with me after last night.”

“Ah, I see,” to her surprise, Elsie could hear a hint of regret in Caiden’s voice, “I did think about that for a while, but I’ve known you for so many years that I can’t imagine a life without you in it. I just can’t accept a life with you that also includes running from the FBI.”

It was a logical thought process, but it hurt Elsie more than she expected for him to admit that he’d considered cutting her out completely like the last four years were something he could brush away easily. Hacking was a part of her life, had been a part for twice as long as she’d even known Caiden. She wouldn’t give it up just because he didn’t approve. Although the thought did make her pause; she could’ve given it up long ago, probably should’ve stopped when she became Vivienne, especially should’ve stopped when she settled into the life she’d built here, but why didn’t she?

The answer, as always, came back to the fact that the FBI had scattered her group. As long as she kept a foot in the hacking world there was a chance that she could cross paths with either of them and she didn’t have to face the reality that they could both be dead. 

“Elsie?” Caiden’s voice reminded her that she was still on a call. Hastily she told him that she had to talk with Mila and would see him at the house later. Then she hung up.

Her train of thought had been thoroughly derailed so Elsie went to the kitchen, spotting Mila, Reggie, and Otto cleaning up the kitchen. Brianna was leaning against the order window and waved when she saw Elsie walk in.

“What’s going on?” she asked, “Aren’t we open for another hour?” The Traveler’s Hearth was a restaurant from 9 to 5 every day and was run by Mila. After 5 Mila’s business partner, Arthur, took over and it became the town’s bar. It was a strange setup, but it’d been working nearly as long as Elsie’d been alive so she couldn’t criticize it. 

Brianna was the one who answered, “The two guys you had earlier came back while you were in the breakroom and gave Mila five thousand dollars to close now. Apparently, they’re from the FBI and are closing everything down cause they need to investigate something.”

Elsie frowned. So she’d been right when she thought they’d done something to make it so dead that afternoon. How big of a deal was this hacker? The FBI rarely revealed themselves or shut down a whole town, even if Fainstville was a tiny town, which told her that they really wanted to get this hacker. She was pretty sure they’d never done that when she went on the run the first time.

“Huh,” was how she eloquently replied, “Well I won’t complain about getting to go home early.”

Brianna laughed and Mila called, “None of us are leaving until we get this place closed down properly, especially since Arthur won’t be opening tonight. You two stop gossiping and go shut down the dining room.”

Elsie shared a look with Brianna and then hopped through the order window, yelling a sarcastic, “Ok, Mom!” on the way out.

There wasn’t that much to do so after they’d swept the floor, wiped down the tables, and emptied the trash cans Elsie and Brianna sat in the order window, chatting with each other and the kitchen crew. Riley joined them after a few minutes, having finished the dishes and grown bored on his own.

“So why were you late this morning?” Brianna asked, “Cause jokes aside, that’s super out of character for you.”

They didn’t all physically turn to look at her, but Elsie could feel their metaphorical eyes on her and she knew that they wouldn’t stop asking until they got a proper answer. She couldn’t tell them the truth, but she did conveniently experience a life-altering change last night. Who knew breakups made for good excuses?

“Caiden and I broke up last night, I was a bit of a mess this morning and left later than I usually do,” she admitted. Brianna gasped, Riley muttered “Damn”, Reggie stopped wiping a counter to shoot her a sympathetic look, and Otto signed “Are you ok?”

Elsie smiled at how much they all cared, she was lucky she’d found her way to them. “I’m doing fine. It was more or less mutual and we’re staying friends so it doesn’t hurt that much.”

“That doesn’t mean that you’re not hurting,” Reggie pointed out.

Brianna nodded vigorously, “Yeah! Elsie, that was a four-year-old relationship, I would’ve been at home sobbing my eyes out. I can’t believe you even came in today!”

Elsie laughed, the sound tinged with bitterness, “Trust me, I did plenty of crying last night. It’s fine, I just needed today to be as normal as possible as a distraction.” 

“Alright,” Mila cut in, “We’re all done here, why don’t you all get going? I’m sure Elise doesn’t want you poking into her business so soon.”

The others instantly looked embarrassed, as if they’d just realized how insensitive their curiosity could be. Elsie opened her mouth to reassure them that they hadn’t overstepped, but they were already filing out. Brianna hugged her on the way out and Otto squeezed her hands. Then she was left alone with Mila.

“We need to talk,” she said before the other woman could.

Mila raised an eyebrow at her and Elsie knew it was strange for her to willingly initiate a conversation about what was wrong, but she needed Mila’s help to pull off her plan. “We can go to my house and talk over dinner then.”

“That would be great, thanks, Mila.”

They chatted about other things while Mila turned off the lights and locked the door, carefully avoiding the harder topics that Elsie knew would come up as soon as they got to Mila’s house. She split off when they got to the parking lot, having parked her car further away from the door than Mila had. 

When she got into her car she instantly pulled out the other phone and hooked it up to her car’s bluetooth. She opened up the messenger app, finding a recent new message from Jessy reading, “I’m back, can we continue our chat? 🙂” Elsie responded out loud as she pulled out of the lot, hoping that the voice controls would hear her correctly.

Vivienne: Sure, why not

It wasn’t long before Jessy responded. Roger’s Garage must not have been that busy today.

Jessy: So 🤭

Damn, I forgot what I wanted to ask you 😤

Vivienne: It'll come back to you

Not that she’d complain if Jessy did forget, although Elsie wasn’t that worried about what Jessy would ask her after hearing the woman’s first question. Jessy seemed to just want to get to know her with her superficial questions. Elsie would even hazard to say that she wasn’t a danger to her identity.

But she could still be a danger to Hannah. Elsie hadn’t forgotten about how Jessy had randomly decided to be interested in her. She hadn’t realized it when she had chatted with Jessy earlier, but their conversation was completely void of talk about Hannah. Jessy should at least be slightly concerned about her friend being missing or be trying to figure out what Elsie was doing with the group, but so far she’d only acted like she was making a new friend.

Vivienne: You're suspiciously cheerful

Jessy: Well

Hannah disappeared four days ago

Don't get me wrong, of course I'm worried!

But I can’t do anything

I'm sick of the others always feeling the need to butt in

That's what the police are for. But the others act as if they could do it better

If they go on like this they'll end up putting an innocent man in prison

And I'm the bad guy for saying it out loud

I'm not a negative person and I thought the others were moaning at you enough already

That was somewhat reasonable. Elsie had noticed that most of the others were hesitant about the whole thing as well. Only Thomas had outright said that he didn’t trust the police with the investigation and that was because they had him as one of the suspects. Still for Jessy to not even ask Elsie about Hannah or her connection to the case was suspicious.

Vivienne: I suppose that’s true

You’re a welcome change

Jessy: 🙂

Thank you

There's one more thing I have to ask

Do you find me suspicious?

Vivienne: Why are you so concerned about that?

Jessy: I dunno

That's the way it is

Well, I have some actual work here

We'll talk later, okay?

Well if that wasn’t the shadiest way to end a conversation. She had literally asked if Elsie thought she was suspicious and then promptly changed the subject and left when Elsie had asked why. No one just asked if they were suspicious, especially not when one of their friends was missing and the person they were talking to had no real reason to consider them suspicious.  Elsie didn’t want to think that anyone in the group was the one behind the kidnapping, but she had no other suspects to look at and the group as a whole was acting weird as hell.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have much time to ruminate on the group’s behavior because she could already see Mila’s house up ahead. The lights in the house were already on, which was unsurprising because Mila drove like a maniac and thought most traffic laws were just suggestions. Elsie pulled into the driveway and parked, grabbing the phone and turning off the bluetooth. Subtly she checked herself for listening devices, neither of the agents had gotten close to enough to attach one, but she wasn’t taking any chances. 

As she stepped out of her car the phone in her hand vibrated. Elsie opened the messenger as she walked, expecting another text from Jessy. It wasn’t Jessy, but Thomas, asking if she’d looked at the pictures. Elsie hadn’t but she did now, scanning through the handful of pictures before confirming what she already knew; she had no idea who Hannah was, not by her face anyway. Thomas seemed disappointed, or unnerved about that but went offline without an explanation. 

Elsie decided that she could worry about that later. For now, she had to face Mila and her all-too-knowing motherly habits.

She let herself in with the key Mila had given her two years ago and instantly smelled cookies; Mila had apparently determined that the conversation would need cookies and honestly, Elsie wasn’t going to complain. She shucked off her shoes by the door and dropped her phones on the table in the entryway before heading to the kitchen.

“Need any help?” Elsie called when she stepped into the kitchen. Mila looked up from the pot she was stirring and smiled while shaking her head. Elsie wandered over to the stove, peeking over MIla’s shoulder to see what she was making. “Chicken noodle soup?” she questioned, “I thought you only made that when people get sick?”

Mila laughed, “No, I make it for when people need comfort. It just so happens that that’s usually when they’re sick. Now stop hovering and go sit, I’ll be done in a minute.”

Elsie grabbed utensils and drinks for them before she did as she was told, setting two places at the table. Then she gracelessly flopped into the chair that had unofficially become hers over the years, waiting for Mila to come out with the soup.

“So, what’s been going on with you and Caiden?” Mila asked when she brought the soup over. She made another trip back to the kitchen to get the plain crostini she paired the soup with and Elsie waited for her to return before answering, pretending that she just just being polite and not procrastinating her answer. “Well?” Mila questioned when she came back.

“It’s a long story,” Elsie started, “And I kind of need to get it told as quickly as possible. And it would be great if you could wait till the end to ask questions or judge.” 

Mila raised an eyebrow at that, but she dipped a crostini in the soup and gestured for Elsie to begin. 

It was no easier telling it all for the second time. If anything Elsie found that she was more nervous. She couldn’t help but watch Mila’s face the entire time, looking for signs of horror or disgust that would tell her that she’d lost another friend. She saw horror when she recounted her time spent homeless, sorrow when she spoke of all that she’d lost, and even a hint of anger, but Elsie never saw the disgusted betrayed look that Caiden had had last night. When she finally finished her mouth was dry and Elsie was such a ball of nerves that her hands were shaking. 

Mila was still for a moment, then she surged forward, pulling Elsie into a tight hug. 

Elsie melted .

She hugged back just as tightly, surprised to find herself crying again. Huh. She thought she’d cried herself out last night, guess not.

“So,” the word came out watery, “I guess you’re not gonna kick me out or anything?”

Mila jerked back at that, “Heavens no, Elise,” she paused, “Would you prefer if I call you Elsie?”

Elsie laughed at that, “If you want to. I haven’t heard my own name for years so Elise is fine too.”

“Elsie then,” Mila said with a smile, “You deserve to have even that much of your identity back.” Elsie smiled back, her innards warmed by both the soup and Mila’s kindness. Mila continued, her tone taking on a serious tone, “Those FBI agents there today, were they here for you?”

Elsie swallowed her bite of bread, “Surprisingly, no. I got tied up in a missing person case with this group from a town called Duskwood, completely unrelated to my hacking if you can believe it. There’s another hacker also involved in that and I think he sent off a signal using my location, which drew in the FBI. That or some other hacker out there got lucky and randomly picked my house to be their fake location. The FBI are here for whoever that hacker is, not me. They don’t even know that I am a hacker and I intend to keep it that way.”

She launched into her plan, explaining how she planned to disguise her office as a gamer’s setup and that she wanted Mila to pretend that she had stayed for dinner and not left until close to 8. Elsie emphasized that she didn’t expect Mila to agree, making sure that Mila knew that she could refuse. Unsurprisingly Mila was more than willing to help, even joking that this wouldn’t be her first time helping out a criminal (which opened up a whole other can of worms that Elsie did not have time for despite how much she wanted to know now). 

“You should eat up then,” Mila declared, “You need the strength if you’re planning to walk all the way to your house and back.”

Elsie finished the soup in record time and even managed to scarf down a few cookies before 6 o’clock rolled around. She helped Mila clear the table and then grabbed her shoes from the front door, reasoning that it would be less conspicuous if she left through the back door which was hidden from the street. After a moment of deliberation, she left her phones on the table, not willing to risk the FBI tracking them. 

She hugged Mila before she left and then slipped into the backyard. From there she cut through several yards to get to the road on the other side of the houses, sticking to the growing shadows as much as she could. Once she reached the road she followed it until she got to the local playground which bordered a forested park. She would be able to cut through the park to reach a road that would lead her to her neighborhood. The issue was that this particular park wasn’t exactly known to be safe, which was why she had never tried to get home from Mila’s by foot before even though they lived only 2 miles apart. 

From what she remembered the main path through the park would take her to where she needed to go, which would hopefully also keep her from the shadier areas where the town’s drunks, junkies, and other unsavory individuals liked to hide out. It was still decently light out as well. Elsie wasn’t stupid enough to trust in hope alone though, so she pulled out her pocketknife and kept it in her hand. It would be a 45-ish minute walk if she kept to her normal pace, far longer than she wanted to spend alone in a sketchy forest so close to nighttime, but running would attract all the wrong kinds of attention. 

That lasted for about 15 minutes before the darkening of the forest and the constant rustling that could’ve been animals or humans got to her. Elsie picked up her pace, not quite running yet but not walking anymore. 

The change revealed a second pair of footsteps crunching over gravel.

She swore internally. This could be bad. She was in the middle of a forest with no one trustworthy around, no phone, and Mila not expecting her back for at least an hour or more. If she got jumped now, no one would find her in time. 

Behind her the footsteps had matched her new pace, synchronizing with the sound of her steps well enough that she wouldn’t have noticed if she wasn’t hyper-aware of them now. At least it only sounded like one person, she could maybe take one person in a fight, especially if they were drunk enough to be discombobulated. The too quiet steps unfortunately suggested that whoever was following her was aware enough to match her steps and stay hidden for as long as possible. 

Elsie went another 5 or 10 minutes with her silent shadow, hoping that they would just go away if she ignored them. She tried to ignore the fact that she was getting deeper into the woods, where it would be harder for anyone outside of the park to hear her screams. Was it her imagination or were the steps getting closer?

It wasn’t.

She whipped around, flicking the blade of her knife out but not bringing it up quite yet. It was still light enough for her to see her follower: a man in his late 20s or early 30s with a gaunt face and slightly glazed eyes, a junkie then.

“Hey man,” he began conversationally, “You got any cash on ya? My buddies ‘n I… we ran outta stuff, need t’ buy more ya see.”

She didn’t turn her back on him and didn’t stop walking, “Sorry, I don’t carry cash and I’m going to be late meeting with my friends.”

“Heeh,” the man chuckled, “I know you’re here alone.” Elsie didn’t acknowledge that statement, she just kept moving, glancing over her shoulder occasionally to make sure that she wasn’t walking into some kind of ambush. “One o’ my buddies, he had a plan to get more cash, said he had connections in the black market, could get us more snuff.” 

He was rambling now, but Elsie didn’t like the direction he was going with his rambles. The black market was something she would prefer not to deal with outside the realm of hacking. For this junkie to be talking about it meant that he was selling stuff on it for money to buy drugs or even just buying the drugs there and from the way he was staring at her, all hungry and crazed, suggested that he thought he could get some money out of her through it.

He was still talking, keeping up with Elsie even though she’d sped up again, “Pretty thing like you,” he was saying, “Would be a shame to have to cut you up.” 

Elsie agreed with that, she would prefer not to be cut up if possible.

“They could take you whole,” he offered, “They did it before when Shane was doing deals.” 

Elsie didn’t like that at all. The Shane he mentioned had to be Shane Ritchman, a junkie who’d been convicted of kidnapping, selling, and/or murdering at least five people several months ago. Two of the victims hadn’t even been found yet. That would make this guy one of his crew who had probably helped with the crimes but hadn’t been caught. They’d likely laid low for a couple of months, burning through whatever stores of drugs they had left. Now they were out and Elsie had the misfortune of going through the woods when they needed more cash.

“How about you leave me alone?” she suggested, “I could get you some money tomorrow if you let me leave tonight.”

He grinned, all yellow teeth and insincere, “Yeah sure, no worries man. I’ll just letcha keep on walking…” 

His eyes darted away from her face just long enough for Elsie to realize that he was looking at something behind her. She instantly dropped into a crouch, letting the person rushing at her trip over her instead of grabbing her like they’d planned. She caught a glimpse of long brown hair and a pale face. Then she was on her feet, bolting down the path, not caring who could hear her running now.

Two sets of footsteps pounded after her. Her chest was burning, her leg muscles screaming from the strain. She wasn’t a runner, but Elsie sure as hell wasn’t planning on dying in a forest today.

Her legs had other plans. One moment she was racing through the woods, and the next she was on the ground, her ankle shrieking with pain. Her knife fell from her hand and skittered across the gravel. A weight slammed into her back, smashing her into the ground.

“Got you now, bitch,” a female voice giggled in her ear.

Elsie surged upward, a move that normally wouldn’t have worked, but the junkie was way lighter than a normal person. Elsie rolled to the side, crushing the woman and kicking out as hard as she could. The woman let out a cry of pain and Elsie used her momentary distraction to scramble to her feet. 

She only made a step before a hand grabbed her ankle and she met the ground for the second time that day. The woman’s nails were sharp as hell and she could feel them digging into her skin, drawing blood. Elsie shrieked and lashed out with her free foot, aiming for the woman’s hand. 

When she wouldn’t let go Elsie aimed at her head.

It only took a few kicks for the woman to go limp, her hand falling from Elsie’s ankle. For a moment she thought she’d killed her, but then she saw the woman’s chest rising and falling. The first junkie didn’t see that little detail when he rounded the corner and stopped dead, staring at the woman’s motionless figure.

“You killed her,” the look in his eyes terrified Elsie, he looked like a wild animal, and feral and angry.

“No! She’s fine, she’s breathing,” she tried to say, but she was panting so hard, so much adrenaline running through her veins that Elsie wasn’t sure the words were intelligible. The junkie didn’t look like he’d been listening to her anyways.

“I’ll fucking kill you!” he roared, and this time Elsie didn’t even have enough time to get up before he crashed into her.

A fist slammed into her cheek, making the other side of her head whip into the gravel, opening a myriad of tiny cuts. The hits kept coming, hitting her face, neck, and shoulders. It felt like he was trying to bludgeon her to death. She flailed an arm around, trying to reach any part of his body.  She connected with what felt like his neck and sank her nails into the soft flesh there. His entire body jerked from where he was kneeling on her stomach. Elsie used that to free herself enough to curl into a ball, protecting her vital organs. 

A final barrage of punches assaulted her limbs and back before the gravel shifted and the junkie rose to his feet. For a moment Elsie thought he was done, that he’d leave her alone. Then the kicks began. He wasn’t coordinated and many of his kicks missed, but the ones that did connect hurt . Elsie wondered if he’d been some kind of athlete before turning to a life of drugs. She let out a slightly crazed laugh at the idea.

The next kick that missed soared past her head. Elsie reached out and grabbed at it, hoping to unbalance the junkie. Her fingers grazed his shin but missed. Before she could withdraw her arm he stomped on it, grinding her wrist into the path. She cried out, blindly scrabbling at his leg with her other arm. She hooked her fingers under his knee as his other foot jabbed into her stomach. The pain made her whole body twitch, trying to curl up again, and her fingers slid off his leg. He went in for a second kick. Elsie didn’t recurl.

She let his foot connect and then wrapped her body around it, ignoring the way it made her wrist twist in the gravel. Elsie rocked her entire body, desperately trying to unbalance the junkie. Somehow, it worked. He stumbled back, his foot coming off of her wrist. She rose to her knees and shoved him, sending him sprawling onto the ground. 

Elsie tried to stand, but her right ankle radiated pain when she tried to put weight on it. She grit her teeth and tried again, ignoring the pain and shake. This time she made it back upright, bruised and hurting, but standing. She couldn’t find her knife, it must’ve gotten buried by loose stones. Elsie didn’t bother looking for it and limped away from the junkie still on the ground, thinking that he had hit his head and gone unconscious when he’d fallen.

She was wrong.

A hand grabbed her ponytail and dragged her backward. Elsie yelped as she staggered back into the junkie. The cool metal of a blade came to rest on her throat and an arm wrapped around her chest.

“I was gonna just sell you,” the junkie’s breath was coming in pants, “But you went and fucking killed Ashley. Now I’m gonna kill you. Gonna cut you up n’ rip out your organs.” The worst part was that he didn’t even sound like he was high anymore, Elsie could hear the threat, the intent in every word he said. 

The knife dropped lower, pressing against the dip between her collarbones, “You ever done one o’ those dissections in school?” the junkie laughed, “Ya always start with that big ole cut down the middle.”

He dug in and Elsie struggled as hard as she could. The line he’d tried to score into her sternum wobbled and twisted with the movement, drawing a line of fire just below her left collarbone before biting into the junkie’s arm where he was holding Elsie. She swung a leg forward and kicked back, slamming her heel into his shin, The junkie grunted but didn’t let go, his arm tightening around her. The knife jerked upward, cutting smaller wounds on its way back to her throat. There it pressed in, just hard enough to draw blood.

For a moment they were still. Both injured, both panting hard, the smell of copper starting to permeate through the air. Elsie knew she was dead if she didn’t win this fight. The junkie was bigger than her, stronger too, and he had the knife. She had…nothing. Not great odds, but she could try anyway or let herself be sliced open. 

One of those wasn’t an option.

She gave herself another second to collect herself. Then she twisted her head and bit down on the hand holding the knife. 

They both screamed. The junkie from the bite and Elsie from the slice of the blade. The knife clattered onto the ground. They both dropped, grabbing for the one deadly weapon they had.

The junkie found it first. Elsie saw the glint of the blade in the dying light and she lunged. Her hands locked around the junkie’s throat, her knees pulled up close to pin his biceps to the ground. He struggled beneath her, his muscles flexing as he tried to throw her off. Elsie just pressed harder, feeling the rapid thrum of his pulse in the veins and arteries she was crushing. He was still swinging the knife, bending his elbow and slashing into her side just above her left hip. 

Elsie didn’t feel any of it.

She held on until the panic settled into his eyes, till the knife dropped from his weakened hands and he began clawing at her weakly with both hands. She felt his body go limp beneath her and she held on for a few more vindictive seconds before letting go. Against her better judgment, she checked for a pulse, almost disappointed when she found one. 

Elsie stumbled to her feet, grabbing the knife on the way. Gingerly she touched her neck, wincing when she found the cut on the right side. It seemed to be long but fairly shallow, it clearly hadn’t hit her carotid or else she would’ve already been on the ground painting the ground with blood. The rest of her wounds didn’t seem to be excessively bleeding so she decided to deal with them when she got to her house. She needed to get out of the forest as soon as possible. She limped away just as the junkie started to stir, vague noises of pain rising from behind her as she continued down the path.

Maybe it was the amount of blood smeared on her or her bedraggled appearance, but no one else harassed her for the rest of her walk. Elsie did see more than a few shadows darting around in her peripherals, but none came close. She made it to the other end of the park without issue. Elsie limped around the back of her neighborhood to her house, thankful that most of her neighbors had tall privacy fences surrounding their backyards. It made sneaking into her yard easier.

It was only when she got to the door and tried to grab the right key out of her keychain that Elsie realized how much she was shaking. She hoped it was from adrenaline and not blood loss. Either way, she couldn’t get her fingers to cooperate enough to get the key to fit in the door. Frustrated, she pounded on the door, hoping that Caiden was inside and could hear her.

Thankfully, he had and the door swung open a minute later. Elsie stumbled in past him, ignoring his startled “Els, what the hell?” and beelining for the bathroom. The first aid kit was under the sink like it always was, running low on normal-sized bandaids and messier than anything else in the house. She didn’t open it yet, instead grabbing one of the hand towels from under the sink and wetting it.

The light turned on and Elsie flinched, squinting her eyes against the sudden brightness. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and grimaced. Her quickly forming bruises and blood streaks stood out so much more when the room was illuminated. Caiden hovered over her reflection’s shoulder, looking completely horrified. He made a strange choked sound and stepped into the bathroom, reaching out to grab Elsie’s face. She let him turn her face this way and that, taking in all her scrapes and purpling skin. She hissed when he turned her head too far to the left and cracked the scab on her neck which promptly began oozing blood again.

He instantly let go, pulling back with a look of panic, “Holy shit. You have to go to the hospital.”

Elsie pressed the towel to her neck, “I’m fine, it didn’t go that deep. I don’t have time to go to a doctor and I can’t have the FBI know that I snuck over to my own house like this.”

“There’s blood fucking everywhere!” Caiden waved at smears of blood on the sink, “What part of this makes you think that you don’t need medical help? What happens if you start bleeding out?” 

“I told you, it’s not that bad. None of the slices are gushing, none of my arteries are hit,” Elsie retorted, gritting her teeth as she cleaned the skin around her neck wound.

Caiden laughed, the sound harsh, “None of the slices? Slices, as in multiple stab wounds? I don’t know what fucked up standard you’re using Els, but that sure as hell sounds like an emergency. You need to go to the hospital, potentially having to go to prison isn’t worth dying over!”

“I wouldn’t be going to prison!” Elsie spat. She was hurt, tired, and more stressed than she had been in years. She didn’t have the patience to explain why getting caught would be so bad, at least not in a gentle way. So instead she said, “If the FBI gets to me, this won’t even compare to what they’d do. They’re corrupt as hell and they’ll fucking do anything to keep people from knowing that.”

“What are you saying?” Caiden asked although she could see the growing realization in his eyes.

Elsie smiled bitterly, “The whistleblower client that fucked it all up ended up in a body bag, they firebombed the warehouse I was hiding out in with my friend, I haven’t heard from anyone in my group since that night. The FBI doesn’t like leaving loose ends.”

Caiden leaned heavily against the doorway, “Shit.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Elsie snorted. She’d managed to clean the blood and dirt off both her neck and face and had started dabbing at the slash on her chest. Her shirt was getting in the way so she tugged it off, not bothering to ask Caiden to leave (it wasn’t like it was anything he hadn’t seen before anyway).

There was a surprising amount of dust and dirt caked onto her skin even where her clothes should’ve protected her from the ground. The towel was already saturated with filth and Elsie dropped it into the sink with a sad squelch. Before she could ask Caiden to grab another he was already reaching past her to wet a new one in the sink. She took it from him gratefully.

They were silent for the rest of the cleaning and bandaging. Elsie elected to just pack the wounds with gauze and secure them with haphazard strips of medical tape. Caiden looked like he was going to protest, but seemed to decide against it and disappeared into the bedroom instead. He returned as Elsie finished taping the gauze on her side where she had a handful of lacerations of varying lengths and depths.

“I got you something to change into,” he held up Elsie’s favorite hoodie, tank top, and sweatpants, “I figured you wouldn’t want to keep wearing stuff all covered in blood.”

She took them with a word of thanks and he left her alone to change, taking the dirty clothes with him. Elsie slid into her clothes with a sigh of relief. She tugged her hair out of its ponytail and brushed through the tangled brown waves. Her face looked like a toddler’s art project, all smeared with blobs of red, blue, and purple everywhere. Luckily she’d managed to avoid getting a black eye, which would’ve been hard to hide. 

With her injuries mostly tended to Elsie limped her way out to the hallway, slowly making her way to the office door. She pressed her finger to the lock and froze. She needed her phone. The phone that was currently 2 miles away, sitting on a table in Mila’s house.

“ Motherfucker ,” she swore, glaring at the door. Of course, she’d be stupid enough to forget that she couldn’t get into her office without her phone. There was only one other way to get into the office. She had to break through the lock.

Unfortunately, Elsie was no stranger to her stupidity and had bought a toolbox for that reason alone. Caiden walked in on her with the disassembled doorknob scattered around her feet, her hand crammed in the empty hole it left behind, fumbling for the lock.

“Do I even want to know what’s going on?” he asked, amusement coloring his voice.

Elsie grunted, “Some fucking idiot left the phone they need to fucking—” her fingers caught on the piece of metal she needed, “—open their door—” the metal clicked as she twisted “—HA!”

The door swung open and Elsie scrambled inside to the sound of Caiden’s laughter, lurching to her desk and turning on her laptop. The time on the screen told her it was just past 7, she was running out of time. 

It wouldn’t be a perfect job, she didn’t have enough time for that, but Elsie already had a failsafe in place. She activated it, watching as everything she usually had up vanished, hidden deep in the computer’s systems. She could get them back later with a specific keyboard shortcut. Then Elsie started the download for a handful of random games that she knew well enough to lie about playing. They were installed in record time. Elsie had never been so thankful for choosing to buy high-speed internet. She quickly doctored the playtime stats for all of them and opened a window the the wiki page of a random Minecraft modpack. 

The rest of her setup could stay as it was, nothing looked out of the ordinary there, just a keyboard and mouse sitting on a mousepad. On a whim, she grabbed an old headset from her box of electronics and hung it over the middle monitor. It didn’t work anymore, but she plugged it in anyhow, hoping that it added to the authenticity of the room. The box itself could also stay since it didn’t really scream hacker. Her wall of post-its would have to go though, Elsie doubted the FBI would be pleased to see the ones labeled “scramble FBI badge scanner function” or “reinforce backdoor”. She crumpled them and tossed them in with the electronics, shaking the box to get them down to the bottom where they’d be hidden by the mess of wires, computer parts, and other miscellaneous equipment. 

The time on the monitors read 7:21 when Elsie put them in sleep mode and gracelessly speed walked back to the bathroom. She spotted Caiden gathering a box of stuff from the bedroom and decidedly ignored that heartache in favor of ripping off the gauze she’d slapped on her neck and chest. Elsie winced as they stuck to the gashes, reopening when she peeled them off. She replaced them with thin layers of gauze and large strips of cloth bandages. 

Then she grabbed her concealer and foundation to slap a hearty layer on both, blending them into the rest of her skin. She started to cover the visible bruises on her face as well but paused. The agents would notice that she was wearing more makeup than she had earlier, especially with how thickly she was having to cake it on. Elsie gnawed her lip for a moment, thinking, and then she rubbed her eyes furiously before finishing off the makeup. By the time she was done, they looked slightly bloodshot and swollen, a fairly good imitation of eyes that had been crying not long ago. That would give her an excuse, or even make the agents steer clear of asking about it at all. 

“Caiden?” she called as she bound her ankle with a wrap from the first aid kit, “What time is it?”

He appeared in the doorway, briefly startling her, “7:38, why?” Elsie grimaced, that didn’t give her much time to get back to Mila’s house. Caiden frowned, “You’re not planning on going back to Mila’s are you?”

Elsie sighed, “I have to, my car and phone are there. Plus, it’d look hella suspicious if I just appeared here when the agents didn’t see me arrive.”

“Elsie, you can’t go back through the woods,” Caiden said, his brow furrowed in worry.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take the main roads, I’ll just have to run a bit to get the somewhat on time,” Elsie reassured, “Or I could hitchhike a bit, it’ll be fine.” She paused for a moment, thinking, “When I get back we need to sell the breakup act, like not that we separated and stayed friends,” she smirked, “I guess those romcoms might actually come in handy.”

The look on Caiden’s face could only be described as glee.

Getting back to Mila’s house was easier than leaving it had been. Elsie managed to catch a ride with a woman heading into town, giving the excuse that she’d been out with friends and ended up too tired to walk back home. The woman was more than happy to take her to Mila’s street, talking Elsie’s ear off the entire time about her own daughter.

The short walk up the street to Mila’s house made Elsie very glad that she had gotten a ride. Her ankle was throbbing from pain and she could feel her wounds oozing with her movements. She would never have made it back by walking.

Mila welcomed her in and promptly began fussing over her; Caiden, the snitch, had called and told her everything while Elsie was on the way so the older woman was in full mother-hen mode. Elsie reassured her that she was fine and insisted that Caiden had been exaggerating the injuries. It didn’t stop Mila from fretting, but she did tone it down enough for Elsie to get her things together and prepare to head back home.

She took a deep breath, trying to settle her anxious mind before leaving. Today had somehow been worse than yesterday and Elsie was so done with it all. She wanted to go back home and just sleep for a week, which was exactly what she told Mila when the older woman asked her if she was ok. 

Mila hummed thoughtfully, “What if you take a vacation?”

“What?” Elsie questioned, surprised at the suggestion, “But I have shifts all next week and the week after that.”

“You need a break,” Mila said gently, “You’re stressed and it’s only going to get worse if you don’t take care of yourself. Go take a week for yourself, lord knows you’ve worked hard enough to deserve that. We have more than enough staff to cover your shifts.”

Elsie started to refuse but then paused. She couldn't remember the last time she’d gone on vacation or even taken a break from work. It would also get the FBI off her tail and she could have time to process everything that had been happening. She even had the thing with the Duskwood group to keep her occupied if she got bored. Really, there wasn’t anything that argued against her taking a break.

“Ok,” she relented, “I’ll go on vacation. Thanks, Mila.”

The older woman smiled, “You take care of yourself. I expect to see pictures when you get back.”

Elsie laughed, “Will do, I’ll keep you updated.”

She hugged Mila one more time and then stepped out the door, waving as she walked out to her car. She pretended not to notice the SUV parked around the corner, peeking out just enough for the occupants to see Mila’s front door. 

She decided to call the agents while she drove home, inputting Peter’s number from the card and pulling out of the driveway while she hit the call button. He answered almost instantly, letting the phone ring a single time.

“Hello?” Elsie had to give him credit for pretending that he didn’t know who was calling.

She made her voice sound tired, which wasn’t difficult, “Hey, it’s Elise. I’m driving back to my house now. I’ll be there in like five minutes if you guys want to meet me there. Do you need my add—” she cut herself off and faked an embarrassed laugh, “Sorry, you probably have it already.”

“No need to apologize,” Peter replied, “We understand that this is a very strange situation for you. We’ll see you there soon.”

Elsie let them hang up first and fought off the urge to slam her head into the steering wheel. She didn’t have enough energy left to deal with them. It was too late to bail though, so she kept driving.

Caiden must have been watching for her because the minute she turned onto her street she saw him step out of the house, hefting what looked like the box she’d seen him pack when she was there earlier. Elsie sped up, pulling into the driveway with her tires squealing against the pavement. 

She stormed out of the car and stalked up to Caiden, “And what the hell are you still doing here?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he snarked back, “Getting my things out of your shitty house.”

“ Shitty ?” Elsie squawked, “That’s not what you said when you practically begged me to let you move in!”

“Like I would ever beg to someone like you, you pompous toilet plunger.” There was mirth dancing in Caiden’s eyes and Elsie realized that he was quoting his favorite romcom. He’d forced her to watch it so many times that she had also unfortunately memorized it.

She rolled her eyes, “The fuck kind of insult is that? Did you just look around and choose the first thing that looks like you?”

Caiden’s lips twitched into a grin when he heard her reply, but he quickly twisted it into a scowl, “Are you saying I look like a toilet plunger?”

“I dunno, what do you think? Can your two brain cells work together long enough to figure that out?” Elsie scoffed.

“Ha! Still more brain cells than you bitch,” Caiden, Elsie decided, was having too much fun with the whole situation.

Following what she remembered of the romcom, Elsie backhanded Caiden, pulling back at the last second to reduce the force she connected with. Caiden whipped his head to the side, acting like she’d smacked the hell out of him, further selling it by hunching over and cupping his hand over his face.

“Get the fuck out of my hou-driveway,” Elsie snarled, nearly tripping over her words as she tried to substitute the romcom’s dialogue with things that made sense with the current context. The sentence that came out didn’t make much sense, but she figured it was good enough.

Caiden shoved her back, and Elsie moved with it, stumbling backward as he spat, “Gladly. With any luck, this’ll be the last time I have to see your stupid face.”

“You wish,” Elsie taunted, “You only get a week off from me.” She met Caiden’s eyes as she added the last part, trying to silently convey that she was actually leaving for a week. He gave her a subtle nod as he slammed the door to his brother’s truck and flipped her off. Elsie returned the gesture as he peeled out of her driveway, narrowly missing the black SUV waiting on the other side of the road.

She retreated to the door, leaning against it and putting her head in her hands for a moment. To any outside observer, it would look like she was distressed or crying, but Elsie was trying to stifle the chuckles that had wanted to escape during the exchange. During this, she heard the sound of the FBI agents’ SUV pulling into the driveway.

The two were surprisingly supportive and respectful as they searched through the house. They didn’t dig too deeply into anything or interrogate her about her setup, seeming to accept her explanation that she played a lot of video games in her free time. The only thing they seemed to be suspicious of was the disassembled doorknob, which was fair enough since it could have been the result of a break-in. Elsie wondered if they were being so nice because she had hammed up the heartbroken girl act or if that was just their default when dealing with normal civilians.

After roughly half an hour of combing through her house and the surrounding yard the agents declared her house clear. Neither agent seemed surprised about that result, which she found odd considering how confident and determined they’d seemed earlier. 

When Elsie asked about it Adam told her, “None of the other teams who investigated the other signals found anything either, just more confused civilians who didn’t have a clue why a hacker would be sending a signal from their house. We think that he’s just hacking the locations of random houses and attaching them to decoy signals, but we still have to check them out just in case.”

“That doesn’t mean that we don’t take each signal seriously though,” Peter interjected, “We’ll be around for the next few days watching for signs of anything suspicious.

Elsie pretended to frown, “Well I’m heading out of town tomorrow so let me know if you find anything. I would hate to come back to my house being taken over by a hacker.”

Both agents looked surprised at that, “Are you going on vacation?”

“I know it’s sudden,” she admitted, “But my friend who I was with after work convinced me that I should get out of this town for a while, to get away from everything for a while. I agreed because,” she gestured vaguely at the driveway, “I’m sure you saw what went down out there.”

Understanding flickered on their faces and both agents reassured her that they understood and would make sure to let her know if they saw anything. They then went out to their car and drove down the street, leaving Elsie alone in her house again.

She waited another half hour before risking going back to her setup and retrieving her hidden programs. The FBI chat had a few notifications about the signal from Elsie’s house, but nothing about her specifically. It seemed that the FBI still thought she was dead. She’d worked herself into a panic for nothing. Well, not nothing since the FBI had just sort of raided her house, but she wasn’t in direct danger anymore. 

The hacker’s program was still broken, but with her setup, Elsie could fix it this time. She was slightly concerned that the hacker hadn’t fixed it himself. Maybe he’d been busy with other things? It didn’t matter in the end because Elsie found the issue; a file in Hannah’s cloud had corrupted when the program tried to grab it, which in turn screwed up a few lines of code in the program. She patched up those lines, hoping that the hacker wouldn’t notice that she’d tweaked his code, and it instantly spat out two new pictures.

The first was of a bridge in the woods. The date that came with its metadata indicated that Hannah had taken it about a month before her disappearance. Elsie wondered if it was just a coincidence or if Hannah’s disappearance had something to do with the woods. The second picture was of a cat. It was cute but Elsie couldn’t see it being in any way helpful unless Hannah had magically turned into a cat. She did end up sending both pictures to the hacker, getting a kick out of imagining his confusion at being sent a cat picture. 

No one else from the group had messaged her, so with nothing else to deal with at the moment Elsie began packing for her trip. The clothes and toiletries were easy, she just packed several sets of comfy clothing, a swimsuit, and two more formal outfits in case she wanted to treat herself. 

Honestly, she didn’t even know where she wanted to go. She probably should’ve figured that out before she started packing. Maybe she could just drive around until she found a place that caught her attention. Yeah, Elsie thought, that could work.

With that settled, Elsie turned to the more challenging aspect of packing: finding out how to take her setup with her. She would be taking her laptop and all its accessories with her, but other than that she was a bit lost on what she should take. Bringing the monitors felt excessive, not to mention a pain in the ass to transport. She recalled that she had a charging block somewhere in her electronics box, that would probably be useful. The problem was she had to find it in the abyss of the box.

After nearly getting tangled in the wire monster lurking in the box Elsie decided to just dump the box onto the floor. Maybe she could do some wire management while everything was already out. The charging block was easy to grab since it had no wires to trap it with the other devices, but its charging cord was somewhere in that mess. This was going to take a while.

Elsie was finally unraveling a particularly nasty knot of wires when the phone began to vibrate with messages. She debated ignoring it but ended up dropping the wires to grab the phone, hoping that the wires wouldn’t reknot themselves. Maybe she could work on making a program that would allow her to read and respond to texts by voice like she did in the car. She paused, that wasn’t a terrible idea. It wouldn’t even be that hard to code if she could get her hands on a copy of the code that ran the voice controls in her car.

But that was a problem for later, for now, there were several texts from the secretive hacker.

???: Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier.

I see you managed to get the program working again.

Are these discoveries number 2 and 3?

Vivienne: Yep, fresh off the hacker press

???: Hm.

I will try to extract useful information from these pictures.

Vivienne: You seem to know what you're doing

Elsie wasn’t sure if she believed that, considering the fact that the hacker hadn’t done anything but give her a program that pulled mostly useless pictures from Hannah’s cloud. Still, it made her oddly happy to be working on a hacking project with someone else after so long. If she ignored his stiff language Elsie could almost pretend she was chatting with her friends, joking with Yaris while they helped Mythron (or MJ as they called him) troubleshoot code like they used to do.

???: Give me some time.

One more thing.

I have a lead for you.

ID 47013

Well, shit. Maybe she’d been wrong. The hacker had found something useful.

???: The police are currently focused on Thomas, Hannah's boyfriend. You should focus on someone else.

Vivienne: Do you want me to call this number?

???: No.

Add it as a contact.

Yeah, that made more sense. Elsie exited the chat and typed the number in, watching as it created a new chat and auto-filled the name from her contacts: Dan. Well, that was strange. Why had the hacker brought her Dan’s number?

Dan’s status indicated that he was online, but he must not have noticed the new chat yet. Elsie returned to the wires while she waited, happy to find that the wires hadn’t tangled up in her absence. Since she doubted it would be that long before Dan replied she brought the phone down to the ground with her, setting it by her side as she worked.

Dan: Oh no

No no no

Elsie frowned, that was an unusual response.

Vivienne: What, not happy to see me?

Dan: Who sent you after me?

Vivienne: Who says anyone sent me? 

I do have your contact from the group chat

Dan: Well

Fuck it

I don't care

Screw that

And you leave me alone

Well, that was a short conversation. Elsie frowned at the indicator that still said Dan was online, apparently he was just done talking to her. Actually, it seemed like he would’ve preferred to not talk to her at all, and what was it with him assuming that someone had sent her? It was true, but who jumped to that conclusion first? What was it with the people in this group acting weird? First Jessy with her wanting to know if Elsie found her suspicious and now Dan with his aversion to talking to her at all.

The phone pinged again. Elsie looked over to see the spy chat between Dan and Jessy activate. He was telling her about Elsie adding him. Jessy wasn’t sympathetic and told him to stop acting like a suspect. Now that was interesting. On the first day after the group chat, Jessy had scolded Dan for the way he acted, now it seemed like she was doubling down on that. The two had a weird dynamic, they argued every time they chatted, and yet Jessy was still the first person Dan went to. Elsie wanted to know why.

She thought it over while she finished sorting through her electronics box. The two technically hadn’t done anything truly suspicious, they were just acting a bit weird, or in Dan’s case, rude. If she compared their behavior to that of the others in the group it didn’t even look that strange. Everyone in the group seemed to have some kind of quirk: Thomas was skittish, Cleo was overly suspicious of Elsie, Richy was weirdly friendly, Jessy was too cheerful, Dan was brash, and Lilly was so aloof that Elsie hadn’t even talked to her yet. Overall, they were the most bizarre group of individuals she’d ever met.

Nevertheless, she’d decided to stick around and help so she might as well get used to it now. It wasn’t like she didn’t have her own flaws as well.

When the electronics were organized and packed back into the box, Elsie settled back at her desk, firing up her breaching program to hack into a car manufacturer’s system to get a copy of the code that would let her use voice controls on her phone. There were apps that would allow her to do roughly the same thing, but if she used those she’d have to give a random app a significant amount of permissions on a phone she used to use solely for hacking business. She didn’t want to do that and making her own wouldn’t take long.

Truthfully, she could probably code one from scratch. It would be bulky and full of bugs, but she could do it, there was just no reason to do that when she could just steal ready-made code and edit it for her needs. It wasn’t like she was going to be trying to patent it or anything. Plus, she was lazy.

Elsie had just started editing the code when the phone began to ring. She swore and grabbed it, glaring at the contact name on the screen: Unknown. She frowned, Unknown? Had someone else managed to get her number? Elsie already had the contacts of everyone in the group, their name should’ve shown up if one of them was calling. 

Against her better judgment, she answered. The voice that crackled out reminded her of the hacker’s voice changer, all distorted and reverberating. However, unlike the hacker, this person had a sinister undertone that made Elsie’s skin crawl slightly. 

“Are you scared?” the voice asked.

Elsie flicked on her voice changer, “Not really. Who are you?”

Unknown was silent for a moment, just breathing loudly into the call. “I know where you are. I can see you.”

“Sure you can,” Elsie said mockingly even as she plugged the phone in so her programs could check that no one was accessing her location. She’d track where Unknown’s signal was coming from, but she doubted they’d stay on the line long enough for her to do that.

“Do you want me to get you? I can make you disappear,” that made Elsie pause. Disappear. Like Hannah had. Could this Unknown have something to do with Hannah’s disappearance?

“What do you mean?” she didn’t mean for it to come out so worried. She didn’t want this Unknown thinking that they could intimidate her.

A low, threatening chuckle came from the phone, “You should stay out of people’s affairs Vivienne.”

The call ended. 

Elsie sat for a moment, slightly shaken. Her scan had indicated that her location was still secure, but the fact that Unknown had been able to get her number didn’t sit well with her. Nor did the fact that they were trying to get her to step back from Hannah’s case. Or at least she assumed that they meant Hannah’s case. Everything was pointing at the fact that Hannah had gotten mixed up in something bad, normal missing person cases didn’t tend to come with creepy phone calls warning you away from searching for the victim. 

She glanced at the list of chats in the messenger, her eyes catching on the green status indicator next to the hacker’s profile. Elsie’s eyes narrowed. What were the chances that two people connected to the same case used similar voice changers and had access to information they shouldn’t have?

Vivienne: Hey are you there?

???: Yes.

Did you find anything out?

Vivienne: No, I just saw that you were on

What are you up to?

She hoped the question was vague enough to not raise his suspicions. If she was careful she might be able to get him to slip up and reveal some information that might tell her if he was Unknown.

???: I am gathering information from the pictures you sent earlier.

Vivienne: Oh ok

Well, if you’re already here could you answer a question for me?

???: That depends on what the question is.

Vivienne: What kind of voice changer are you using?

There was a long pause. Elsie worried that she’d been too obvious. She’d never had to interrogate anyone before, usually, she just hacked the information out of their devices, it was easier than having to talk to them.

???: I have a modified version of a voice changer program that you can find online.

Why are you asking?

Vivienne: Just bored

How common would you say that program is and how easy would it be to make the voice sound different?

???: That is oddly specific.

Why are you really asking?

Vivienne: I was just curious, I promise

She should’ve known the last question was too direct. She should’ve taken longer to get to the point, distracted him with other casual questions. Hopefully, he’d accept her excuse.

Minutes passed. The hacker stayed online but didn’t respond. 

Elsie groaned. She’d have to just tell him because it seemed like he wasn’t going to answer unless she told him the truth. If he was Unknown, he was playing off pretty damn well.

Vivienne: Some idiot called and threatened me with a voice changer on

???: Threatened you?

Vivienne.

That was probably the kidnapper.

Vivienne: That’s what I figured

Also why I was trying to get you to tell me about your voice changer

???: I see.

What did he say?

Vivienne: That I should stay out of other people's affairs

???: And what did he sound like?

Vivienne: Like your voice changer, but slightly different, kind of like Darth Vader if you know who that is

???: Hm.

Vivienne: Now what?

???: Now we'll go on as before.

This is a very positive incident.

Positive was not the word Elsie would’ve used. Then again, she didn’t know what the hell was going on in this hacker’s brain.

Vivienne: Not exactly sure how this is a good thing

Unless you can track him from that call?

???: No.

He’s afraid of you.

Vivienne: He's afraid of me?

???: Exactly.

He felt threatened enough by your involvement that he called you to scare you away.

That tells us that he is vulnerable. 

This is a great opportunity for us.

Vivienne: I hope you’re right

???: We are hard on his heels.

Again, Elsie wouldn’t say that either, but the hacker was surprisingly optimistic. She did agree with his assessment that the kidnapper was scared of her, or rather what she could do, although that raised more than a few questions. Why did the kidnapper feel so threatened? As far as she knew no one involved in the case, including the hacker and the kidnapper, knew that she was a hacker so it couldn’t be that. But outside of that, she had yet to find out anything about the case or make any useful discoveries that would have made the kidnapper feel like she could solve the case. It didn’t make any sense.

In the chat, the hacker was still typing away.

???: You can't trust anyone in this group.

Not a single one.

Vivienne: Do you already suspect someone?

???: Yes.

Interesting. If Elsie had to guess who she thought the kidnapper was out of the group at the moment she would probably say, Dan or Lilly. Dan because he was trying so hard to get her to leave him alone and because he definitely would think that a scary voice changer would get people to leave the case alone. Lilly because she was practically avoiding Elsie so she had nothing to go off of to make a judgement on her character.

???: But I don't want to influence you too much. 

That's why I wouldn't ask you to tell me your suspicion if you already had one.

We need to be careful with any accusations at this stage. 

You have done very well so far. 

I was right about you.

We're gonna save Hannah!

That little exclamation point shouldn’t have fascinated her so much, but Elsie couldn’t help but stare at it. The hacker ended his sentences with a period or question mark every time, which was weird on its own, but an exclamation felt wildly out of character. It made her think that Hannah meant a lot more to the hacker than she’d originally thought. She wondered, not for the first time, why the hacker was helping.

Elsie was already in bed scrolling through her actual phone when the other phone began to ring. She rolled over and grabbed it, wincing when she put too much pressure on the bandage on her side. To her surprise, the caller ID was Jessy’s and it was a video call request. Elsie cursed herself for not disabling the camera on the phone and instead had to settle for just turning it off in the app when she answered.

“Hi, Vi,” Jessy’s face appeared on the screen. She seemed to be sitting on a couch and Elsie could hear a TV playing in the background. Elsie frowned when she realized Jessy looked worried, “I hope I’m not disturbing you, but I have some news.”

“Wha—” Elsie suddenly remembered to turn on her voice changer, “What’s going on?”

Jessy’s eyes looked slightly shiny like she’d been trying not to cry, “I was watching the news and the police said they found a body.”

“Oh shit,” Elsie gasped, “Is it…?” She didn’t finish the question, but she was sure Jessy knew what she meant.

Jessy sniffled, “I don’t know. They didn’t release much information. All I know is that it’s female. I already told the others, and they said they were gonna set up another chat. I…We should probably go join them.”

“Ok,” Elsie said simply and Jessy hung up.

There was already a new group chat in her list and an active call in progress. Elsie took a deep breath, checked that her voice changer was still on, and tapped to join it. 

She was instantly greeted by a cacophony of voices. Everyone seemed to be trying to discuss what was going on while talking over each other for some reason. A headache started to throb in the back of Elsie’s head at the constant noise. Jessy kept trying to talk but was getting drowned out by the others arguing over what they should do.

Elsie had had enough, “Fucking shut up already!” she yelled into the microphone of her phone. The call fell silent.

“Well damn,” Dan said, “You’re still hanging around?”

“Shut up Dan,” Cleo said tiredly.

“Jessy?” Elsie prompted, “You had news?”

Jessy nodded, “Right. So a body’s been found, they just announced it on the news. It’s female and was found somewhere in the woods, but they didn’t say anything about hair color or anything like that. I’ve already told everyone here the news…I couldn’t bring myself to tell Lilly or Thomas though…”

“That’s completely understandable,” Richy reassured, “You already did so much by telling us.”

Cleo’s face contorted slightly at that, “Was the least she could do, considering—”

“Considering what?” Jessy demanded, a tinge of anger bleeding into her voice.

“I’m just saying, it’s not like you’ve been doing much to find Hannah, unlike the rest of us.”

“Cleo her approach is just different from yours,” Richy defended.

Jessy’s eyes narrowed, “Yeah? And just what have you done to help?”

Cleo’s cheeks flared red, “More than you, Miss ‘We shouldn’t get involved’”

“Hey, hey, can we all calm down?” Richy tried to interject again. Neither Jessy nor Cleo seemed to have heard him.

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Jessy retorted, “You’re just doing random things and saying that it’s for Hannh!”

Cleo scoffed, “Better than going about my daily life pretending that my friend isn’t—”

“Enough. Both of you,” Elsie said loudly, to her surprise they listened, “You can scream at each other on your own time. We’re here for a reason, we need to tell Lilly and Thomas.”

“Hold up,” Dan said, “Might I remind you that this body might not even be Hannah?”

The phone buzzed and several notifications plastered themselves across the top of Elsie’s screen. She scanned through the messages, all of them were from Jessy. She was complaining about the way Cleo acted. Elsie did her best to soothe Jessy’s ruffled feathers, not wanting anyone to be more upset. It clearly wasn’t working because Richy and Dan had started their own little feud.

Richy rolled his eyes, “We know that Dan, we didn’t need the reminder, but thanks for giving it anyway.”

Dan flipped the camera off in response

“Still,” Richy continued, “They shouldn’t find out from random people in town instead of one of us. Imagine if Sully told them.”

Dan sighed, “I hate to say it, but Richy has a point there.”

“Exa—Wait, was that an insult?”

Elsie tamped down the urge to just hang up, “Guys, focus. Who’s gonna tell Lilly and who’s telling Thomas?”

“I’m going to tell Lilly,” Cleo declared.

Richy looked surprised, “Are you sure?”

Cleo nodded, “Of course. I’ll be back.” Then she dropped out of the call, off to go tell Lilly the news.

“What about Thomas?” Jessy asked as soon as Cleo was gone. 

The call went oddly quiet, suddenly no one was looking into their cameras anymore. Elsie sat in stunned silence. She could understand that none of them wanted to be the one to deliver such potentially bad news, but Thomas was their friend, not only that, but he was Hannah’s boyfriend too. Someone had to volunteer to tell him, right?

Nearly a minute later Elsie realized that, no, no one was going to volunteer. If she let this go on they would just wait until Cleo came back and make her go tell Thomas too. Elsie didn’t want to put that kind of burden on her, but the only other option was…herself.

“I’ll do it,” she said before she could do the rational thing and talk herself out of it.

The call returned to life instantly.

“Really?” Jessy was badly hiding a relieved expression, “You would do that for us?”

Elsie nodded before remembering that they couldn’t see her, “Well, it didn’t seem like any of you were about to man up and do it.”

“Well,” Richy looked conflicted, “That’s incredibly nice of you Vi. We owe you, thank you.”

“Definitely,” Jessy agreed, “Let us know when you’ve told him, and I’ll add him to the chat.”

Elsie left the call already cursing herself for saying that she would do it. The group had been going on about not wanting Thomas to be told by anyone other than one of them, but here she was because knowing a man for a day was apparently long enough to tell him about a dead body that might or might not be his girlfriend. In short, it was a fucked up situation.

She opened his chat and hesitated. Technically she didn’t have to call him, she could just text him. Then again, people always said you shouldn’t break up over text, the same probably applied to this. Elsie loosed one final chain of curses into the darkness of her bedroom and hit the voice call button.

Thomas picked up after a few rings, sounding somewhat confused, “Vi?”

“Hey,” she began, “Do you have a minute? I have some news.”

“I was playing World of Warcraft, but that can wait,” he laughed, “What’s going on?”

There was no easy way for her to do this so Elsie just went for it, “The police found a body, they’re saying it's female, but nothing else has been revealed. Thomas, listen, we don’t know if it’s Hannah, ok? There’s a good chance that it isn’t her.” 

That was a slight lie, but she didn’t want to distress Thomas any more than she already had. He was silent on the other end of the call, she could just barely hear his too-fast breaths. She couldn’t imagine the anguish he was going through.

“Thomas,” she ventured, “I’m here for you, so is everyone else if you need someone to talk to. We have a chat if you want to—” 

The sudden lack of sound from her phone made Elsie pause. She pulled it away from her ear and found that Thomas had hung up. She bit her lip, that didn’t seem like a good thing. She called him again, waiting and hoping that he’d answer. She got sent to voicemail instead. Elsie sent him a few texts reminding him that everyone understood if he needed time to process on his own.

Then with nothing left that she could do Elsie returned to the group chat and rejoined the call. She was instantly greeted with questions.

“How’d it go?” Richy asked, “Did you tell him?”

Elsie sighed, “I told him. I think he needs some time to himself to just figure himself out.”

Richy grimaced, “That sounds like Thomas. What did he say?”

“Nothing really,” she admitted, “He got a little panicky and then hung up. He hasn’t responded to my texts yet and wouldn’t answer my call.”

“Oh no,” Jessy said sadly, “Poor Thomas.”

“Poor Thomas?” Dan repeated skeptically, “That whole thing stinks to high heaven!”

“What are you talking about?” Jessy asked, looking concerned.

Dan leaned closer to his phone, “You can’t tell me that you don’t think his reaction was suspicious?”

“Dan,” Richy said warningly, “Please don’t start making more messes now.”

“Really?” Dan demanded, “I refuse to believe that you people are that blind or stupid. A body gets found and the missing girl’s boyfriend goes offline the minute he hears about it. Does no one else find that insanely suspicious?”

He paused and when no one said anything he kept going, “Great, so none of you seem to care either. Vi, you were the last one to talk to him, what do you think?”

Elsie grimaced, she didn’t know Thomas well enough to read him from just his voice alone. Any analysis of his behavior she could give would probably be wildly inaccurate.

“I don’t think I was the right person to tell him,” she admitted, “It probably would’ve been better for him to hear from one of you guys and I’ve only known him for a little over a day, I don’t know what’s weird behavior for him.”

She could see Dan rolling his eyes, “Damn that was pointless, I don’t even know why I asked for your opinion.”

“So,” Richy cut in awkwardly, “What should we do now?”

“There’s nothing we can do is there?” Elsie asked.

“Mhm, that’s true,” Jessy murmured, “I guess we just have to wait for Cleo and Lilly to come back.” With that, they all hesitantly said goodbye and left the call. 

Elsie was left lying alone in her dark room. She hadn’t been in the right state of mind to notice last night but the bed felt empty without Caiden lying beside her. She used to think that it would be weird and crowded to share a bed with someone else. Now she was struggling to readjust to having the bed to herself. She kept stretching out her limbs, expecting to hit another body and finding cool bedsheets instead. Elsie had no idea how she was going to manage to fall asleep.

But that was a problem for later. She had to stay awake now to keep up with everything going on with the Duskwood group. Maybe she could go on vacation somewhere in the same time zone so she wasn’t staying up late to keep talking to them; not that it was unreasonably late yet, only 11:17.

Suddenly, she got an idea. The voice control program she’d installed on the phone earlier was currently using the default voice to read out texts, she had just been on a call with most of the group and now had access to their voices. She could change the program to read the texts in the voice of the person they came from. It was easy enough to do; Elsie just had to get a copy of the call and extract voice samples from everyone there and grab Thomas from his call as well.

Her laptop was packed in its bag, ready for tomorrow, but it took Elsie less than a minute to hop out of bed and grab it. She plugged the phone into it and pulled up the program, ready to add some questionable modifications.

She was halfway through before Elsie paused to consider the fact that this might be considered creepy, for both her and the people whose voices she used. She debated for a bit before deciding to continue, she could always turn it off and delete that code if she found it creepy. Plus, it wasn’t like she was ever going to meet the Duskwood group so it didn’t matter if they thought it was creepy. So she kept going.

The hacker gave her the most trouble. When she went to retrieve a copy of his first call to her Elsie found that it had vanished from his profile where the messenger should’ve autosaved it. He must’ve deleted it or hidden it somehow. It looked like she was going to get a chance to stretch her hacking muscles today after all.

She had just finished tweaking the text reading function and was testing the program’s accuracy with picking up her voice when the hacker’s voice suddenly crackled through the phone’s speakers.

???: I have news.

A dead body has been found.

Elsie jumped so hard that she nearly dropped her laptop off the bed. She swore loudly and then swore again when the voice controls sent that as a message. She needed to fix that.

Vivienne: Fucking shit!

Damn it, stupid thing

Sorry

Speech-to-text turned on for some reason

Do you mean the one from the news or was there another one found?

The little dots that indicated the hacker was typing appeared, then paused, came back, and disappeared. Elsie blinked, wondering why he’d taken back whatever he was going to say.

Vivienne: What were you about to write?

???: That I am impressed.

You seem to be part of the group already.

Vivienne: Yeah, I feel the same way 

Elsie was surprised to find that she meant what she wrote. She’d only known the group for nearly two days but for some reason, she did feel like she belonged with them. The group sure as hell seemed to have forgotten that she was an outsider with the way they pawned telling Thomas off to her. But it was in the other things too, the way Jessy chatted with her like an old friend, how Dan didn’t bother hiding his personality behind politeness, and how none of them questioned why Jessy had told her when she joined their group call.

???: Who told you about the body?

Vivienne: Jessy, she called me and then we had a call with the others

???: Ok.

That's very good. You should keep her close.

Vivienne: Got it

That made her slightly uncomfortable. Elsie didn’t like the way he was implying that she should use Jessy as just a source of information. It made her feel like she was manipulating Jessy into being her friend, which she wasn’t doing,

???: One more thing.

About the last picture you sent me.

Did you get it from Hannah's cloud?

Vivienne: Yes, of course

Why would I send you a random picture of a cat?

Is there something wrong with it?

???: Nevermind. Everything is fine. 

Elsie nearly muttered “bullshit” before remembering the voice controls. Yeah, everything was totally fine because that was how totally fine people responded to being asked what was wrong. Nothing suspicious going on at all. Honestly, she wasn’t sure if the hacker was just bad at hiding his emotions through text or if she was just good at reading hackers. It could be a mix of both, who knew, not Elsie that was for sure.

The hacker’s decryption program spat a notification at her as Elsie checked the group chat for updates. She opened the program to find that it had found another picture, this one of what looked like a piece of paper with some kind of grid on it. It didn’t look like a casual photo and the date it was taken on placed it within a month of Hannah’s disappearance. On closer inspection, she found that it looked a bit like a prescription but she could be wrong, the thing was so blurry that the lines of the grid didn’t even look straight. Maybe the hacker could fix that. She popped back over to the hacker’s chat, hoping he was still online.

Vivienne: Hey, check this out, your program just found it

She sent the photo and the typing dots were instantly back on the screen. It seemed that the hacker hadn’t gone offline quite yet. Elsie wondered what he’d been doing in the app. He didn’t seem like the type of person to have a large group of friends that he talked to and if it was hacker business Elsie doubted it would be happening in this messenger app.

???: What's this?

Vivienne: A...prescription?

I think?

???: Mmh. The resolution is awful.

Vivienne: You can say that again

???: I can fix that. 

Give me a little time.

With that, he was off, but Elsie didn’t even have time to think of doing anything else before Jessy’s voice came from the phone. This time she didn’t have a mini heart attack at the sudden voice. She did notice that it was a bit robotic, a quality she hadn’t heard with the hacker since his voice was already modulated to hell and back.

Jessy: I have to tell you something else

Vivienne: I’m listening

Jessy: Arguing with Cleo in the call earlier reminded me that I saw Cleo sneaking around the junkyard yesterday

Technically, it was close to breaking in

Vivienne: Seriously?

Was everyone in the group trying to make themselves look more suspicious? At this point, Elsie had more evidence of how shady the group was than leads on where Hannah was. The hacker’s words from earlier came back to her: You can’t trust anyone in this group. Could someone in the group really have been responsible for Hannah’s disappearance?

Jessy: Yes

Crazy, right?

😩

Vivienne: Do you have any idea why she did that?

Jessy: I’m not sure. 

But I went right outside to confront her

So she acted like she came to see me

Vivienne: Did you tell Richy?

Jessy: No not yet

I was just about to do that but somehow I felt like I wanted to tell you first 🤷♀️

Elsie felt strangely flattered by that, even if Jessy should’ve told Richy first since Cleo had trespassed on his property. She knew Jessy and Richy had to be close to each other, the very fact that they worked together was a testament to that, but Jessy had for some reason decided to tell her first. Maybe the hacker was onto something after all.

Jessy: Mmmmhh

Maybe you can get her to tell Richy...

Vivienne: But I don't know her that well

Why would she listen to me?

Jessy: That's exactly why I suggested it

She’d sort of see you as an unbiased third-party

😐

From her experience with similar things, Elsie was doubtful that this would work. She’d barely even talked to Cleo since the first chat. Sure she had her contact and a chat with her, but neither of them had used it after Cleo added her. Jessy would probably have a better shot at getting Cleo to tell Richy than Elsie did, but just like earlier with the Thomas situation, Elsie could tell that Jessy didn’t want to be the one to do it.

Vivienne: She’s still going to know that I heard it from you

Jessy: That's true. But I think that's the best way to deal with this nevertheless

My relationship with CLeo is a little tense right now 🙄

Vivienne: I noticed that

Jessy: But Richy has to know, I have to make sure he finds out

I want to get to the bottom of it without ratting her out. 

Do you understand?

Elsie didn’t understand why Jessy didn’t just tell Richy. They were all friends, right? So Richy probably wouldn’t be that mad at Cleo. It made no sense that Jessy wanted to keep this all secretive and down low. But Elsie did technically need a reason to talk to Cleo more so she didn’t mind that much.

Vivienne: Alright, I’ll try

Jessy: Thanks! 🙂💫

It was long past midnight now and Elsie could feel exhaustion starting to weigh her down. She needed to rest if she wanted to heal. Plus she wanted to get an early start tomorrow, she was thinking of going somewhere more tropical and the nearest beaches were several hours away. On the other hand, Cleo still hadn’t updated the chat and she wanted to know what had happened with Cleo and Lilly.

In the end, she decided to turn the notification volume all the way up on the phone and go to sleep. If Cleo came back and the group started chatting the sound would hopefully wake her up. Then she shut her eyes and tried to go to sleep, but her mind was far too active despite her body’s cries for rest. She tossed and turned for what felt like an eternity before sleep took her into its warm embrace.

When Cleo and Lilly messaged the chat at 3 am she merely rolled over with a sleepy mumble.

Chapter Text

Elsie was four hours into her road trip when her stomach convinced her to stop for a break. She followed a handful of signs off the highway and pulled into the deserted parking lot of what looked like a small family-owned restaurant. The sign on the door indicated that it was open despite the emptiness Elsie saw around her so she pulled the door open and walked in.

The teenager sitting at the counter’s head jerked up and he dropped the pencil he was holding, startled by the bell on the door. “Hi! Um, hold on a sec,” he grabbed the notebook he’d been writing in and vanished behind the counter, “Uh, you can sit wherever you’d like. We’re not really busy right now, so there’s… lots of options.”

Elsie sat at a table near the doors and hid a smile as she watched the poor kid scramble to grab everything he needed from various stations around the store. Her gaze drifted from him to scan the rest of the restaurant. It was decorated in an older style, the walls covered in framed pictures and news clippings and the faded wallpaper was peeling in the corners, but it felt just the right amount of cozy to put her at ease. The table she sat at was made of varnished wood, chipped and scratched from years of use. A small vase in the center held a handful of fake flowers arranged neatly into a tiny bouquet. 

“I’m James, I’ll be your server today,” the boy was back, shifting from foot to foot a few feet away from the end of the table, his eyes flicked to the bandages on her neck and then back to her face, “Would you like to get started with a drink or are you ready to order?” he paused, “Oh, shoot, here,” he handed her a the menu he’d been holding, red rising on his cheeks, “Um, yeah, just uh look through that for a moment and I’ll be back with your…”

“I’ll have water with ice,” Elsie filled in, offering him a reassuring smile. James nodded and practically ran for the drink dispensers. 

Elsie smothered a chuckle. For a moment she could see her younger self in the boy, all hesitant smiles and fumbling hands, with Mila teasing her every time she wobbled by trying to balance a tray of drinks. The nervousness would fade in time, she was sure of that.

It wasn’t long before James returned with her water and a visibly soggy straw pressed against the condensation of the glass. Elsie took both without complaint and ordered a sandwich with fries. James scribbled it down on his notepad, confirming the order with her several times before darting back to where she assumed the kitchen or order station was. She went to the bathroom she had spotted after he left, washing her hands and taking care of business before her food arrived. 

When she returned to the dining room Elsie was surprised to find it just as empty as before. A quick check of her phone told her that it was nearing noon. The Traveler’s Hearth was usually packed to the gills with customers by now. This emptiness felt almost eerie, but when she asked James about it he seemed entirely unconcerned.

“We usually get busy around dinnertime,” he explained, “Families in town like to come here and eat together…like as a community, you know? Plus, there’s a ton of fast food places around here and people always choose to get lunch from them. We rarely get any customers at lunchtime, which was uh why I was so surprised when you came in. Sorry about that by the way.” 

Elsie smiled, “You’re fine, you did great.” A small smile spread across James’s face, “I would know, I’m a waitress too,” she added, “back home, I mean.”

“Really?” James asked, “I mean, that makes sense, most people aren’t so understanding when I get like I was earlier.” He paused, hesitating, “It’s why this is usually my sister’s job. I’m not great with…” he made a vague gesture, “people, in general.”

“You weren’t that bad,” Elsie reassured, “I’ve seen some pretty horrible servers in my time.” James’s eyes lit up at that and Elsie laughed as she launched into the story of a girl named Becca who’d worked at the Traveler’s Hearth for a singular month. She’d been a horrid server, always forgetting her tables, mixing up food, and being overly friendly with any customers unfortunate enough to be deemed attractive by her. Her time at the restaurant ended when one of their regulars filed a restraining order because apparently, she’d started following him home when he’d requested a different server.

By the time she finished that story, James had lost most of the nervousness he’d been showing earlier and shared a few memories of the hijinks that had happened to him and his family while they ran the restaurant. They chatted while Elsie ate her lunch and his mother even made her way out from the kitchen when she heard their laughter. Somehow the conversation led to Elsie admitting that she was on a road trip with no destination in mind and, suddenly Liz, James’s mother, was showing her vacation pictures from years ago.

“If you don’t mind a bit more driving you could go to Atinaska,” Liz suggested, “It’s a beautiful city and it’ll still be warm enough there for you to visit the beaches and piers if you’d like.” When Elsie mentioned that she was looking for something more secluded to relax Liz only smiled, “There are private beaches all along the coast, they’re not too expensive either. We rented  some houses out there a couple years back for my parents’ 30th anniversary.”

Elsie grinned, “That sounds perfect.” 

She left nearly an hour later with a smile on her face and a list of fun places to visit in Atinaska tucked away in her bag. Her car was still the only one in the parking lot other than Liz’s and Elsie waved to James and Liz as she pulled out, already making a mental note to visit when her vacation was over.

The address of the rental office Liz gave her was already in Elsie’s navigation system and the robotic voice cheerfully directed her back to the highway. She linked her phone back to her car and started blasting her playlist, losing herself in the music. 

Then her other phone chimed and Jessy’s robotic voice started speaking.

Jessy: Richy?

I have to tell you something 

Cleo was here the other day, I think she was trying to break in😔

I wanted Cleo to tell you herself, but I don’t think Vi was able to convince her, and I wanted to make sure that you were told

Elsie frowned. She’d told Cleo to tell Richy a few hours ago when the other woman had texted her and Cleo had seemed sincere when she’d said that she would tell Richy. Had she gone back on her word? Or maybe she had forgotten, Cleo did say that she was going to interview a couple of people around Duskwood for information. 

Richy: You told Vi about this first?

Jessy: Yeah, I did

Why?

Richy: I was just wondering

Jessy: I wanted to give Cleo a chance and Vi seemed like a good mediator since Cleo and I aren’t on the best terms right now

Richy: You should be more careful

We haven’t known Vi for that long

So Richy did think of her as a potential threat, yet he’d been the first to ask her to stay and help. Elsie didn’t know what to think of that. 

Jessy: Are you worried about me again 😝

Richy: Maybe 😳

Jessy: Vi and I just had such a great connection right away 🙂

That…was oddly true Elsie realized. Jessy hadn’t acted even slightly concerned about who Elsie was or why she was involved when everyone else in the group expressed some level of skepticism. Even more surprisingly Elsie realized that it hadn’t taken very long for her to stop thinking of Jessy as a suspect either. 

Jessy: Are you ok?

Richy: There’s something I have to tell you about Vi

Jessy: Huh?

What is it?

Richy: Hold on, I’ll stop by the office real quick and tell you in person

Jessy: Ok

Both went silent and Elsie was left alone with her music again. What could Richy be telling Jessy? It was doubtful that he knew anything substantial, the profile she was using didn’t even have a last name or picture attached. There was no way Richy could’ve found out anything from her first name alone.

The phone chimed again, but instead of Richy or Jessy’s voice, the modified crackles of the hacker’s voice filled the air.

???: How annoying

Vivienne: I should have known

She had known or rather assumed he was reading everyone’s conversations, but having confirmation was different. 

???: You never know where you can find the next piece of the puzzle

Vivienne: So you always read other people’s texts?

???: Only the ones with interesting conversations

Are you judging me right now?

Vivienne: No

It wasn’t like she had any room to judge him. She had quite literally been doing the same thing, and sure he’d been the one to give her access but she couldn’t honestly say that she wouldn’t have done the same thing in his position.

???: What do you think Richy is telling Jessy about you right now?

Vivienne: I don’t even know

???: Really? Not even an inkling?

Vivienne: He doesn’t know anything about me

???: That is strange.

It sounded like he wanted to tell her why he doesn’t trust you.

Vivienne: Don’t trust anyone, your words not mine

Do you trust me?

Elsie grimaced as soon as the words left her mouth. She didn’t have to send the message; she’d tweaked her speech to text to not send messages until she’d paused for a few seconds, but she was curious. She half expected him to instantly go offline or ask why she was asking, but he responded within a few seconds.

???: Would I have given you access to Hannah’s cloud if I didn’t?

Vivienne: But you don’t know me like that

???: Maybe Jessy isn’t the only person who felt an immediate connection to you.

Vivienne: Is that a compliment?

?: It is.

He paused after that, long enough that Elsie started to wonder if he’d gone offline. But when she glanced down at the phone she saw the little ellipses dancing on the screen as if he was writing and erasing a message. 

???: I will talk to you later, Vivienne.

A smile quirked across her lips at that. It seemed like she’d scared him off again. Elsie couldn’t help but think of the cat her roommate back in college had adopted off the street. The thing had loved curling up on the couch next to her, but the minute she acknowledged its presence it would hiss and bolt. The mental image of the hacker as a hissing cat, all bristled fur and bared teeth, made her snicker. 

She’d always had a soft spot for strays, animal or otherwise. Her sister had helped her rehome more than a few creatures that she had snuck back to their parents’ house when they were younger, but when Elsie had moved in with her and her husband, Nina had strictly forbidden her from bringing home random animals. She couldn’t blame her sister, they had just had a baby and she wouldn’t have expected them to want the kid exposed to all the diseases strays tended to carry. 

Elsie wondered how they were. She hadn’t seen any of them since she’d last gone home for the holidays her last year of college. Dani had been just barely four, clumsy and cheerful, dragging Elsie around the house to read her stories or play games. Nina and Mathias had always joked that the girl loved Elsie more than she loved them.

A sudden wave of guilt washed over her. 

Elsie had never told them about her hacking or the trouble she got into with the FBI. She never intended to get them involved so she didn’t tell them about having to abandon her apartment, didn’t tell them about the terror-filled nights when she and Yaris had sheltered together in that warehouse, didn’t tell them about how she’d nearly died to a fucking firebomb launched by the FBI. She just bought a burner phone and kept lying, telling them that everything was fine and she was doing well. 

They hadn’t known anything was wrong until they were called to identify her body. 

It hadn’t been her body, but the girl she’d used looked similar enough. Or at least the still-recognizable parts had been. She’d been lucky, she knew that much. Not everyone could manage to stumble upon a body to help them fake their death. Yaris sure as hell hadn’t.

Elsie had hacked into the security camera of the station the police took the body to. She had watched as they took her laptop from the girl’s backpack, had seen the flurry of activity when they’d realized whose computer it was. The FBI arrived not long after, a squadron of agents who had taken the evidence without bothering to check the body. 

One of them had said, “Two down, one to go,” as they walked out and Elsie had almost thrown up on the carpet of the library she’d broken into because it made her think of the warehouse and flames curling into the night sky and—

A horrid grating sound tore through the car. Elsie yelped and jerked the wheel, swerving her car off the rumble strip and back into an actual lane. One of the few cars around her honked angrily and sped past, clearly wanting to get away from the idiot who couldn’t drive straight. 

Her hands shook as Elsie guided the car over the rumble strips again, this time intentionally. She didn’t trust herself to operate a vehicle right now. Not with her mind so scattered. Not with the memories that threatened to creep out of her subconscious. 

She tried to focus on her music and breathe. 

It didn’t work.

She couldn’t hear the words being sung. The lyrics had blended into a meaningless conglomerate of noise that sounded a little too much like screaming. It pitched higher, higher—

Elsie was back in the library. Her sister and Mathias were walking into the morgue on the computer’s screen. It was only a few hours after the body had been found. It should’ve been longer, they must have broken more than a few speed limits to get there so quickly. An officer led Nina to the body on the gurney closest to the door, a white sheet pulled over its face. She could hear him telling them that they’d found the body on the side of a road. It won’t be pretty he’d warned before pulling the sheet back.

Her sister crept forward, spotted the mess of flesh and bone that used to be a face, and turned pale. 

“I—I can’t tell,” she said, her voice shaking so much that Elsie barely understood her words. The officer was sympathetic and just asked if she could recognize anything from the body, like birthmarks or tattoos. Nina shook her head, Elsie didn’t have any tattoos at the time and most of her birthmarks had long since faded. She would’ve been most recognizable from the scar in her eyebrow from a botched piercing she’d gotten at 18, but it was hard to check for a scar when there was no eyebrow left to check.

Mathias walked over to stand next to Nina, placing his hand on her shoulder to comfort her. Elsie watched her sister practically throw herself at him with a stifled sob. Mathias hadn’t been expecting that and stumbled back, bumping into the gurney.

An arm flopped out, speckled with blood and streaked with dirt. The ring Elsie had slid off her own hand and crammed onto a corpse just hours before smacked into the metal of the gurney with a loud ping .

Elsie saw the moment Nina noticed the ring. Her sister stiffened, letting go of Mathias to grab the hand. There was a softness in the way Nina ran her fingers over the ring that made Elsie’s stomach twist. Seeing the ring on the corpse made her index finger feel too empty, bare of the comforting weight she’d gotten used to. It had belonged to their mother, half of a matching set that had been given to her and Nina when their parents left for London to care for their grandparents. 

Nina said something that the camera couldn’t pick up, a confirmation of some sort judging by the officer’s reaction. He nodded sharply and exited, leaving Nina and Mathias in the room alone with the body. For a long moment the room remained silent, Nina continued to caress the corpse’s hand, somehow stiff and soft at the same time. Then Mathias gently took her free hand and she 

fell 

apart.

The scream that rose from her sister tore straight into Elsie’s heart. The library computer’s speakers were ancient, but the anguish in that cry was unmistakable. A matching sob ripped from Elsie’s throat and she pressed a hand to the screen, whimpers of I’m sorry flooding from her mouth.

Elsie had never been so thankful to have been pulled into whatever mess Hannah’s disappearance was. Cleo’s voice pulled her back from her memories, telling her all about what she’d learned from the motel owner’s son Alfie and the town gossip Mrs. Sully. Elsie wasn’t in any state to offer any helpful insights or even fully pay attention to what she was saying, but she processed enough to understand that Hannah had been to the pharmacy the day of her disappearance and that she might have been taken by a legend.

Her mind stuttered. A legend? Had she heard that right?

She reread the chat. Cleo had been talking about a legend: the man without a face. The legend who had supposedly taken Hannah into the woods. According to the chat Elsie had also agreed to talk to Jessy about the legend since Jessy was fascinated with and had studied Duskwood’s many legends. A job that Cleo apparently couldn’t do herself.

She gnawed on her lip but didn’t contact Jessy as she navigated back onto the highway. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to Jessy, but Elsie wasn’t sure if she could handle Jessy’s enthusiasm right now. She felt wildly overwhelmed by everything that had happened and a large part of her just wanted to go on autopilot to get to Atinaska as soon as possible. The smaller, more logical part reminded her that a long drive like this was the perfect opportunity to get that conversation done so she could relax when she got to Atinaska.

In the end, the logical side won. Not because she wanted to choose it, but because the fog of memories had started creeping in again, making her mind float somewhere above her head like a deranged balloon. 

Elsie’s voice was shaking when she vocalized her message to Jessy. It was just a simple “Hey, could you help me out with something?”, but she stumbled over her words so much that she had to rerecord it four times before the speech-to-text picked up something close to resembling English. 

She wasn’t exactly sure what she’d do if Jessy didn’t respond, but thankfully she didn’t have to find out.

Jessy: Sure just a moment

I am feeding the office fishes right now 😁

The phone pinged and Elsie risked looking away from the road for a second to look at what Jessy sent. It was a picture of Jessy standing over a large tank of water, grinning at the camera, a container of fish flakes in her free hand. A small swarm of fish was already gathered around the food in a mass of brightly colored scales.

Jessy: What’s up?

Vivienne: Cleo mentioned that you have a thing for the legends surrounding Duskwood

Jessy: Cleo is right about that 😁

Why? 🤔

Vivienne: Have you heard of the “man without a face”? 

Jessy: Of course

He’s a character in one of the more well known legends here

I think almost everyone in Duskwood knows who he is

Vivienne: Cleo was talking to Alfie earlier and he claims that Hannah was taken into the woods by that legend

Jessy took a moment to respond to that, giving Elsie enough time to feel slightly stupid about even mentioning the possibility that a fictional legend had something to do with an actual kidnapping. Hell, if she were Jessy she wouldn’t believe any of what she’d just said.

Jessy: 😕

I watched Alfie a few times 😔

The poor thing has a mental disability 😕

I don’t mean to be rude, but he can come up with anything 🙄

Vivienne: I know it sounds pretty far fetched, but doesn’t it seem a bit too specific to have been made up?

Jessy: Mmh 😕

Alfie has a really good imagination from what I remember

All I am saying is that maybe not everything that comes out of his mouth is the truth

Elsie hummed at that. Jessy had a point there. She’d been acting under the assumption that what Alfie said was either true or false. She hadn’t considered the fact that it might be partially made up. Again, she felt stupid for not thinking of that possibility, but she could also blame it on the fact that she wasn’t the most mentally stable today. 

Jessy: But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell you the legend of the man without a face anyway 😜

Oh wait

I’m going to invite Richy to join the chat

Vivienne: Why Richy?

Jessy: Because unlike me, he actually grew up in Duskwood

That was interesting. Elsie had just assumed that everyone in the group was born and raised in Duskwood. From what she knew about Duskwood from its website she’d figured that it was a small town with a close-knit community. Everything everyone said in the group only supported that conclusion, so Jessy being from outside the town was surprising with how well she fit in with the rest of the group.

Jessy: Believe me, it’ll be worth it 😁

Wait, I’m going to start a new group chat

The phone pinged and Elsie saw a notification pop up, telling her that she’d been added to a new group called “Legends of Duskwood”. Moments later Jessy sent a message in the new chat.

Jessy: Mmh Richy is still working

I guess I should go back to work too 🙂

A brief flicker of panic jolted through Elsie and she realized that she didn’t want to be left alone with her thoughts again. She had no idea how long it would take for Richy to be done with work and she still had at least three hours of driving left. Longer if she had to keep pulling over to collect herself.

Vivienne: Wait

Can we keep talking?

If you have time?

Jessy: 🤨

Uhm, I’m at work so I should get some work done…

Elsie’s heart sank. Normally she’d call Mila or Caiden, but Mila would probably still be busy with the tail end of the lunch rush and Caiden was…not an option she wanted to resort to just yet. 

She didn't have anyone else to ask.

The thought made Elsie wince. She'd never been the most social person growing up but she'd always had a small close-knit group of friends. She'd lost all of that when she'd faked her death and fled to Fainstville. When she'd met Mila and Caiden she had thought they'd be enough and hadn't bothered to make any more friends. It was safer that way, to not let too many people in. Sure, she was friendly with everyone she worked with and most of the regulars, but Elsie hadn't had a large support system since she'd left college. She didn't even have MJ and Yaris anymore, which was a wildly jarring realization. She always assumed that she would at least have them. 

Jessy: Buuut

We usually go eat lunch around this time anyways

So as long as you don’t tell Richy 😉

The laugh that came from her mouth sounded just a hint too thin, too desperate.

Vivienne: Deal ;)

Jessy: Hold on, let me grab today’s mail real quick

Then I can pretend I’m doing something productive 😅

Elsie snorted, a smile curling across her lips. She’d been wrong about Jessy. Apparently, she’d needed the woman’s infectious cheer to get her out of her slump. 

Jessy: Got the mail 🙂

Ugh

Take a look at this 😠

Another image popped into the chat. Elsie squinted at it, frowning as she tried to figure out what had gotten Jessy so annoyed. It seemed to be an article about the body that had been found. There wasn’t much information, but she wasn’t surprised since the police had been so quiet on the subject.

Vivienne: Okay, uh

I’m not sure what you want me to see here

Jessy: Well, don’t you notice how small it is? 😠

And do you want to know what’s on the front page instead?

“Sale at Rudy’s Bike Shop Deemed a Huge Success”

Ah, that made more sense. 

Vivienne: Okay, that’s messed up

Jessy: Absolutely. Why are they acting like it’s not important?!

I don’t want to even think about it, but what if it was really Hannah…

That is so typical for Duskwood 😔

Something terrible happened and everybody is ignoring the truth

Elsie hummed. She knew what that was like. Fainstville, the town she’d been living in was like that. It was why the park was allowed to be so dangerous and why most people had been rather surprised when the FBI closed things down yesterday. Most illegal things were just swept under the rug; it was part of the reason why she’d chosen to settle there.

Vivienne: I can definitely understand why you are so angry :(

Jessy: Thanks. What can I say, you are clearly not from Duskwood 🙂

Which I think is too bad, hahaha 🙃

Vivienne: Why do you think that it’s too bad?

If she wasn’t already set on going to Atinaska (and if Duskwood wasn’t over a full day away by car) Elsie would consider going to vacation in the town with her ragtag group of new friends. It definitely wouldn’t hurt to be able to investigate everything on-site and not have to guess at what people meant through text.

The phone let out another little noise as a new message came in and it began to speak in Richy’s voice.

Richy: Hey y’all 😁

Vivienne: Hi Richy :) 

Jessy: Vi wants to know about Duskwood’s legends

Richy: Oh my 😆

Well I guess we do have time right now 🙂

Jessy: Ooh yes!

Vi, would you like to eat lunch with us? ✨

Vivienne: Haha 

I’ve already eaten but I wouldn’t mind chatting while you guys eat

Jessy: Perfect 😊

Richy: Can we call?

Otherwise, I’ll get food all over my phone 😅

Elsie grinned and replied that she didn’t mind. Moments later a video call request came in from Jessy. Elsie accepted, not worrying about them potentially seeing her since she’d disabled the camera that morning. Jessy’s face appeared on the screen. She was holding the phone far from her body, letting Elsie see the flowy flower-print blouse she was wearing and the hallway behind her.

“Hi Vi!” Jessy chirped, “We’re about to go outside to eat, it’s such a nice day here! Just waiting for Richy to heat up his lunch.” The camera turned around and Elsie saw Richy leaning against a counter in what looked like a kitchenette, wearing a dark gray oil-stained t-shirt and jeans. He smiled at the camera and waved, launching a small glob of what looked like tomato sauce from the spoon in his hand. It splattered onto the wall beside him and Elsie heard Jessy laugh from behind the phone.

Richy scowled playfully at the camera, “Look what you made me do,” he teased, “Now I have to clean up after myself.” 

Elsie snorted. “Not my fault you’re clumsy,” she retorted.

“You don’t know that,” Richy called as he grabbed paper towels from the roll on the counter, “I’m actually super graceful.”

“Mhmm,” Elsie hummed, “Jessy? Wanna back me up here?”

Jessy let out a little giggle, “I’m sorry Richy, but I have to agree with Vi on this one.” Richy turned to her with a look of faux betrayal on his face and Elsie saw the camera begin to shake with Jessy’s suppressed laughter.

“Oh the horror, my favorite employee, turning against me!” Richy cried dramatically, waving the tomato-stained paper towel around, “How will I ever survive.”

Elsie’s car filled with the sound of Jessy’s laughter and before long, Richy’s chuckle joined in. She smiled to herself as they continued to joke with each other, reveling in the way their banter in the background chased away the final remnants of her earlier sorrow. 

“Ok!” Jessy addressed her phone, “We’re heading outside now, and then I get to tell you all about the man without a face.”

“Wait, the man without a face specifically? I thought Vi just wanted to know about all the legends?” Richy’s voice sounded confused, “Where did you even hear about him? I didn’t think that legend had made it out of Duskwood.”

“Alfie said that Hannah was taken into the woods by the man without a face,” Jessy explained, “and Vi came to me about the legend because I love this kind of stuff, so—”

“Hold on,” Richy cut in and when Elsie glanced at the phone she saw a strange look on his face, “Vi was in Duskwood? She talked to Alfie?”

Elsie shook her head and then remembered that they couldn’t see her. “No,” she said, “Cleo went to talk with Ms. Walter and found Alfie outside. He told her about Hannah and the man without a face.”

Richy didn’t look thrilled about that revelation, “Did you tell the others yet?”

“No,” Elsie replied, “Or at least I haven’t. I’m honestly not sure if this is really a lead yet. I just wanted to get some more information on the man without a face before deciding what to do next.”

The audio from the call was interrupted by a few thumps and rustles, “Sorry Vi, just setting my phone up so I can still eat and you can still see us,” Jessy explained. The camera angle of the call straightened, giving Elsie a full view of Jessy and Richy sitting side by side at what looked like a wooden picnic table. “And I didn’t tell anyone either, because, well I don’t think Alfie was telling the truth.” She paused for a moment, “But! I can still tell you all about the legend. I just have to figure out where to start.”

“You’re the expert here, miss Horror Queen,” Richy sounded vaguely amused, not quite laughing, but not as somber as he’d been just moments ago. Jessy grinned at him and Elsie thought she saw a flicker of some emotion on Richy’s face, softening it for a moment. 

“But you’re the one who grew up hearing these stories!” Jessy was saying, “I just read about them in books.”

Richy grumbled slightly, “That’s not too different from hearing about it growing up. Plus, you know I don’t believe in that kind of stuff. It’s just stories that people made up.”

“Most legends are based on some kind of truth,” Elsie offered, “A lot of the older legends around where I live are moral lessons hiding behind fairy tales.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Richy assented, “But it doesn’t mean I have to start believing in them.”

Jessy rolled her eyes, but her voice was full of fond exasperation when she spoke, “You don’t have to believe in something to tell the story, Richy. I’ll tell the main story, I am the Horror Queen after all,” she made a face at Richy, drawing a laugh from him, “but you can help fill in anything I miss.”

“Fine, fine,” Richy agreed, “The stage is all yours Horror Queen.”

“Ok, ready Vi?” Jessy’s eyes were glinting with excitement and Elsie smiled at her enthusiasm. 

“Ready,” she said, “Take it away Jessy.”

“Legends say the man without a face lives deep in the woods,” Jessy’s voice lowered as she began to speak, like someone telling ghost stories at a campfire, “He comes out every night, wandering the streets of Duskwood and marking the doors of sinners with the sign of the raven. Some say they’ve heard him go by deep in the night, accompanied by the caws of ravens and rustling of feathers. Then he goes back to his forest home and only returns on the first new moon of each year, revisiting each of the houses he marked.” She paused for dramatic effect, “He takes everyone in the house, men, women, and children, guilty or not, into the forest and they never return…” Jessy stabbed a forkful of salad and grinned, “Creepy, right?”

Elsie hummed, “I think I’ve heard a story like that before when I was younger,” she frowned as she tried to remember, “In a book of legends around the country or something like that.”

“Maybe it was the legend of the man without a face,” Jessy suggested, “It could’ve gone beyond Duskwood. Some of the other towns near us know about it.”

Richy took a swig from his water bottle and added, “Or it could be a similar story from a different town, a lot of places have legends that come out to be roughly the same thing.” Jessy looked like she wanted to argue but Richy plowed ahead, “And we should focus on the important part now. How does any of this relate to Hannah’s disappearance?”

“Well,” Elsie started, “I had two theories, well technically three. Either Alfie just saw a person wearing a mask and decided to describe them as a man without a face or someone is trying to copy the legend. Or, and this is the least likely one I think, there’s actually a legend out there kidnapping people.”

“Those first two both seem possible,” Richy said slowly, “We should remember that this is a legend , which means we should keep common sense and logic in mind when following this lead.”

“I know,” Elsie interrupted, “That’s why I said it was the least likely option. I just wish I could see what Alfie did to find out if it was just a person wearing a mask to hide their face.”

Richy nodded, “That’s good,” he offered a slightly apologetic smile, “I was just making sure that we didn’t get too drawn into the whole monsters come to life thing. We should explore those other two possibilities though.”

“Mhm, that’s going to have to wait,” Jessy said, frowning at something Elsie couldn’t see, “I’m afraid our lunch break needs to pause. Mr. Palmer is walking over.”

Richy turned to look in the same direction and sighed, “Well I would’ve preferred the man without a face.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in him,” Elsie teased.

Richy turned back to the camera and rolled his eyes, “I don’t, but if he was real I’d say Mr. Palmer would be a great candidate.”

“Richy!” Jessy admonished, “What if he heard you?” Richy just grinned and stood from the table, gathering his lunch as he went. Jessy followed suit, grabbing her phone last and holding it out so Elsie could see both of them. “We’ll keep talking about this later, ok?”

“Yeah, I’ll catch you guys later. Go do your jobs,” Elsie laughed. Richy waved and Jessy blew her a kiss before the call ended and Elsie’s music kicked back in. She smiled as she settled back into the comfortable quiet. 

She didn’t mind being alone with her music when her memories weren’t so tumultuous. In fact, Elsie used to love having time to herself when she could turn off from the outside world. But then the FBI had torn her life apart and Elsie had to go on the run. It’d been safer then to stay away from people as much as possible to ensure that she didn’t leave a clear trail for the FBI to follow. For a while, she’d had Yaris, but that hadn’t lasted and she’d ended up on her own again. In short, Elsie was a bit leery of spending too much time alone now.

Being on this vacation made her nervous. She’d be on her own for a week with no one nearby to catch her if she fell into her memories. She’d already had it happen once and Elsie didn’t know what would’ve happened if that rumble strip and Cleo hadn’t startled her back into the real world.

Before, she’d had Caiden to draw her out, calling out to her when he’d come back from work or just being there beside her when she’d woken up from a nightmare. He’d never known how much his presence helped, but just having another person there had made her life so much easier. Maybe the sporadic chats from the Duskwood group throughout the day would be good enough. Elsie didn’t know, and she really, really didn’t want to have to find out.

Her phone suddenly beeped at her, drawing her attention as if the universe had heard her worrying. The voices that came from it this time were a surprise.

Dan: Hey

Lilly: Hello

Dan: It’s not Hannah

I’m sure of it

Stay positive honey

Elsie’s eyebrows lifted. Dan was calling Lilly pet names? And he sounded nothing like his usual brash self? That was strange. Very strange.

Lilly: Dan can you come over?

Tonight?

Dan: Yeah I can

Lilly: Thank you

There had to be something going on between those two. Elsie wasn’t sure if it was platonic or romantic, but the two seemed close. She couldn’t imagine Lilly would ask Dan to stay with her otherwise. But that just brought up more questions; why didn’t Dan tell Lilly about the body if he was so close to her?

Elsie paused, thinking about the body for a moment. She assumed that the police hadn’t revealed any more information since the rest of the group had been pretty quiet all day, but she was itching to know if it was Hannah. She hummed as she wondered what kind of security Duskwood’s police station had on their records. If they were anything like Fainstville’s she’d be able to hack in and know if it was Hannah pretty quickly.

Then she frowned. Their resident hacker was quite adept at hacking into things if the program he’d given her was any indication. He would’ve told her if the body was Hannah’s if he knew that himself. The fact that he hadn’t made Elsie think that the police had good security, more than enough to keep her out. She grimaced, gnawing at her lip. Still, it couldn’t hurt to try if she was careful.

It was several hours later and she’d finally gotten off the highway when Elsie’s phone chimed again. She glanced over, expecting a message from Mila, not realizing that it was her other phone—and flinched when Jessy’s voice came out instead. 

Jessy: Tell me, do you text with this hacker person? 🤔

Vivienne: Why the sudden curiosity?

Elsie winced when she realized how defensive that had sounded. She hadn’t meant for it to come out like that, but Jessy had just asked out of the blue. She honestly hadn’t even known that Jessy knew about the hacker, let alone known that Elsie was in contact with him.

Jessy: He’s creepy

Vivienne: He’s not that bad

Jessy: Really? 🤔

Have you seen the audio file he sent us when Hannah first went missing?

That was really creepy

Vivienne: Thomas showed me

But I don’t think he’s creepy, just…different?

I guess?

Jessy: Do you mean that in a good or a bad way?

That was a good question. Elsie wasn’t sure herself. She could attribute most of those “different” things to being a hacker, like his skittishness or the secrecy of everything he did, but some things seemed to be more of a him problem. It wasn’t normal for hackers to not give any type of identifier at all, most had at least a throwaway name or even a string of numbers and letters they could be addressed by. The hacker’s stiff way of texting and general awkwardness was also something that she attributed more to his personality than his career. All in all there was a lot about the hacker that was different , but…none of it was really a bad kind of different. A bit strange and constantly confusing, but not bad.

Vivienne: Good way

I think

Is what Elsie eloquently told Jessy. Great going , she chided herself, sounded real confident there .

Jessy: 🤔

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he’s behind the kidnapping

He would put himself in too much danger by talking to us

Vivienne: Mhm, yeah

He seems too cautious to intentionally do that

At least that was what Elsie had gleaned from the conversations she’d had with him so far. The man had panicked over telling her what programs he used to hack and that he didn’t really leave his house. There was a genuineness to him that made her think that he wasn’t a great liar, and from that she highly doubted that he’d be able to trick the entire group into thinking that he wasn’t the kidnapper if he really was.

Unless he was lying and she was falling for it completely. 

Jessy: I recently had a similar discussion with the others

But that time it was about you

Was that what she and Richy had been talking about earlier? Did Richy somehow know that Elsie and the hacker were reading their chats? She had to assume that the conversation had happened in person, the hacker would’ve given her access to the chat if it had taken place through the messenger.

It did hurt a bit, to think that this group of people she was starting to see as friends thought that she was untrustworthy, but she couldn’t blame them; she had just randomly popped into their lives.

Vivienne: If I were you I wouldn't trust myself either 

Jessy: Well

I do trust you 🙂

If the others knew that I texted you this, they would be ticked off at me

Uhm

In any case I think it would be better if you don’t tell him all too much

Elsie snorted. She doubted she’d need to tell the hacker anything. If she didn’t outright give him information he’d find out by snooping through chats anyway. Elsie was just the redundant middleman that the hacker was keeping around for some reason.

Vivienne: Don’t worry, I’ll be careful with what I say

So you don’t think he’s someone from the group?

Jessy: No

But Richy does

Now that was a fascinating piece of information. Elsie hadn’t considered the fact that the hacker could be part of the group. She hadn’t thought that anyone in the group had enough experience with code to do everything the hacker had done so far, but then again she didn’t know the group all that well yet. These were Richy’s friends, and Jessy’s, they would know better than her.

Vivienne: Who does he think it is?

Jessy: He didn’t tell me

You would have to ask him 🙃

But what do you think? Is the hacker one of us?

She thought back to all the times she’d spoken to the hacker, to his admission that he didn’t go out much, and the way he struggled to converse normally. The Duskwood group was a decently large friend group, the chances of someone in that group being so wary of social interaction were low, not impossible, but very very low.

Vivienne: I don’t think he is part of the group

Jessy: Yeah, I agree

Maybe we’ll find out soon

Vivienne: We can hope

She turned her attention away from the conversation and the road to squint at her navigation system. It seemed to want her to take a left into what seemed to be an active construction zone, which she assumed had been the right way before the city had dug up the road. The construction must have been more recent, since Liz hadn’t mentioned anything about it when she’d given Elsie tips for the drive.

Jessy: What do you even talk about with the hacker?

Vivienne: Huh? What?

Elsie’s attention had snapped back to the phone the minute Jessy’s question actually registered in her mind and she nearly missed the tiny side road her navigation system was trying to get her to go down. She swore loudly and swerved onto the road, hurriedly yelling ‘delete’ before the swear could send.

Jessy: From the way you talk about him you have to have chatted with the hacker pretty often right?

Is it all just hacking related?

How the hell was she supposed to answer that? Elsie couldn’t just come out and say “Oh, well we discuss everything we’ve learned from spying on your communications and by the way, I’m invading Hannah’s privacy by hacking into her cloud storage.” She was pretty sure that wouldn’t end well. 

Vivienne: Not really

He’s kind of awkward to talk to sometimes

Jessy: Oh?

Elsie groaned. She’d hoped that that response would satiate Jessy’s curiosity, but no, it seemed to have just intrigued her more.

Vivienne: It’s a lot of talk about Hannah and all the evidence and leads we have

Not much else

Jessy: Hmmm 

That does sound boring

Vivienne: A bit, yeah

Can we talk about something else?

Jessy: Sure 😄

Elsie relaxed, she could do small talk. Small talk was safe, plus it had the added benefit of allowing her to pay more attention to the roads since her navigation system had decided to stop giving her more than a handful of seconds to react to its directions. It did say that she was only seven minutes away and she could see the ocean in the distance so it had to be at least somewhat correct.

Vivienne: What is your favorite color?

Jessy: Haha I have not been asked this question in forever 😄

Yellow

It stands for everything I love. The sun, summer, beautiful clothes, flowers…

Whenever I see this color it puts me in a good mood 🙃

Vivienne: It suits you

And it really did. If Elsie had to choose a person who embodied the color yellow Jessy would be a damn good candidate. She’d never met anyone so instantaneously friendly and cheerful, and Elsie had met a lot of people. Brianna was a strong competitor, but Elsie had seen her lose her temper at a particularly atrocious table.

Jessy: 🤭

Do you have any siblings?

Vivienne: An older sister

She winced, holding her breath as she waited for the pangs of guilt and memories to sink their claws into her heart again. But it didn’t happen. Luckily Jessy didn’t seem inclined to press her about it and continued on, telling Elsie all about her siblings. Elsie took a deep breath and exhaled shakily, she was surprised that mentioning her sister hadn’t set her off again.

Jessy: Oh, me too!

An older sister and an older brother

My sister’s name is Angela and she lives in Colville

It’s a pretty big city about 200 miles from here, in case you haven’t heard of it

Elsie hummed, she didn’t remember seeing Colville on the map when she’d looked up where Duskwood was back when this all started but she hadn’t put much thought into it. She probably should’ve taken more time to actually research Duskwood, just to know what she was dealing with better. Maybe she could do that when she got to the beach house. Elsie pushed the thought aside and let Jessy keep talking as she followed her navigation system down a road traveling through a dense forest. 

Jessy: I’d like to go there one day 😩

My brother Phil still lives here, and I don’t think that will ever change 🤭

He owns the Aurora, a bar in Duskwood. 

He was a bartender until the previous owner suddenly left Duskwood last year

Elsie snorted, the reality of her situation suddenly hitting her. She’d been randomly dragged into a missing person’s case with little to no explanation and now Jessy was here expositing everywhere. When did her life turn into a video game? She could almost imagine Jessy and the rest of the group stationed around Duskwood, little interaction symbols floating over their heads, waiting for her to unlock the next piece of lore.

Then Jessy’s words caught up to her brain and she frowned. Did Jessy mean that the old owner had voluntarily left or had he gone missing? (Like Hannah, a voice in her mind whispered) Normally Elsie wouldn’t have fussed over a small detail like that, but with Hannah missing and probably kidnapped she wasn’t going to leave any stone unturned if she could help it.

Vivienne: Left?

Did he retire? Or?

Jessy: I don’t actually know what happened with that

Well that was entirely unhelpful, although Elsie hadn’t really expected anything different. If there’d been a clear pattern the police or someone else in the group would’ve noticed it long before Elsie did.

Jessy: Phil never told me

We really don’t talk much

Vivienne: Did something happen between you?

Jessy: No

Jessy was quiet for a minute while Elsie turned down the half-hidden driveway her navigation system was pointing her down, grimacing when her car rattled due to the gravel paving the road. She glanced down at the phone, it was unlike Jessy to respond with a simple “no” without further explanations or even an emoji. As she watched, the little ellipses appeared at the bottom of the chat.

Jessy: Phil and Angela are my half-brother and half-sister

We are pretty far apart age-wise so we don’t have much in common 😝

What about you and your sister?

Ah. That was a question Elsie couldn’t answer fully. Not without retriggering all of her memories and giving away all her secrets. She could lie, but she’d have to make up a story and Elsie had never been good at improvising anything as complicated as a full backstory. She settled for a vague half-truth instead.

Vivienne: We haven’t seen each other for years

Uhm

Change the subject?

Jessy: Oh

Of course!

I don’t think Richy’s busy, we could talk more about the man without a face 🙂

Elsie opened her mouth to agree and faltered, spotting the administrative building of the rental company up ahead. As much as she wanted to get more information on this possible lead, Elsie knew that it’d be better to get the rental business out of the way first. Then she could set up her laptop and everything else to devote more time to Hannah’s case.

Vivienne: Unfortunately I’ve got to take care of something right now

Can we chat later? Maybe in a few hours?

Jessy: Yeah, no problem 😊

I am supposed to be working right now 😆

Talk to you later Vi!

She smiled as she pulled into the small parking lot and came to a stop near the entrance of the office. The building looked like any other beach house, with slightly peeling light blue paint and white accents, a little few steps leading up to a wraparound porch with an atrocious amount of windchimes swaying from various spots on the railing. A faded sign hanging above the stairs named the place as “Windy Shores”. 

Elsie disconnected her phone from the car’s bluetooth and silenced the other phone, tucking it away in her glove box to keep it hidden. She stepped out of the car and was met with a wave of dry heat. It was still well over 90 degrees even though it was mid-September and nearing fall, but Elsie wasn’t going to complain. She was actually looking forward to enjoying the nice weather and sunbathing on the beach, even if she was already sweating through her t-shirt.

She noted that there weren’t many other cars in the lot, just a few parked in a corner near the back of the building that she assumed belonged to the workers inside. Elsie wasn’t surprised since school had started over a month ago for most kids so the families had cleared out long ago. 

The woman at the front desk looked up when Elsie walked in, “Hello, what can I help you with today?”

“Hi, can I rent a house here or do I have to do that online?” Elsie asked, hoping that she wouldn’t be regretting not booking a house before she drove to Atinaska under the assumption that she’d be able to do it on-site. She cringed as she realized that there was a very real possibility that there might not be any houses available to rent, even if the summer was mostly over.

“Of course,” the woman said with a smile, Elsie noticed the small plaque on her desk that read “Tammy”, “We currently have 27 vacancies. Do you know which house you would like to rent and how long you’ll be staying?”

Elsie returned the smile sheepishly, “Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to look at the website before I came, a friend recommended this place last minute. Do you have houses in more remote areas? Oh, and I’ll be here for a week.”

Tammy laughed, “No worries, you’d be surprised at how many people come down here during the busy season with no plan.” She slid backward in her chair, spinning to access a file cabinet tucked against the back wall. “Here’s a map of the area, all the houses are marked,” she pulled out a pen from the cup on her desk and began crossing out houses, referencing her computer, “And I’m marking off the unavailable ones. Here.”

Elsie took the map and scanned it. According to the map Windy Shores owned over 50 acres along the coast of Atinaska with over 60 buildings on the property. Several clusters of buildings were located up and down the coast and were labeled as group housing, which was probably what Liz and her family had gotten when they’d last been here. Elsie was more interested in the individual houses tucked around. 

She squinted at the miniscule writing labeling each of the houses and noticed that several came with a private beach. Her attention caught on a house tucked away in the far corner of Windy Shores’s property. According to the labels it had two bedrooms and a pullout couch as well as a private beach. It seemed perfect.

Tammy agreed, but warned her that that house was on the more expensive side and came with rather subpar wifi. The price didn’t worry Elsie, not with the two hundred thousand or so illegally acquired dollars she had stashed away in her account, but the wifi could be an issue. She thought it over and decided that it wasn’t that big of a deal, the hacker was the one who would be dealing with most of the information gathering and Elsie wasn’t planning on taking any other jobs while she was here. She could survive with bad wifi for a week.

Elsie took the paperwork that Tammy handed her and filled it in, skimming over the policies and rules before filling out the information it required and signing at the bottom. She then handed the papers along with her credit and ID cards to Tammy who entered everything into the system.

“Anything planned for the rest of today?” Tammy asked as she clicked through forms.

Elsie hummed, “Not much, probably have to go out and buy groceries, but I should still have enough time since it’s only…four?” She blinked at the clock on the wall, she could’ve sworn that it had already been past four when she’d driven into Atinaska.

Tammy laughed, “You crossed a timezone if you came from the east. Atinaska’s right on the edge. Plenty of people show up an hour early each summer because they don’t realize,” she paused and added, “and if you’re thinking of heading out to get groceries there’s a little store about ten minutes back down the road you came from, if you need anything other than food and basic necessities or something specific I’d suggest that you head for downtown Atinaska.”

Elsie thanked her with a smile and took the keys she was handed. They were attached to a cute blue lanyard patterned with subtle waves and labeled “front door” and “gate”. Elsie wasn’t quite sure what the gate key was for, but she was already walking out the door and didn’t want to turn around and ask. She’d find out when she got to the house anyway.

The drive to her home for the week was longer than she’d expected; nearly ten minutes from the administrative building if she subtracted the time she’d spent getting lost and turned around on the little roads leading to other houses. The correct road ended up being tucked between two massive boulders that someone had decided were good landscape decorations. Only a few hundred feet away from those boulders was a low stone wall that wrapped around the entirety of the property, the wrought iron gate held shut with a padlock. So that was what the gate key was for.

Elsie put her car in park and got out to unlock the gate. It swung open with a loud creak, and she returned to her car to drive it the rest of the way to the house. The driveway gently curved past a small grove of ornamental trees down to a small house at the edge of the beach. The building was on stilts and appeared to only be one story. A wooden staircase led from the balcony on the front of the house directly down to the beach while a second staircase connected to a wide stretch of gravel where Elsie parked. The house itself was a pale blue-gray color with dark blue accents.

The balcony was fully furnished, with several lounge chairs, a table, and a porch swing tucked beneath the half that was covered by an awning and planters full of flowers decorating the unshielded half. The front door unlocked easily when Elsie used the key and she stepped into the living room.

It was gorgeous. The ceiling was high, and a skylight gave the room a light and airy feel. The dark gray pullout couch was in the center of the room, facing a TV mounted on the wall and bracketed by two more gray armchairs. A pale blue and white plush rug contrasted the darker furniture and the glass coffee table in the middle held a vase of bright plastic flowers. Behind the couch was the main dining area, with a large wooden table surrounded by six wooden chairs with deep blue cushions. A small kitchenette was just off to the side of the dining area, containing a stove, fridge, microwave, and toaster.

The entire area was well-lit with natural light from the myriad of windows and skylights placed around, but several round lights were also installed on the sloped ceiling and Elsie could see a few smaller lamps scattered around. The walls were decorated with the expected beach-themed photos and knickknacks; she had already spotted three framed pictures of various sunsets and at least two strings of seashells strung around.

Further back a hallway led to what Elsie assumed were the bedrooms and bathroom. She tried the first door on the right, and it opened into a large room with a queen-sized bed tucked in the far corner and a large dresser and wardrobe against the wall closest to the door. A large desk sat under the window to the side of the bed, complete with a rolling chair. The carpet was a warm cream color and the bedding was navy. She thought the walls were white, but when she squinted, she found that there was a blue tinge to that as well. Elsie was starting to think that the entire house was just vaguely themed as “blue”.

She left her suitcase and bag on the floor by the door and kept exploring, she could unpack later. The door across the hallway opened into the bathroom, which thankfully wasn’t fully blue and beach-themed. Instead, the floor tiles were white with small gray accents and the marbled sink counter was dark gray. The shower curtain was the only blue thing in the room and even it was a muted cyan. There was, however, a scattering of seashells and other miscellaneous decorations scattered on the shelf above the toilet and an abstract painting on the wall opposite the sink. The small window at the end of the room looked out to the gravel lot where she’d parked, and she could see the strip of beach continuing up the shore.

The second door on the left led to the second bedroom, which looked nearly identical to the first. Elsie didn’t bother lingering too long, she wouldn’t need that room unless she wanted to dedicate a whole room for her laptop, which she wasn’t planning to do. The final door in the house led to a storage closet filled with random linens and cleaning supplies. It smelled rather musty, and Elsie doubted that anyone had touched anything in there for a long time.

She returned to the bedroom and began unpacking, then paused and grabbed her laptop instead. She settled at the desk, plugging the laptop in and opening her programs, splitting the screen into several smaller windows after connecting to the house’s wifi. She opened her browser and searched for Duskwood’s police station, hoping that they had a website she could use to get access to their files. Usually something as simple as a search took less than a few seconds to generate results, but this time the screen stayed on the home page, the loading circle spinning endlessly.

Elsie scowled. She hadn’t thought that the wifi was that bad. She’d been expecting it to be a little slow, nothing like the high-speed internet she’d paid for back home, but not so slow that she could’ve gotten faster results from driving to a library and searching for a reference book. She fired up one of her programs and tested the internet speed. It came back abysmal. She’d be lucky to be able to get a result from her search by tomorrow with the state the wifi was in.

She pulled out her phone on a whim and checked the cell signal, finding it fairly strong for being right next to the beach. She wondered if the wifi signal was just bad out here or if the router and modem weren’t strong enough or faulty in some way. Elsie turned on her laptop’s extended signal detector and checked for other wifi signals close by. There were several from what she assumed were other houses nearby, all of them decently strong even at a distance. The problem was with the router and modem for the house then.

A quick search around the house led Elsie back to the storage closet where the ancient router sat in the back corner with the modem beside it, both enshrouded in cobwebs and blinking slowly. She pulled them out while trying to avoid the worst of the cobwebs and dead bugs, grimacing at how the strands clung to her skin. The things were full of dust and the modem was making a vaguely concerning electrical buzz. Elsie doubted anyone had looked at either of them since they had been installed however long ago. She squinted at the information someone had scrawled across a paper taped to the router and found information about the internet service provider. Well, at least she could replace the equipment and hopefully get better wifi. Elsie peeled the paper from the router and set the router and modem back into the back of the closet, shutting the door again as she left.

Elsie quickly changed out of her wrinkled t-shirt and jeans into a fresh loose green t-shirt and a pair of black shorts. Then she grabbed her bag and checked that her pocketknife was secure in her bag before heading back out to the car, already searching for the address of the nearest grocery store in downtown Atinaska.

It was going well until Elsie found herself with a knife to her throat for the second time in less than 24 hours. At least it wasn’t her own knife this time.

“Give me your wallet,” the burly man holding the knife snarled into her face, pressing it harder against her throat.

Elsie let her terror show on her face, “Ok, ok! It’s in my bag , I’ll…I’ll get it! Please don’t hurt me!” She reached to her side slowly, the man watching her every move like a hawk.

The man laughed, a cruel twisted sound, “We’ll see.”

Her hands dug into her bag, brushed against the faux leather of her wallet, and came to rest against cool metal. Elsie took a deep breath, carefully lifting one leg into the air, hovering beneath her bag as if she needed to steady it to find her wallet. The man took a miniscule step backward, still keeping a fair amount of pressure on the knife. If Elsie didn’t already have bandages padding her neck, she would’ve been bleeding.

“Don’t do anything stupid, bitch,” he warned, “I can slit your fucking throat long before you can call for help.”

“No, no,” Elsie reassured, trying to infuse her voice with a sufficient amount of shake, which wasn’t hard with how her heart was pounding. “I’m just,” she subtly leaned back against the wall, creating a slight distance between her neck and the blade, “getting this!” She kicked out with the leg she’d lifted, catching the man’s knee.

It wasn’t as hard of a kick as she wanted, she didn’t have enough room to gain momentum and the angle was horrid, but it was enough to startle him into lurching backward. She pulled out her knife as she twisted away, slashing out blindly before bolting down the alley. It was only a second later before she heard him pounding after her.

She couldn’t see an end to the alley, hell she didn’t even know if the alley wasn’t a dead end. But she could hear the man’s footsteps drawing closer and she forced herself to speed up, panic starting to cloud her mind. The cuts she already had throbbed painfully as the bandages rubbed against them, reminding her of what would happen if the man caught up. Elsie debated yelling for help, she couldn’t be that far from a main road with people, but at the same time she was in the back alleys of Atinaska, she had no idea what kind of people were hanging around.

As it turned out, she didn’t have to make that choice.

Elsie bolted around a corner and skidded to a stop. Before her an apartment building rose up, the alley ending in a brick wall with a single metal door. She swore and whipped around, scanning the alley for other escape routes. There was nothing. Just the alley she’d come from, the one with an angry, knife wielding man. Briefly she wondered if she could run past the man and go back down the alley, but he appeared at the corner before she could even try to run.

“Nowhere to go now kid,” he grinned. Elsie noticed that there was a trail of blood smeared down his forearm, she must’ve nicked him when she’d slashed at him. The man followed her gaze and flexed his arm, braiding more blood across his flesh, “You got me good there,” he sneered, “Just means I gotta pay you back for that.”

Elsie grinned back, hoping she looked more feral than scared, “Yeah? You sure I’m not gonna kick your ass?” She brandished her knife, still wet with his blood.

The man laughed, “Kid you haven’t got a clue how to use that knife. I’ve been fighting in these streets since you were in diapers, ain’t no way you’ll be beating me today.”

He was probably right. Elsie had never learned how to fight properly; she’d never had a reason to. Even when she’d been homeless the threat of her knife had usually been enough to keep other vagrants off her back and the few fights she'd been in had been with opponents just as inexperienced as she was. This man was different. He wasn’t a druggie or vagrant looking for cash, he wouldn’t back down just because Elsie had a knife and wasn’t afraid to use it.

The man stepped closer. Elsie stepped to the side, keeping her eyes on him. There was a wildness in his eyes now, a dangerous glint that told her he was enjoying the thrill of a fight. She swallowed hard and started planning. He was bigger than her, all muscle and bulk, and more experienced from the easy way he held his knife. Maybe he was slower, she’d been able to outrun him earlier, she might be able to use her smaller frame for a speed advantage. She ignored the voice in the back of her head that had already given up. She hadn’t made it this far in life to die in a filthy alley, gutted by a random guy in a new city.

That stupid smug smile was still on the man’s face when he lunged forward, knife held at the ready but not slashing out like Elsie would’ve done. She dodged to the side, swinging her knife in his general direction. She realized too late that he was reaching for her arm and he caught her wrist, squeezing it so hard that Elsie could feel her bones grinding against each other. She tried to hold onto her knife, tried to twist out of his grip, tried to stab him, but nothing worked. Her knife clattered from her fingers and the man dragged her closer, knife raising to meet her.

Elsie planted her feet, determined to not be pulled closer. She yanked her arm back toward herself, catching the man off guard and managing to drag his arm closer to herself with the motion. She lunged forward and sank her teeth into the man’s hand, blood flooding into her mouth when her teeth met something hard under his skin.

The man tried to rip his hand away instinctively and screamed as flesh tore from bone. Elsie released his hand and jerked backward, just barely avoiding the wild retaliatory swipe of his knife. She tugged her wrist out of the man’s loosened grip and staggered away from him, scanning the ground for her knife. It was by the man’s foot. Elsie backed up, spitting his blood from her mouth and watching the man nurse the ragged flap of skin dangling from his hand.

“You fucking bitch!” he snarled, cradling his hand.

Elsie bared her bloodstained teeth at him in response, “Give up yet?”

The man barked a laugh, “You’re brave kid, I’ll give you that. But I can’t let that slide.” He took a step toward her and paused, spotting her knife beneath his foot. He kicked it to the side, sending it skittering nearly to the opposite wall. Elsie swore under her breath. She needed that knife, she couldn’t take this guy barehanded (or with a knife, but technicalities).

Her eyes darted from the man to her knife, if she let him get a little bit closer, he should be far enough from the knife for her to run over and grab it. The man was smiling again, sure that she was cornered and defenseless, sure that he would win this fight. A little closer, closer, closer… Now!

Elsie darted to the side, swerving around the man, avoiding his grasping hands and skidding to a stop at her knife, scrapping her fingers against the ground in her haste to scoop it from the ground. She raised the knife, bracing herself as the man whirled and stalked toward her. She saw a flicker of movement in her peripheral vision, but ignored it, too focused on the man before her.

His face was twisted in annoyance now, tired of her constant evasion. His body was tensed, dropped into a fighting stance wildly different from the loose casual one he’d had during their first exchange. If he hadn’t been trying in the first fight and still easily disarmed her Elsie didn’t know what she could do against him actually putting in effort. She couldn’t match his fighting style or skill, her only chance would be to fight dirty and unpredictable. If she had to bite him again, she absolutely would.

She stepped forward to meet him, gripping her knife tightly, subtly trying to copy his movements. He rushed toward her, almost too fast for her to react, knife already swinging down in a deadly arc. Elsie raised her knife in a desperate attempt to parry…

…and a loud crack split the air between them.

They both sprung backward, Elsie nearly tripping over her own feet and the man gracefully stepping back. A new hole had appeared in the filthy concrete, a bullet snugly resting at the bottom.

“Enough,” a new voice said.

Elsie risked a glance away from the man to look at the speaker. It was another man, this one younger and more lanky rather than muscled. He held a still smoking gun in his hand, currently pointed at the space between Elsie and the other man. The other man sneered at the gunman and seemed to be sizing him up. Elsie watched him and began edging away, back toward the alley where she’d come from.

A second shot rang out, launching concrete from the mini crater now between the knifeman’s feet. Both the knifeman and Elsie froze, watching the gunman warily. After a long moment the knifeman sneered at the gunman and retreated down the alley, apparently deciding that he wouldn’t win against a gun today. Elsie skittered back as he passed, unsure if he’d try to throw his knife at her or try to grab her. She watched him vanish back down the alley and then turned her attention to the gunman who now had the gun trained on her.

“Hey,” she started, raising both hands slightly into the air, “I’m just gonna go back that way,” she jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, and then paused, “Actually, I’m just going to stay right here for a bit if that’s ok with you. Don’t want to get jumped again on the way back.”

The gunman made no indication that he was going to shoot her if she stayed, so Elsie carefully sat against the wall, placing her knife on the ground in front of her where the gunman could clearly see it. She leaned her head back and muttered, “Well this was a shitty first day of vacation.” A drop of mystery liquid from some unknown source dripped into her eye as if in agreement.

Elsie instantly let out an unintelligible squawk and hunched forward, blinking rapidly and swiping at her eye with the hem of her shirt. She really hoped that was just rainwater. When she looked up again the gunman had moved, no longer standing in the doorway. Instead, he was leaning against the wall beside the door, gun still held loosely in his hand, his face shadowed by the hood of his dark jacket.

She scowled at him, “You can go, you know. I'm not gonna try to stab you in the back or anything.”

“I'm not worried about that,” he replied easily. 

It only made Elsie scowl more, mostly because it was true. He had a gun and Elsie had already proved herself to be a godawful fighter even with a knife. There was no reason for him to see her as a threat. She grumbled to herself, silently vowing to find a studio somewhere and get lessons when all of this was over. 

“So why are you still hanging around then?” she questioned, “The guy's gone and I doubt you just came out here to break up a random fight.”

The gunman snorted, “No, I didn't, but I'm also not going to leave you alone in an alley.”

Elsie smirked, “Aw, my hero. You gonna escort me back home? Save me from all the bad guys in the city?” 

She had no idea why she was still here, chatting with a random stranger in an alley minutes after nearly getting stabbed. Hell, she should've left the minute she got her breath back and enough time had passed for the knifeman to lose interest in waiting for her to come back. Yet she was still here, still pressed against the wall, still watching the gunman.

“I'm no hero,” he muttered, barely loud enough for Elsie to hear. He looked down after saying that, shaggy black hair falling out of his hood and hiding whatever expression he was making.

Elsie hummed, “Well hero or not, you saved me from that guy, so thank you. I wasn't looking forward to getting stabbed again.” 

He looked up so fast that the hood slid back, revealing a pale face and clear blue eyes underscored by dark bags, now narrowed with suspicion. “ Again ?” he demanded, “Was that a gang fight or something?” 

“What?” Elsie didn't mean for it to come out so incredulously, but the gunman's question had caught her off guard. “You saw me fight,” she pointed out, “Do you think I would've lasted a day in a gang fighting like that?” The wary look on his face didn't disappear and Elsie groaned, “I'm just here for vacation, got lost down the alleys and he tried to mug me. Not in a gang, promise.”

The gunman's hand flexed on the revolver's grip and Elsie tensed, she had no room to dodge if he shot at her. 

It occurred to her then that she knew nothing about this man. He had a gun, and from the way he'd shot earlier, knew how to shoot it pretty damn well. Had he asked about gang affiliation because he was worried about getting dragged into something or because he had his own alliances and involvements? Elsie didn't know and she was starting to think that she didn't want to stick around long enough to find out.

“Well,” she began, standing slowly and scooping her knife from the ground, “I'll be on my way—”

“Wait,” the gunman said. Elsie straightened and glanced over at him, “I'll walk you to the end of the alley.”

She blinked, “I thought you weren't a hero?”

“I have to go out anyway and I don't feel like tripping over your corpse when I come back,” he deadpanned.

Elsie snorted, “How kind of you.” 

He tugged his hood back over his head and strode around the corner, leaving Elsie alone in the dead end. She refolded and tucked her knife into an easily accessible pocket of her bag and followed, speeding up slightly to catch up.

She fell into step beside him, “What's your name?” 

His steps faltered, “My name? Why do you care about knowing my name?” 

Elsie shrugged, “It'd be nice to have something to call you other than gunman or stranger.” She glanced over at him and found him already looking at her, brow furrowed in confusion, wariness spoiling the blue of his eyes. “It doesn't have to be your actual name or anything. It's either that or I make up a name for you and, trust me, you don't want that.”

A faint smile quirked across his lips, but he still didn't give an answer. Elsie bit the inside of her cheek and offered, “You can call me El, it's a nickname.” 

In truth no one had ever called her El. She didn't dislike the name but she'd always favored Els over El, it had never felt right. For some reason it did now, with this random stranger who'd saved her life. Elsie didn't know what to think of that fact. She also didn't know why she'd told him a variation of her actual name when she had any number of fakes to offer. It hadn't even worked to put him at ease; the gunman was still silent, determinedly not answering her question.

A few minutes passed. Elsie had begun to wonder if the gunman had decided to stop talking to her when he said, “Nym.”

It took Elsie a second to realize what he meant. It definitely wasn't his actual name but it was something. She grinned, “Nice to meet you, Nym. Thanks again for saving me from getting mugged and for not shooting me.” 

“You're welcome?” The sheer confusion in Nym's voice made Elsie smile again. 

They fell into a slightly awkward silence after that, just walking together while neither spoke. Elsie glanced around and realized that they were nearing the part of the alley where the knifeman had appeared the first time. She tensed and started scanning the dirty bricks around them. The alley was crossed by another alley here and Elsie was fairly certain that the knifeman had come from one of the side alleys. She didn't see anyone in the shadows, but Elsie didn't let her guard down, keeping her ears and eyes alert until she could see the end of the alley.

“Where are you headed after this?” she asked before realizing that Nym probably wouldn't tell her. He raised an eyebrow at her in response, predictably not saying anything. Elsie sighed and pulled out her phone to search for the electronics shop she'd been trying to reach earlier. She squinted at the tangle of streets and alleys, searching for a path that would keep her on the main roads where she probably wouldn't get stabbed. 

She didn't notice Nym looking over her shoulder until he asked, “You're looking for Peter's?” 

Elsie jumped, instinctively clicking the power button of her phone before glaring up at Nym. He had a strange expression on his face, a mix of confusion and calculating curiosity. She frowned, “Did no one ever tell you not to look at stuff on other people's phones?”

To her surprise he let out a wheeze of a laugh and then looked surprised at the sound. When he didn't offer any explanations Elsie continued, “And yes, I am headed there. That's why I ended up in that shitty alley in the first place,” she paused, considering, “You wouldn't happen to be willing to give me directions, would you?”

Elsie glanced over at Nym and caught a flash of skin as he tucked his revolver into a holster at his waist. She looked away before he noticed her staring, but damn, the man was pale with a capital P. She'd seen his face from when his hood had fallen earlier, but the rest of him was apparently just as white, if not whiter. The hooded jacket and jeans he was wearing despite the heat suddenly made a lot more sense.

“I can take you there,” Nym said as he stepped out of the alley. 

Elsie blinked, out of everything he could've said she would never have guessed that that would come out of his mouth, “What?”

“That's where I'm going as well,” he explained, looking rather disgruntled about it.

Little warning bells started to ring in Elsie's head. The chances of him going to the same place as her were slim. She didn't want to think that Nym had ulterior motives, but the gun and his knowledge of the gangs apparently running through Atinaska's alleys painted a different picture. The fact that he knew what Peter’s was wasn't good either. She'd found the store through some shadier pathways and she knew for a fact that it sold illegally modified items like the modem she was after. No upstanding citizen should be that familiar with a store like that.

She studied Nym. The man was still standing at the mouth of the alley, awkwardly hunched with his hands tucked in his jacket pockets, the gun hidden from sight. Elsie wanted to trust her gut which was telling her that Nym wasn't a threat, but she'd been in enough close calls already today. She could see people walking by on the street behind him, a few shooting concerned glances in their direction. Nym turned to follow her gaze and quickly turned back around, somehow hunched even more, and tugged his hood further over his head.

“I could just write the directions,” Nym offered, stepping back into the alley and toward her. Over his shoulder, Elsie saw a man walking with a woman pushing a stroller on the other side of the street stop and say something to her before starting across the street. Shit.

She grabbed Nym's sleeve and tugged his hand out of his pocket, clasping it in her own. Elsie ignored the startled noise he made and practically dragged him out of the alley, loudly proclaiming, “We're going to be late if you don't hurry up idiot. I told you we should've just stuck to the main roads.” 

Nym expressed a confused half-question, but Elsie didn't stop to answer. She dragged him along behind her at a pace slightly faster than a casual walk, doing her best to avoid running into other pedestrians.

Elsie waited until they were well away from the would-be good Samaritan before she snuck a look back, relieved to see that the man had returned to the woman and stroller. Nym's hand twitched in hers and Elsie's attention was drawn back to the weight of their joined hands. His skin was slightly sticky with sweat, hers too thanks to the heat, and his fingers were surprisingly smooth.

“Sorry,” she said, releasing her grip, “That guy looked like he was gonna come beat you up or call the police.”

Nym tucked his hand back into his pocket, looking wildly uncomfortable, “And you thought grabbing me and dragging me away would prevent that because?” 

Elsie grimaced, “It looked like you were trying to harass or assault me in that alley from everyone else's angle.” Understanding dawned on Nym's face but Elsie continued, “I just needed to get us out of there without any of them thinking that you were kidnapping me or anything.”

“Thank you,” Nym said, a wry smile briefly gracing his features, “For the record, I don’t intend to lead you into a dark alley to kill you. Unless you try to kill me first.”

A laugh bubbled out before Elsie could think to stop it and she grinned at him in return, her earlier bout of apprehension fading away to a slight unease. She gestured down the street, “Well, lead the way then.”

Nym took them down the main road for a while longer and then turned into another deserted alley tucked between two buildings. Elsie eyed it warily but followed him in, trusting that he knew where he was going. This alley was narrower than the first, darker too with the roof awnings and fire escapes of the buildings along its sides blocking out the sunlight. More trash littered the ground and several of the buildings they passed looked distinctly abandoned. Elsie couldn't help but notice how Nym's hand kept hovering by the side she knew his gun was. His nervous energy rubbed off on her and she found herself toying with her bag, zipping and unzipping the pocket her knife was in to fend off the oppressive quiet around them.

Surprisingly, it was Nym who broke the silence. 

“Earlier you said you didn't want to get stabbed again, what happened the first time?” He wasn't looking at Elsie when she turned to stare at him, his eyes were focused on the alley ahead of them, scanning for something.

She scratched at her sweaty neck, debating her answer. She settled on a very abbreviated version of the truth, “I tried to shortcut through a bad part of my town yesterday. Got shanked for my stupidity,” she waved a hand at the bandages on her neck and peeking out past the collar of her shirt. They were the only remnants of yesterday’s ordeal that she couldn’t hide with makeup.

Nym gave the wraps a cursory glance, gaze pausing at the one covering the slash on her neck, “I'm guessing it wasn't that bad if you're out and about already.” 

“Exactly,” Elsie sidestepped what had to be a dead rat, “Didn't even go to the hospital for any of them, even if my…” She hesitated, wondering what the hell Caiden even was to her now. A friend? An ex? Neither seemed to fit exactly. “…friend freaked out over it, wanted me to drop everything and get them treated properly.”

Nym turned down another alley, “Not a fan of hospitals then?” 

“Eh, sort of,” she hedged.

In truth, Elsie avoided hospitals because she had never managed to find out what hospital had the real Vivienne's medical records. She'd originally intended to swap all the DNA records, fingerprints, blood type, and everything else from her records with Vivienne’s but the girl hadn't had any records in the nearby hospitals and the national records were vast yet woefully inadequate. In the end, she'd had to settle for scrambling all her old medical records so that any efforts the FBI might use to find her through physical evidence other than DNA would fail. She'd just been hoping that she'd never get sick enough to need the hospital or that she'd be able to forge some kind of medical file if she ever got into that situation. Luckily she hadn't needed to find out in the last four years.

“What about you?” she asked to change the subject, “What're you doing lurking around in the alleys?”

“I live there,” he said matter of factly, “and I wasn't lurking, I usually go through that alley when I go to Peter’s.”

Elsie glanced around at the numerous alleys forking off from the one they were walking down, “You don't take the main roads? Aren't the alleys full of gangsters and other unsavory individuals?”

Nym snorted, “There are no main roads to Peter’s,” he turned to look Elsie directly in the eye, “No one goes there unless they look for it specifically, there are plenty of other stores in Atinaksa that sell the same things.”

That uneasy feeling was back, making Elsie's spine itch. The look in Nym's eyes told her that he knew she'd been searching for Peter's not just because she was looking to buy some electronics, but because she knew exactly what kind of things Peter’s sold. That knowledge didn't sit well with her.

“We're here,” he said abruptly, stopping in front of a rust-ridden door carved into the side of the alley. It looked like someone had taken a hammer to the brick wall to make the entrance and then badly patched the excess holes with concrete and chunks of broken brick. There was no sign indicating that this was Peter’s, but all the resources she'd found about it had said that she'd know from the stack of keyboards at the door. Elsie glanced down and sure enough, there was a small pile of broken keyboards piled to the left of the door, far enough away to not get hit when the door opened.

Nym opened the door and vanished inside. Elsie followed more cautiously, taking in the cluttered shelves of various pieces of equipment crammed into the space. There was a surprisingly large variety of things for how small the store was. She could see a whole shelf of keyboards alone and another full of what looked like processors stripped from different types of computers. Another shelf by her arm held several thick books on coding. 

There were no signs to tell her where anything was so Elsie wandered up and down the aisles, perusing the mixture of legal and illegal merchandise. She found the routers and modems together in the back corner. One shelf of modems was labeled “standard” and the other “scram”. Both shelves looked to be full of normal modems, but Elsie knew that the scram ones were stuffed to the gills with chips programmed to route any signals sent through it to other modems and towers, making tracing the location of the signal much more difficult. 

Elsie found one compatible with the internet service used by Windy Shores and picked up a matching router. It wasn't perfect and there was a chance that the thing was stuffed full of viruses and other malicious code, but she didn't have the resources or time to program her own scramblers at the moment. She glanced around, searching for the checkout counter, and headed for the front of the aisles when she couldn't see anything beyond more shelving. 

The counter ended up being against the front wall of the store, beside a large display case containing a corkboard covered in wanted posters that looked like they'd been designed in Microsoft Paint by a toddler. 

“What are those?” she asked the woman at the counter. The woman looked up from the till and eyed Elsie warily. Elsie glanced around for other customers and pulled out the card that gave her access to her ghost account, setting it casually on the counter where only the woman could see it. The woman recognized the subtle marks that revealed what type of card it was and relaxed slightly, still wary but now more certain that she wouldn’t go running to any authorities. 

“We keep tabs on who the FBI are after,” the woman explained, “Pete made them look so stupid because we can pretend it's a joke for any legit customers we get.”

The quiet “Oh” barely left Elsie's lips before she stepped around the edge of the counter to look more closely at the posters. There had to be over a hundred posters, some half-hidden behind others, but all of them were carefully arranged to have the names visible. Some had lines crossed through the names and Elsie wondered if that meant they'd been found or if it meant they'd managed to escape. She ignored the woman plucking her card off the table and paying for her purchase, too focused on looking for familiar names. 

A trio of names near the bottom right corner made her pause. Kipe, Enco, and Itan. All three were on the same poster. The first and last names were crossed out with a singular dark line, leaving the name in the center standing on its own.

Elsie's breath stuttered in her lungs. One uncrossed name, one other member of her trio left out there, somewhere. Enco; MJ, of course it was MJ, he’d always been the most cautious out of the three of them. He’d always complained about how casual Elsie and Yaris had been about the whole hacking thing. The thought that he was still out there made her heart flutter with hope. She desperately tried to ignore the other crossed-out name. Itan; Yaris her mind whispered. She shook it away.

“The UnderN3t trio,” the woman's voice almost didn't register in Elsie’s frazzled mind, “You heard of them?” Her body was frozen, tongue too heavy to lift for a response. The woman took that as a no, “Must be newer to this then. They were big a couple of years ago, the go-tos for any hack job. Pretty sure everyone knew about them. Went silent a few years back and their names showed up on the FBI channels not long after. I'd feel bad for the poor bastards, but that's the way shit like this usually turns out.”

The door opened before Elsie could respond. Both Elsie and the woman turned to look.

“El?” Nym was standing in the doorway, glancing between the woman and Elsie. Elsie forced her body to move, grabbing the bag with her purchase and her card from the counter. She shoved both into her bag roughly and mumbled a word of thanks to the woman before scrambling out the door, nearly slamming into Nym on the way out.

He stumbled back, surprise flashing across his face, “Wha—”

“None of your business,” Elsie snarled. The numbness she'd felt in the store was fading quickly, giving way to bright hot anger. 

Four years. It had only been four years and people were already talking about them like they were some kind of legend. No one else had risen to take their place, not many hackers formed groups like the one they'd had; hacking wasn't a field in which friendships flourished. That'd been what made them successful, the way that they worked together to be the best at all the aspects of hacking. All of that, everything they built in their six years together, destroyed in one night. Ruined because the FBI was corrupt and couldn't hide it well enough.

It took far too long for her to realize that she'd been walking while raging, blind to everything around her. Nym, for some inexplicable reason, was still at her side, subtly directing her and steering her away from the alley walls. The anger had surprised her. Usually, she'd get dragged into a memory of the months after it all fell apart and the anger would come after the meltdown, when her emotions were already running rampant.

“What was that about?” Nym asked cautiously when she settled enough to look at him. Elsie stepped closer to the wall, reaching out to drag her fingers against the rough brick. The scrape of her skin centered her, the little flickers of pain keeping her mind in the present.

She took a measured breath, “Just saw something that upset me.” Thankfully he didn't press, but Elsie could almost feel the curiosity radiating off of him in waves. She rubbed a hand over her face and forcefully changed the subject, “What were you still doing there? I thought you already got what you needed and left.” 

“This isn't exactly the safest area in Atinaska, and as I said before, I'd rather not trip over your corpse the next time I go to Peter's,” Nym replied.

Elsie glanced at him and noticed the distinct lack of a bag like the one she had from Peter's. Whatever he'd bought had to be small enough to fit in his pocket. She wondered what he'd bought and what he was using it for.

They made their way back to the main road and back toward the alley they'd met in. Elsie stopped at its mouth and Nym followed suit. “Well I'm not gonna go back down there,” she started, cut off by one of her phones buzzing repeatedly in her bag.

Both she and Nym glanced down at it. He raised an eyebrow, “It seems like someone's trying to get your attention. 

She grimaced apologetically, “One of my friends probably, I said we could talk later before I came out here and I guess it's later already.”

He nodded in understanding, "Have a nice rest of your vacation.”

Elsie snorted, “I'll try.” And she would try, it was more of a question of whether the Duskwood group and her memories would let her. 

Nym vanished down the alley with a final wave and Elsie continued up the street, beelining for the parking lot where she'd left her car. She dug the phone out as she walked, checking first her phone and then the Duskwood phone. The only messages on her phone were from her work group chat, but the other phone had a few messages in her new Duskwood Legends chat where Jessy and Richy were conversing.

Vivienne: Hey guys

Jessy: Vi! 😄

Do you have time now to talk about the legends?

Vivienne: I do

Richy: Before you two get started I just wanted to say, Alfie is from Duskwood, just like me

On top of it, his mom owns the motel

The little guy has no choice but to listen to all of these legends and stories

How many times a day do you think he hears someone mentioning the man without a face?

Elsie frowned, she could see where Richy was getting. It would make things a lot simpler if Alfie had just made everything up, but then they'd be back to square one, with no leads at all. She found that she preferred having a lead, no matter how strange it was.

Vivienne: A lot, I'm assuming

Jessy: But I can’t imagine that it would make Alfie say that he saw him drag Hannah into the woods!

Richy: I am sure that in the last few days he heard a lot of people talk about Hannah’s disappearance too

It’s easy for a kid to get stuff like that mixed up or to tell imaginary stories

Vivienne: But are you sure that everything he said was a lie?

Couldn't it be partially true?

Elsie unlocked her car and got in, checking to make sure that the few groceries she'd gotten before going to look for Peter's were still in the backseat. The bags of snacks and other food items that didn't need a fridge were exactly where she'd left them and Elsie turned her attention back to setting up her navigation system and the program that read her texts and let her use voice controls.

Jessy: I think he was telling the truth

Richy: But there's no way of knowing for sure

Jessy, you can't possibly think that a legend has come to life and kidnapped Hannah

Jessy: Maybe not, but the man without a face is an important clue, I'm sure of it

We should at least do some research about it

Vi, you and I are going to follow up on this, right?

Vivienne: We will, Jessy

Again Elsie found herself wishing that she was in Duskwood. If she could just talk to Alfie herself she might be able to make a better inference into the validity of his claim. Since she was here instead she had to rely on what the others told her and hope that they weren't giving her bad information.

Jessy: Great 😊

Richy: 🙄

Jessy: I can feel it. The man without a face is going to lead us to Hannah

Even if this boring gearhead doesn't think so

Richy: Boring gearhead 😶

Elsie laughed as she turned out onto the street, not surprised to see the two bantering again. The two were close despite their differing opinions and at times she felt like a third wheel in the chat. She did wonder why Richy was so vehemently against taking the lead seriously. Elsie wasn't one to believe in legends and ghost stories either, but she wasn't going to pass up their first real lead just because she wasn't superstitious.

Jessy: So you'll be leaving the group now?

Richy: No 😒 

I can’t let you guys get too caught up in this. 

There has to be at least one reasonable voice in here 😑

Vivienne: You sure that's the only reason?

Richy: Of course 😳

She believed that as much as she believed in ghosts, which was to say not at all. Richy might not think that the man without a face was a real lead, but Jessy did and Elsie suspected that that had something to do with Richy's insistence on staying in the chat. But that was just a theory, he could just want to stick around for the entertainment potential or to satiate his curiosity.

Jessy: I am glad that we got that squared away 🤷‍♀️

Richy: Well what are we doing next then?

Jessy: Hm, I'm not sure

I’ll have to think about that 😅

Vivienne: You should go talk to Alfie

Jessy: Good idea Vi 🙂

I can go when I get off work today

Elsie glanced at the time on her dashboard, it was nearly six thirty here so it had to be around five thirty in Duskwood. She wondered when Roger's Garage closed if they weren't off work yet. Most of the garages and mechanic shops in Fainstville had closed around seven if she remembered correctly, so maybe that was when they closed as well. 

Richy: I haven’t added Vi yet 😮

Jessy: Really? 🤨

Vivienne: It’s about time ;)

Jessy: Great, you guys go ahead, I’m going back to work

Richy: Hold on a sec Vi 🙂

She ignored the chat for a moment while merging onto the highway that would take her back to Windy Shores. The worst of the rush hour had come and gone while she'd been at Peter's, but there was still a steady stream of cars zooming past. Her phone beeped and Richy’s voice came from the phone. Elsie passed a slow-moving truck and settled into the middle lane before responding.

Richy: Hey there 😁

Vivienne: Hello :)

Richy: I have a favor to ask of you

Elsie sighed, it seemed like everyone in the Duskwood group had a task for her. Jessy wanted her to talk to Cleo for her, Cleo wanted her to talk to Jessy, and now Richy wanted her to do who knows what. Still, she was willing to help out when she could. 

Richy: This whole thing with the man without a face…

It would be great if you don’t egg Jessy on about it too much

Vivienne: You don’t want me to make this bigger than it is

Richy: Yes, exactly 😅

Jessy's the kind of person who wants this kind of stuff to be real

If you encourage her too much she'll end up in the woods searching for a legend

That matched with what Elsie had learned about Jessy so far. She didn't think Jessy was so naive as to go chasing after legends like Richy thought, but she agreed that it would be far too easy for Jessy to get pulled into thinking that the man without a face was really behind Hannah's disappearance. Still, she could easily put Richy’s fears to rest since she wasn't exactly planning on emphasizing the supernatural aspects of their lead.

Vivienne: Don't worry

The only thing I care about are the facts, I don't think Alfie's story is entirely true

And don't tell Jessy, but I also don't really believe in stories like that

Richy: That makes me feel better haha

I'm glad you share my views on this kind of stuff 🙂

Well, what can I say, I just want to keep Jessy from getting too caught up in this legend business

It might’ve been the way the program read the message in Richy's voice, but something about its tone made her pause. Elsie thought back to the way Richy and Jessy had been in the call earlier, how easily their banter came, and the way Richy was always trying to shelter Jessy like he had done last night with Cleo and even now. She might be wrong, but his behavior reminded her of the way some of her friends from college had acted around their partners before they'd gathered the courage to ask them out.

Vivienne: Hmm

Richy: 🤨

Vivienne: You're awfully protective of Jessy

Do you have a crush on her? 

Richy: Why would you say something like that?!?!

A laugh burst from Elsie’s mouth and she grinned as she replied.

Vivienne: I think that just answered my question :)

Richy: 😶

You've got the wrong idea, I'm just her friend

There was a long pause, but Elsie was too busy snickering to bother formulating a proper response. The last time she'd had a friend to tease had been in college since she hadn't been able to tease Caiden because she'd been too busy being oblivious to his crush on her. It struck her then that she was somehow already comfortable enough with Richy to be joking around like this. In fact, she hadn't really been wary of anyone in the Duskwood group since the first day. She didn't have enough time to properly mull that over before Richy's voice disrupted her thoughts.

Richy: But hypothetically what would you say if I did like her?

Vivienne: I'd say you probably have a good chance with her ;)

She hoped she wasn't wrong about that, but Elsie was fairly certain that whatever affection Richy had for Jessy was at least somewhat reciprocated. The two would be cute together, at least that's what she thought. They both seemed like good people and if Elsie had met them under different circumstances she probably wouldn't have minded dating either of them. As it was, she was happy to be a wingman for them instead.

Richy: Forget that I asked that

I just care about her

Don't go thinking that I’m in lobe with her

Vivienne: Keep telling yourself that

And I think you meant *in love

Richy: Oh

Right, I did 😅

Talk to you later 😆

Vivienne: Later Richy

Elsie turned her attention back to the road. She was taking the same road she'd driven up just hours ago, returning to the grocery store for the remainder of what she needed to sustain herself for the rest of the week. She'd been stupid earlier and gone to the store first before realizing that she would have to leave whatever groceries she bought in the hot car while she went to Peter's. As a result, Elsie had been forced to just buy the items that wouldn't go bad in the heat first while reminding herself to go back on her way home. 

The traffic thinned out by the time she got off the highway and when she arrived at the grocery store she found the parking lot mostly deserted. For a moment Elsie worried that the store had closed already, but the sliding doors opened when she walked up to them and the small sign on the door still read “open” so she hurried inside.

Years of being a mediocre cook had taught Elsie to buy supplies for making good home-cooked meals, but also to stock up on ready-made meals for the days when it inevitably went wrong. She did just that inside the small grocery store, following the convenient signs to each section. As she finished shopping and headed toward the registers a sign reading “Liquor” caught her attention. 

Elsie paused, considering the displays of various beers, wines, and other bottles of bad decisions. She'd had a shitty day, no one would blame her for drinking away some of her woes. Plus, it wasn't like anyone would be around to have to deal with her drunk ass. She grabbed a pack of alcoholic seltzer as a compromise. They were nowhere near strong enough to get her much more than tippy unless she drank several at once, but more than enough that she'd be able to relax.

The cashier who checked her ID at the register grinned when she handed it back, “Starting off your vacation strong?” 

Elsie laughed, “Something like that,” 

The other woman bagged the rest of her groceries and Elsie left with a cheerful goodbye. She tossed the bags into the back with the groceries already there and settled into the driver's seat. As she grabbed her phone to set up her music Elsie noticed a few texts from Mila. The older woman had finished closing at the Traveler’s Hearth and wanted to check-in with her. Elsie smiled and replied that she'd reached Atinaska and would be staying there for the week.

Mila responded as Elsie drove out of the parking lot, telling her all about everything that had happened at the store that day. She suggested that they call while Mila caught her up on the store's daily gossip, but the older woman explained that she had been invited to a dinner with some old friends visiting from out of town and would be leaving for that shortly. Elsie understood, but she still wished that she could tell Mila everything. She missed having a friend to confide in.

Before she could spend too much time wallowing in her pity party her other phone let out a little chime and a voice Elsie hadn't heard since last night came from the speakers 

Thomas: Dan?

Dan: What the hell?

Where have you been, asshole?!

Elsie's reaction was roughly the same, just with less cursing. She stared at the phone, reading the words to make sure her program hadn't misread who the message was from. It hadn't. Thomas was back. Thomas was back and he'd contacted Dan first for some reason.

Thomas: It doesn’t matter

Dan: It fucking does matter!

What the hell is going on with you??

Thomas: You still holding up your end of the deal?

Dan, I'm fucking serious! 

Answer me!

Dan: Yes! 

Of course I am, who do you take me for?

Thomas’s burst of anger startled Elsie. From the few times she'd interacted with Thomas she'd gotten the impression that he was somewhat reserved and a touch nervous, not prone to fits of rage. It seemed to have caught Dan off guard too, his response coming in fast with an almost placating tone despite the presence of his usual cocky remarks.

Thomas: Thanks

Dan: Don’t make me regret this

You gonna tell me what the hell’s going on now?

Elsie wanted answers too, but Thomas had already gone offline, and if Thomas wasn't telling Dan there was no way he'd tell her anything. If she was lucky he'd tell someone else and the hacker could patch her into the conversation. 

As if her thoughts had summoned him, her chat with the hacker came online and his voice crackled out into her car.

???: What was that all about?

Vivienne: Your guess is as good as mine

Sounded suspicious as hell though

???: It did.

Perhaps we can figure out what deal he was talking about.

I thought it was extremely odd that Thomas disappeared after the news of the dead body surfaced.

Elsie frowned, while she wouldn't have done what Thomas did she also wouldn't be so quick to condemn him for his actions. Grief made people act in strange ways and she had no way of telling if Thomas had disappeared out of guilt or devastation. Although that conversation with Dan wasn't making him look too good. Still, Elsie wanted to give the man the benefit of the doubt.

Vivienne: I'm not so sure, it seems like that could've been a legitimate reaction to getting such news

???: Wait.

Something else is happening.

A new chat popped into her feed, another hidden chat from the way it looked. Her program's default voice spoke and Elsie glanced away from the road to see the new person's name: Poke.

Poke: How are you doing today Mr. Anderson?

I got your little message

Dan: Then why the hell are you texting me?

Poke: I just wanted to make sure

And you’re as paranoid as ever I see

Dan: How about you cut it out?

Poke: Ok ok, calm down

You know all the details already I presume?

Elsie grimaced, this deal was looking shadier and shadier. She didn't like where it was going. The chat reminded her of the way some of her clients acted, all paranoid and hostile. The resemblance did nothing to reassure her that Dan wasn't crossing onto the wrong side of the law. 

Dan: Of course

Poke: Perfect, I'll see you then

Dan: 350?

Poke: You got it

Dan: 300?

Poke: Hell no man

350, 300. They had to be talking about the price for whatever Dan wanted from Poke. Elsie wracked her brain for things that cost that much while she turned onto the road leading to Windy Shores’s property. She would charge that much for a relatively easy but tedious hack, wiping a text conversation or planting a fake correspondence through the web, nothing too complicated. From her dealings with other vendors in the black market, she knew that any number of things could also cost $350, ranging from low-caliber guns to small packages of drugs. In short, it could be anything.

Dan: Asshole

Poke: Likewise

Oh and Dan?

Dan: What now

Poke: I am sorry about the girl

Dan: Me too

With that final response the chat went quiet. Dan didn't return to his conversation with Thomas and Thomas remained offline, doing whatever he'd been doing while he'd been AWOL. Elsie wished she had more information, like access to prior chats between Dan and Poke. It should be possible for the hacker to get that log since he had already gotten into the correspondence between them.

As she wondered, Elsie's chat with the hacker revived and his now familiar modulated voice came through.

???: Strange.

What do you think all of this could mean?

Vivienne: Well Dan's trying to buy something from Poke

With a $350 price it could be any number of things, especially if it's illegal

Hell it might not even be an object, it could be some kind of service too

???: That is exactly what I think. 

Elsie sighed, she'd hoped that the hacker would have more of an idea of what Dan could possibly be buying. She could tap into a couple of her resources for information, but Elsie really didn't want to do that. She didn't fully trust any of her resources and bringing any of them into Hannah's case was a horrible idea. She wasn't that desperate for information; not yet at least.

???: I am sure that they were referring to something highly illegal.

Dan was bending over backward to make sure that the object or service in question was not mentioned by name.

Vivienne: I hate to say it, but everything says that this has something to do with Hannah.

Thomas disappears after getting the news about the body and then reappears just long enough to ask Dan about a deal and then Dan goes off and talks to Poke about a probably illegal purchase. It all matches up too well to be a coincidence. 

She laid all the information out for him, although she suspected that he'd already come to the same conclusion long before she'd voiced it. There was a clear arrow from each step to the next. Her mind helpfully provided her with multiple theories on how Thomas and Dan were responsible for Hannah's disappearance and she winced at a couple of the more gruesome ones. It didn't stop her from continuing her train of thought though and she pressed on.

Vivienne: It's hard to see a reason why they aren't connected.

???: I know.

We have to follow this lead.

I am going to get Poke's phone number for you.

Vivienne: Good idea, we can figure out what he's selling by contacting him

The front gate was still unlocked like Elsie had left it when she went out earlier. She drove past the gate and stopped, leaving her car idling as she shut the gate and locked it. It would do little against trespassers on foot, the stone wall around the property was barely three feet tall and would do nothing to keep people out. The gate would, however, prevent anyone from driving their car in without knocking down part of the fence or picking the lock and Elsie felt a little bit safer with it securely closed. When she returned to the car the hacker had already gone offline, leaving three final messages.

???: Exactly, although you will be the one to reach out to him.

I will merely be a second set of hidden eyes.

Give me a little time to find out the number.

Elsie let the conversation end there, not bothering to reply as she parked in the gravel lot again and started unloading. The climb from the parking area to the front door was a million times worse due to the weight of the bags in her hands but she made it without dropping anything or falling to her death so she counted it as a victory.

Once she'd shuffled everything inside Elsie stared at the food options she had. She didn't feel like cooking tonight so she preheated the oven and threw in a frozen personal pizza. The rest of the proper food went into the fridge, freezer, and pantry while she left the snacks on the table. 

Before long everything was put away and Elsie turned her attention to the final items she'd shoved into her bag. The router and modem were just barely small enough to fit in her bag and nearly got stuck when she pulled them out. She took them back to the bedroom she'd claimed and turned on her laptop, firing up a program to let her check the codes in the modem. Elsie wasn't new enough to the hacking game to blindly install a scrambling modem without first checking it for backdoors and monitoring systems. She'd found that most shops like Peter's would only install half-assed code in the things they sold, designed to be disposable enough to not hurt revenues when they were caught and removed but effective enough to be profitable when used by inexperienced newbies. True to her expectations Elsie found several easy-to-spot backdoor and data theft programs as well as a more well-hidden data tagging virus. She destroyed the code of the programs and installed a few programs of her own to facilitate additional scrambling and boost defenses. 

With the modem's code taken care of, she checked the router too and disposed of the singular virus in its software before returning to the storage closet. Elsie carefully unplugged the old modem and router, sneezing at the cloud of dust that rose from her actions. It was easy enough to attach the new devices and she had it done a few minutes later. She connected her phone to the wifi and tested out a search. The page loaded in seconds and Elsie grinned.

The pizza wasn't done yet so Elsie returned to her room, testing the internet speed and checking the effectiveness of the scrambler on her laptop. It was slower than her internet at home, but from what she could tell the scrambler was working well, making her signals look like they were coming from other locations. It wasn't perfect, but it would be enough to keep her more suspicious activities hidden.

She popped open a new window and searched for Duskwood’s police station again. This time the website loaded in easily and Elsie smirked when she saw the login option at the top of the page; they did keep their website tied to their actual system. She activated her breaching program and carefully bypassed the login system. The internal website used by Duskwood’s police opened up before her. 

Surprise flooded through her. Elsie had expected the website to be much harder to get into. She frowned, if she could get into their system so easily the hacker should've been able to as well. The fact that he hadn't said anything about whether or not the body belonged to Hannah meant that he either hadn't tried looking into the police files or that he hadn't bothered to tell her. The second possibility made Elsie bristle. She understood that the hacker was wary of having to work with other people, but if he didn't tell her anything Elsie couldn't properly help him, not without revealing her own secrets.

Elsie shook the thoughts away and clicked on the records tab. A list of what had to be case files opened up before her. The most recent one was labeled “Doe.J” and the one just after it was labeled “Donfort.H”. When she tried to access the files within another login popped up, prompting her to enter a security key. Elsie grimaced and activated her breach program again in response.

The timer of the oven went off before her program managed to chew through all the encryptions and firewalls so Elsie left her program running while she went to retrieve her pizza. She'd coded it to cover its tracks as well as a program that could and stop if it encountered a new form of defense so she wasn't worried about it trying to take on any complex security measures and getting caught. It could manage on its own while she ate.

It took her an embarrassing amount of time to find the oven mitts that had been hanging on hooks attached to the side of the cabinets. She grabbed the offending objects and opened the oven, releasing a cloud of delicious cheesy scent. Elsie took the entire tray she'd cooked the pizza on to the table and placed a towel between the hot metal and the wooden tabletop. She poured a glass of water on her way back from returning the mitts and nearly dropped it when her phone chimed and started talking to her again.

???: I was able to reconstruct part of the picture.

I think we should take a closer look at it now.

Elsie made her way to the table and set the glass down. She grabbed the phone and opened the chat, squinting at the picture the hacker was talking about. It was the one they'd thought was a prescription, but now the name of the medication was visible. Unfortunately the bottom half of the page still appeared fairly blurry. 

Vivienne: Nice job, and yes, we should

???: Good, let's start then.

My first question is: why did she upload this to the cloud?

Vivienne: I have an idea

???: What is it?

Vivienne: She wanted to show someone

That was the only reasonable explanation Elsie could think of. If Hannah had wanted easy access to her prescription she would have just kept it on her phone or left it in the cloud that her phone synced to. The cloud Elsie had found it in wasn't that cloud, this one was separate and Hannah would've had to intentionally upload the image, possibly for easier sharing.

???: Possible, but who was she showing?

We need to figure out what this prescription is for as well.

Prozac.

Does that tell you anything?

She hummed, the name rang a few bells in her mind, but Elsie couldn't remember where she'd seen it before. One of her old friends had studied to be a pharmacist and had often recruited her to help with memorizing the names of different medications, but most of those names had blended together or become forgotten by now. Elsie tore her pizza into uneven slices, wincing when she burnt her fingers. If Prozac was one of those drugs there was no way she'd be able to remember what it did.

Vivienne: Mmh I don't know, it sounds familiar

???: I think we should get some help from the almighty internet.

Vivienne: I’ll find out before you, wanna bet?

???: You do know who you’re talking to, right?

Vivienne: Scared to lose?

There was a slight pause. Elsie smirked and took a bite of her pizza. She didn't know if the hacker was someone who could be goaded into competition, but she was curious to find out.

???: What are the stakes?

Vivienne: Three questions

???: Questions?

Vivienne: Whoever wins gets to ask the loser three questions and they have to answer truthfully

It was a stupid bet. Elsie wasn't even sure why she suggested it, the hacker would never accept that risk. Besides, she had a tiny chance of success so it probably wouldn't even matter in the end. Still, there was a part of her that was fascinated with the hacker and that part of her wanted answers.

???: This feels like a prize that would benefit you more than me.

Vivienne: But I thought you weren't going to lose?

Another long pause. Elsie could almost feel the indignation battling with caution in the hacker's mind. If he accepted the bet he risked Elsie winning and getting a free pass to dig into his secrets, but if he didn't he was accepting that he was scared. It was a fascinating dilemma to watch, although Elsie would've struggled just as much in his place.

???: Make it one question.

Vivienne: Deal

???: Let’s go.

Her surprise at his agreement lost her a few seconds while she stared at the short response. Then she dropped her pizza and scrambled to search for Prozac, ignoring how her fingers left greasy smears on her screen. One of the autocomplete search options was “Prozac SSRI” and recognition flooded into Elsie’s mind. She turned to the other phone and yelled her answer and then send so loudly that she felt her vocal cords strain.

Vivienne: Antidepressant

???: Antidepressant

His answer appeared less than a second after hers, but according to the order of the chat, Elsie had sent her message first.

???: You actually won

He seemed surprised, hell Elsie was surprised. A smile stretched across her face and she felt ridiculously proud of winning against the hacker. She hadn't even beaten him in anything that required actual skill, but a win was a win. She noticed the lack of punctuation in his answer and the following message, it seemed he hadn't bothered with periods in his haste and shock. 

???: Congratulations. :)

Vivienne: I'm just as surprised as you are

???: I would be honored to present you with the opportunity to ask your question at a later time.

We should talk about this drug now.

Vivienne: Don't worry, I won't forget ;)

She paused then, wondering how to segue into the next question she wanted to ask. It was the logical next step to ask if Hannah had depression, but the emotional impact… Her roommate had been diagnosed with depression a few months into their second year, it was why she'd recognized what SSRI was. It'd been hard for her to tell Elsie even though they were close. They'd told the rest of their friends together, but it'd been an immensely emotionally draining experience for them all. To ask this hacker who seemed to be close to Hannah would be even more awkward. Especially if he didn't know or didn’t feel comfortable disclosing that to her. In the end Elsie decided to just ask bluntly, better to get it done quickly instead of hesitating.

Vivienne: Was Hannah suffering from depression?

???: I don’t know

No

None of this makes sense

Elsie grimaced, that was the exact reaction she'd wanted to avoid. She already knew the hacker didn't do well with emotions and if she had to guess, Elsie would say that he was experiencing an overload of them now. He'd abandoned punctuation again, which only reinforced her hypothesis.

???: I will contact you again later.

Vivienne: Are you ok?

???: Yes.

Everything is fine.

Vivienne: That was the least believable text I've ever received

He didn't respond and for a moment Elsie thought he was just going to go offline. She wouldn't blame him if he did, running from your problems was a lot easier than facing them. To her surprise, he responded.

???: It doesn't matter right now.

I have to go and research a few things.

Vivienne: Are you ok?

She gnawed on her lip, staring at the little message declaring that the hacker had gone offline. On one hand she knew that it was important to give people space to process, but on the other hand she also knew that people needed support systems and she doubted the hacker had any to turn to. Elsie sighed as she turned the phone off, deciding to let the hacker work through it in his own way.

Her phone was still covered in grease from the pizza she'd been eating so Elsie cleaned that off before finishing the rest of her meal. She didn't bother washing the tray properly before retreating to her room, choosing to leave it soaking in the sink instead. 

Her program had finished and Elsie sank into the chair with a long sigh. Her screen was open on a new page with a short list of files. She opened the first one labeled “Overview” and found that the police didn't know much about the body, just that it had been found in the forest and showed very few signs of injury. A few notes at the bottom of the file told her that an autopsy was underway and forensics were analyzing the area where the body had been found. Nowhere in the file was there a name or even a suspected identity of the body. She hoped that was a good thing.

There were only four other files in the folder. Three were labeled as images and one audio file. Elsie already knew what the images would contain and suddenly regretted doing this right after eating. She pushed aside the surge of nausea that rose and opened the audio file instead. Elsie listened to the recording of the 911 call from the man who'd found the body. Unfortunately, she didn't find anything useful from it, the man seemed to have no idea how or why the body was there. She closed the recording and grimaced; there was only one thing left to do.

Elsie took a deep breath and opened the first image.

She'd seen dead bodies before, wasted skeletons of other homeless people and druggies from her months on the streets, but most of them had been recently dead. The body on her screen had been out in the forest for several days. It was still wearing a pale pink blouse and jeans, filthy with dirt and speckled with leaf litter. The woman's face had been set upon by the wildlife of Duskwood’s forests and Elsie suddenly understood why the police didn't have an identity yet; it was hard to know who a body belonged to when there wasn't much of a face left to identify. The woman's eyelids were tattered, gaping holes left where something had destroyed the flesh to get to the eyeballs beneath. Her lips and nose were similarly devastated, revealing hints of cartilage and bone. Bloody trenches were scattered across her cheekbones from talons and claws, distorting the shape her face originally was. Her blonde hair was crusted with blood, loose and tangled around her face like a twisted version of a picture frame.

Elsie's stomach clenched and gurgled. She felt bile creeping up in the back of her throat. She swallowed hard and clicked the next photo.

It was a wider shot, showing the entirety of the small clearing the body had been found in. She didn't recognize anything there, but she wasn't expecting to. There was what looked like a walking trail in the back corner of the image and Elsie remembered that the man had said he'd been walking his dog when he'd come across the body. Beyond that, there was nothing else she could glean from the picture. 

The final picture was a closer shot of the woman's face and Elsie had to fight off the urge to immediately close the file. The woman's face had been bad enough from afar, but at this range she could see more gruesome details than she'd signed up for. For a moment the half eaten face wavered, bloody scratches and empty eye sockets morphing into a crumpled mass of bone shards and flesh. 

Elsie sucked in a sharp breath, struggling to stay anchored in reality. She blinked rapidly, trying to get rid of the image. It didn't work. 

The pink blouse faded into a dirty gray t-shirt doused in blood. Backpack straps dug into the corpse’s shoulders and the leaves under the body crumbled into cracked earth, blood already soaking into the ground. Tangled blonde hair bled into matted brown and Elsie could feel the wet warmth of blood on her arms as she rolled the girl's body over to unzip her backpack. The shattered skull tipped forward, thumping against her chest. Elsie swallowed the scream building in her throat and pushed it back. The body's head flopped backward, a few strands of dark hair still stuck to her shirt with gore. Her vision flickered. She sucked in a breath between her teeth, tasting the copper air on her tongue. Her chest compressed and it felt like she was choking on blood. She tipped her head back to look into the star strewn sky, panting and trying to ignore the corpse nestled against her.

A whisper of awareness fluttered by, teasing the brown tresses and bleaching them blonde. Blonde, not brown… something itched in the back of Elsie's mind. Someone had brown hair, someone important… She was supposed to be looking for someone.

Elsie snapped back into reality. She fumbled for the Duskwood phone and opened the chat from the first day with shaking fingers. The picture Cleo had sent was still there. Hannah smiled at her from the image, still standing in that field, wisps of her brown hair framing her face. 

Elsie released a small giggle. It quickly transformed into a relieved cackle and before she knew it, Elsie was gasping for breath, fighting off full bellied laughs. It was entirely inappropriate considering the situation, but she was too emotionally spent to care. The important thing was that Hannah had brown hair, not blonde like the woman dead in the police department. 

The body didn't belong to Hannah. 

She grabbed the phone and had a message typed out and sent before realizing how suspicious it would look if she just told everyone that the body wasn't Hannah's. Unless she wanted to reveal that she was a hacker, which Elsie really didn't want to do, she needed to come up with an explanation for how she'd gotten the information. The phone dinged before she had a plan. Elsie stared at the phone and silently hoped that everyone would be too happy about the news to question its source.

Jessy: I'm so relieved 🙂

That's amazing news!

Cleo: Yes, it is!

Hannah's still alive!

Dan: What'd I say

We didn't need to worry after all

Jessy: 😁

Dan: When the fuck did the police release that information?

Lilly: They didn't 

Cleo: What?

Lilly: I've been keeping an eye on the news, the police haven't released any statements on the body since it was found last night

Goddammit Lilly . Elsie hissed out a breath, she needed a realistic explanation to tell them. The first idea that came to mind was to claim that the hacker had told her. The problem with that was that the hacker would then be suspicious and Elsie would rather not have someone capable of unearthing all her secrets actively digging into her history. Still, it would make it a hell of a lot easier to get the group off her back now, she could deal with the hacker later.

Vivienne: The hacker told me

I guess he hacked into the police files or something

The chat went silent. Elsie cursed again.

Lilly: Are you kidding me?!

How dare you lie to us about this! 

My sister's life is on the line and you're doing this?!

Richy: Lilly calm down

Vi, I'm not saying that you're lying to us on purpose, but I don't know how much we can trust the hacker

Dan: I know exactly how much we can trust that bastard

Which is not at all if we use our brains

A headache started to thrum in the base of Elsie's skull. She groaned and flopped backward in the chair, already tired of having to deal with the group's antics. If she'd been in a better mood maybe Elsie would've tried to see things from their perspective, but at the moment she was fucking exhausted and wanted to be done with them already. As a result her response ended up more waspish than she intended, but she didn't really care.

Vivienne: Then don't believe it

It doesn't matter to me

I told you what information I have, it's your problem if you don't trust it

She deactivated her text reading program and slammed the phone down, ignoring the new notifications already pouring in. Then Elsie stormed out into the hallway, beelining for the fridge. She grabbed a can of seltzer and retreated to the balcony with her phone, the one that wouldn't cause her any more strife. 

Either the seltzers were stronger than she remembered or she'd overdone it by downing three cans in less than an hour. Whatever the reason, Elsie was much closer to drunk than tipsy when she stumbled back inside to use the bathroom. Her mind was blissfully quiet though, prior annoyances and worries drowned out by a warm buzz. She could still feel them writhing at the edges of her brain, but it was easy enough to push them aside.

As she dried her hands on the towel Elsie heard a sound emanating from her bedroom. She frowned, her drink-slowed brain buffering as she tried to remember what that sound was. It stopped for a moment and then started again, repeating the same tones over and over. 

Phone . The word cleared some of her haziness and Elsie rushed to her room. The phone was still ringing, the caller ID displaying Cleo’s name. She accepted the call and the other woman's face appeared on screen. 

“Hi Vi, sorry about earlier. We didn't mean to come off as dismissive or upset you. It's just hard for us to trust the word of someone like the hacker who we know nothing about.” Cleo looked genuinely apologetic, but Elsie was distracted by the dark buildings in the background.

She frowned, “Where are you?” Her words came out a little slurred, but Elsie didn't quite notice and Cleo didn't seem to either.

“What?” Cleo looked startled as if she'd forgotten that Elsie could see everything in her camera's view. “Oh, right. I'm…” she hesitated for only a moment before saying, “I'm outside of Hannah's house.”

“What, are you gonna break in or something?” Elsie giggled as she flopped down onto her bed, but Cleo didn't join in. She squinted at her friend and saw determination as well as a hint of something that might’ve been embarrassment on her face, “Oh my god you are.”

Cleo smiled bashfully, “Technically I'm not breaking in, I'll use her emergency key.” She paused long enough for Elsie's attention to lapse before saying, “And it's the right thing to do. Hannah would do anything to find me if I was the one missing so the least I can do is go to her house and look for clues.”

“Mmh that's sweet,” Elsie hummed, “You're a good friend. You all are.” 

She wasn't looking at the screen when Cleo unlocked the door and the loud squeal of the hinges made her jump. Elsie snapped her attention back to the call and watched as Cleo stepped into a short hallway, closing and locking the door behind herself. Neither of them spoke as Cleo started moving through the rooms. She didn't seem to find anything in the bathroom or kitchen located near the door and headed for a staircase leading upward. It led to a large office space with a peaked ceiling. A plush rug covered the floor and there were several small tables with various pieces of clutter stacked on top. 

Cleo headed for the largest table and froze, “Did you hear that?” She was whispering, eyes focused on something Elsie couldn't see.

“No?” The word came out louder than Elsie intended and she saw Cleo flinch, her lips pressed into a thin line. She watched Cleo creep over to the light switch for the loft and flip it off. They waited in silence, Cleo’s camera still pointed down the stairs. Impatience that sober Elsie could've suppressed surged through her, “There's nothi—” 

The metallic click of the doorknob turning cut her off. Elsie stared at the door as it began to open, a dark figure creeping in after and freezing. She stayed silent, watching the figure with her breath caught in her chest. It wasn't until the call screen disappeared that she realized the call had dropped long ago.

The slew of texts she sent Cleo would classify more as spam than anything else, but she was worried and her impulse control was a bit inhibited at the moment. Thankfully Cleo responded within a few minutes.

Cleo: I'm fine, don't worry

It was just Thomas 

Elsie blinked, a flicker of surprise cutting through her mind. Thomas had been missing all day— wait, no, he'd been talking to someone earlier. She shook her head in annoyance, unable to properly remember everything that had happened earlier.

Vivienne: Thomas?

Cleo: Both of us are still in the house right now

The typing bubbles appeared on screen when Cleo went quiet. Elsie waited, but nothing else appeared. Her mind drifted, wondering what could be going on in Hannah's house for Cleo to stop typing mid-chat.

Cleo: I’ll text you when I get back home

I just wanted to tell you real quick that everything is fine 

Vivienne: Ok 

Glad you're ok

Cleo: Thank you 🙂

Talk to you soon

Elsie frowned at the chat. Something about it felt off. She wasn't sure what exactly, but something was different. It would have to wait until she was sober again; thinking was starting to make her head pound.

She rolled off the bed and stumbled to her feet, groaning when a wave of vertigo washed over her. Elsie leaned against the wall and cursed both herself for drinking and the Duskwood group for interrupting her might of drunkenness. She wouldn't feel so shitty if she didn't feel guilty for not being at full capability to help them. 

None of that mattered now. She made her way to the kitchen and downed a glass of water. If something was happening with the group it would be better for everyone involved if Elsie tried to sober up. The keyword there was try. Elsie knew she wasn't a lightweight, but from her previous experiences drinking she knew it would be hard for her to sober up quickly. Her body tended to process alcohol slowly and she wasn't even sure if all the alcohol she drank had entered her bloodstream yet. In short, Elsie had no idea if she was at her drunkest now or if it was still to come.

She'd just finished a second cup and was pouring a third when the phone came to life again, Thomas's voice hesitantly calling from the group chat.

Thomas: Hey guys

Richy: Hey there 🙁 

How are things going with you?

Dan: Well, well, well, look who’s back

Jessy: We were really worried 😞

Thomas: I'm really sorry for disappearing guys

I went to the police, it's not Hannah

Elsie barked a bitter laugh. So she didn't actually have to tell the group about the body. She would've just kept the information to herself if she'd known Thomas was going to find out. She'd gotten everyone all agitated for nothing.

Jessy: That's what Vi said earlier but we didn't believe her

Dan: Yeah because she had a shitty source

Richy: Well we have confirmation now

Vivienne: Or maybe you should've trusted me

The chat fell silent, Elsie could feel the awkwardness permeating every piece of code in the app. She didn't regret it. Well, not-drunk her probably would, but not right-now her. They deserved to know that they messed up by not trusting her.

Vivienne: But whose body is it then?

Thomas: I have no clue. The cops didn’t give me any information

I'll talk to you guys later, I have a lot of stuff I need to do

The rest of the group chimed in with goodbyes and Elsie moved to turn off the phone, but a chat from Jessy popped up before she could.

Jessy: Vi?

Can we call real quick?

She blinked in surprise but agreed. She had no idea what Jessy wanted to talk about, but Elsie didn't mind having a chat.

“Hey,” Jessy started, she sounded less upbeat than she usually did, “I didn't really know who else to ask about this, but I need to get this off my chest. Promise you won't judge?” 

Elsie hummed, “I won't, 'm listening.”

She heard Jessy inhale sharply, “Are you drunk? Vi, what?”

“I’m an idiot, I know. It’s not that bad yet,” she admitted, not bothering to lie because she could hear her syllables slipping into each other, “Probably gonna be more soon, alcohol hasn't fully processed yet.”

Jessy sighed, “Then I guess it's good that I got to you now. I wanted to know what you think of Thomas.”

Elsie hesitated, she didn't even know what she thought of Thomas, “I dunno, he's been acting weird, but I don't know him well enough to tell if tha'snot normal.”

“That's about what I think too,” Jessy admitted, “I hate to think that he had something to do with all this, but with everything that's happened I can't help but be suspicious. He's been acting so weird, like disappearing for a day isn't normal at all.” She paused, “It makes me feel like a bad friend, you know? Thomas was so broken up by everything and I don't want to add to that by accusing him of anything.”

Elsie nursed her cup of water, taking in everything Jessy said. She could see the dilemma, but at the same time it wouldn't be unreasonable to consider Thomas as a suspect considering his behavior. She said as much to Jessy, which reassured the other woman and they discussed Thomas and the body until a notification from the hacker's program interrupted.

She opened it without thinking and found what seemed to be a poem. Elsie tried to read it while keeping up her conversation with Jessy but had to admit defeat. She made her excuses to the other woman and ended the call, focusing her dwindling brainpower on the poem. Elsie felt herself frowning more and more as she read. It wasn't a happy poem and reminded her of the times her thoughts had become too turbulent to control. If Hannah had written it she'd been in a bad place mentally it couldn’t mean anything good.

Elsie sent it to the hacker, not expecting to hear back from him for a while. He hadn't even come online to snoop when Thomas had returned so she doubted he'd show up just because she'd messaged him. Instead, she texted Cleo, letting her know that talking about whatever happened at Hannah's house sooner rather than later would be better. Elsie left out the fact that she wanted to get it done now because she could feel her mind getting hazier by the minute.

When the phone chimed again she was unsurprised to see that it was Cleo. Elsie read the message and grimaced; Cleo wanted to postpone their chat until tomorrow, indicating that she was exhausted and wanted some time to figure out the best way to explain everything that had happened. Elsie thought that was a horrible idea, time would only make it harder for Cleo to recall important details but Cleo was insistent. In the end, she was forced to let the other woman win, unable to convince Cleo to just tell her now despite the irritation thumping through her veins. At least she agreed to apologize to Richy when Elsie reminded her.

She watched Cleo's profile go offline and hissed out a long breath between her teeth. Elsie rubbed her temples. She was tempted to grab another seltzer but it was nearing midnight and she didn't really want to wake up hungover. Plus, she could still feel herself getting drunker as the alcohol digested, it would only make it worse if she drank more. It'd been a good couple years since she'd been blackout drunk and Elsie didn't want to experience that again, especially not while on her own in a new city. Instead, she pushed herself away from the counter she'd been leaning against and went to shower quickly before her balance got worse. 

Half an hour later a much drunker Elsie stumbled into her room without bothering to turn on the light. At least it felt like she’d already hit peak drunkenness and was starting to sober up. She flopped into her bed and tossed the phone haphazardly onto the comforter beside her. Just when her eyes were slipping shut the phone let out an irritating buzz and the hacker's voice crackled into her skull.

???: Hello Vivienne.

I read through what happened earlier. 

Would you like to talk about what happened with Cleo?

Elsie groaned. What she wanted was to go sleep off the alcohol, but it would be better to talk about it now while it was mostly fresh in her mind. Again she wished that Cleo had been willing to tell her what happened earlier, it'd be nice to have a complete idea of everything that occurred before discussing it with the hacker. Unfortunately, she'd have to make do with what she had.

Vivienne: You already know pretty much everything I do if you went through the chat

Cleo went to Hannah's house and Thomas showed up

I dunno what happened after

???: Yes, I did see that Cleo mentioned wanting to talk tomorrow.

Something itched at the back of Elsie's mind. There was something she'd wanted to highlight about the thing with Cleo. She scoured her memory but failed to dredge up whatever her earlier self had flagged. Elsie grabbed the phone and opened her chat with Cleo, squinting to read the words. Then she remembered, there’d been something off about the way Cleo texted, a hesitation of some kind.

Vivienne: Cleo was acting weird when she was texting me about Thomas being there

Like she wanted to tell me something but couldn’t while he was there

???: You think so? I didn’t notice anything.

The fact that you can sense such things is of the utmost importance to us.

I find it difficult to read emotions when communicating through text messages.

Surprise flooded through Elsie’s mind. She would have thought that this would fall under the category of personal information the hacker didn’t want to share, but he’d shared it anyway. The fact that he’d chosen to show her this flaw, this weakness made something in her chest warm. It was a massive show of trust from a guy as skittish as the hacker was and somewhere deep in her mind, Elsie resolved to never betray that trust.

Vivienne: That’s why we’re a team ;)

Thank you for telling me

???: I normally wouldn’t.

We should talk about more important things.

The quick deflection was expected, but Elsie couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed that the hacker had closed off again. 

Vivienne: Ok

Did you see the file I sent earlier?

???: Yes, unfortunately, I’m not sure what it means.

It looks like a poem of sorts, but I am unsure of its topic.

Vivienne: I think she wrote it while in a bad place mentally

Maybe to help her process something

Did Hannah write a lot?

There was an uncomfortably long pause. A small selfish part of Elsie hoped that the hacker had gone offline so she could finally sleep. Her mind was starting to float, comfortably warm and fuzzy. She doubted she’d have been able to keep up this conversation if she didn’t have her program reading to her, even with it the hacker’s modulated voice grated and she could feel her headache steadily growing worse. 

???: Sometimes. 

She told me she did it in her free time as a hobby.

Vivienne: That’s nice

So it’s possible she wrote to vent sometimes?

???: Yes, I suppose so.

Is that important?

Elsie hummed, it was important, but the connections she was seeing involved topics that she knew he didn’t want to talk about. She risked it anyway, he had to be willing to broach the hard topics if he wanted to find Hannah.

Vivienne: I think it could be related to Hannah’s depression

???: Possibly.

I would never have guessed that she was depressed.

Vivienne: Did you notice Hannah acting differently?

That prescription seems fairly recent if that’s what Hannah was getting when Mrs. Sully saw her

Another pause. If he kept doing that Elsie would probably fall asleep between texts. She curled into a ball and yawned, it had to be past midnight by now. 

???: No, I didn’t notice anything new.

He went silent again and Elsie peeled her eyes open enough to see that the writing bubbles were bouncing at the bottom of the screen. She got the impression that he wanted to add something to that statement but didn’t know how to convey it properly. To save him and herself from the overlong writing period she threw out a vague reassurance.

Vivienne: It’s fine if you didn’t

Then something occurred to her.

Vivienne: Does your flaw apply to real life interactions too?

Is that why you’re unsure?

The writing bubbles disappeared and then his next message came through surprisingly fast. Elsie read it and struggled to make sense of what he meant. Then realization dawned over her in a wave.

???: No, but it does apply to Hannah.

Vivienne: You’ve only talked through chats?

???: Yes.

But that doesn’t matter.

Hannah’s depression is irrelevant to her disappearance, she would never have harmed herself.

That caught Elsie off guard. She hadn’t even considered that possibility before the hacker had brought it up, but now that she was thinking about it Elsie had to admit that they couldn’t rule it out without more evidence. She didn’t bother telling the hacker. The way he’d reacted to Hannah’s antidepressants and his insistence that her depression wasn’t a factor told her that he was too close to the case to be objective. She could keep track of this possibility on her own.

Vivienne: Ok

We don’t have to talk about it

???: Thank you.

Do you have any other news to share?

She started to say no, but the phone let out a little buzz and Elsie blinked her eyes open to look at whatever notification had popped up. Through her hazy vision she managed to make out that it was the hacker’s program; it had found another file. She opened it and groaned when she saw another page of writing. Elsie squinted at it and tried to get her eyes to focus on the words but all she managed to do was to make her head pound. She gave up and sent it to the hacker without bothering to read it, hopefully he could figure out whatever it said on his own.

Vivienne: Your program just spat this out

Can you make anything of it?

There was no response for a minute or so, Elsie assumed that the hacker was busy reading the document. She nestled herself more comfortably in her blankets and debated just going to sleep now. Sleep was dragging at her, calling her into its familiar embrace, offering solace from the headache now splitting her skull. Elsie shook it off the best she could, she had to at least stay awake long enough to discuss this new find. It was difficult, her room was dark and with the quiet left from the chat she could hear crickets and other nocturnal creatures calling out a symphonic lullaby. 

???: This is completely different from that first note you found.

I think Hannah was writing about an experience, it’s far easier to understand.

I saw a few key points I’d like to discuss.

Elsie regretted giving the hacker’s chat the voice he used. Any of the default voices that were out there would have been more pleasant to listen to. His stupid voice changer was full of crackles and it drilled into her skull as the chat spoke. She mumbled an incoherent curse and gave up. There was no way she could keep going like this; she couldn’t bear to listen to the program read the chat and she couldn’t read the chat herself. Elsie lifted her face from the pillow where she’d buried it and spoke.

Vivienne: Stop for now?

Can’t keep listening with this headache

???: What?

Vivienne: Chat reads aloud, your voice mod hurts my head

Belatedly, she realized that none of that really made sense and probably raised a lot more questions than she’d intended. 

???: Can we finish talking about this note?

It would be beneficial to compare our interpretations.

Vivienne: I haven’t read it

Can’t it wait until tomorrow?

Quiet again. Maybe the hacker had heeded her plea and called it for the night. Elsie waited what felt like a sufficient amount of time and rolled over, curling into her blankets and letting her eyes close. Of course now that she was actually trying to go to sleep it was doing its best to evade her, dancing tantalizingly outside her reach. Elsie breathed evenly, letting her body relax and drawing sleep around herself like a cape.

She’d just slipped into a light doze, her headache fading, when the phone began to ring. Elsie snarled wordlessly and grabbed the offending device, ready to decline the call. She paused with her finger hovering over the red button, staring at the caller ID.

It was the hacker.

Curiosity outweighed her irritation and Elsie accepted the call, “You do realize that calling me won’t do anything about your voice changer scraping my ears, right?” She really didn’t mean to sound so cranky, but between the exhaustion, headache, and lingering drunkenness, Elsie had no brainpower left to dedicate to frivolous things like manners. At least her words weren’t slurring together anymore.

“Is this better?” The voice that came from the phone was pleasant, with a bright timbre. It was on the quieter side, smooth and tinged with hesitation. In short, it was nothing like the static filled monstrosity that the hacker usually used and didn’t revive her headache.

“Damn,” she muttered, “This is so much better. Why the fuck do you use that crappy voice changer when you have this one?” There was silence on the other side of the phone, and Elsie suddenly realized, “Is this your actual voice?”

She heard what sounded like a deep breath in and out, and then the hacker said, “Yes.”

That one word conveyed so, so much. 

The hacker had been hiding his voice, hiding everything that could trace back to who he was, but now he’d chosen to trust her with his voice. He was opening up to her, Elsie realized, first the talk about his flaw and now this. She’d never thought of trust as something physical, but at that moment she felt like it was crushing the air from her lungs. It’d been three days. Three days and a handful of conversations. What had she done or said that made him trust her so quickly? 

“Are you ok with this?” she asked, not quite brave enough to ask why he was ok with her knowing what his voice sounded like.

A light huff of breath from the other side, reminiscent of a laugh. “I trust you,” he said simply, “and this way we can keep discussing without you having to deal with the headache. I will admit my voice changer is not the most pleasant to listen to, but I haven’t had a reason to make it so.”

That made sense. Elsie doubted he’d spoken with many people who cared about the quality of his voice changer. Something about his voice and the way he spoke rang a bell in the back of her mind, but she couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. It infuriated her to no end, but she forced herself to focus back on the conversation.

“—should go over the note together,” the hacker was saying, “Then we can try to connect it to the rest of the information we have. Speaking of information, did you get any leads from the group?”

Elsie paused, “Technically yes,” she frowned to herself, “but it involves the supernatural and I’m not sure how much of it is actually true.” The hacker made an encouraging noise and she continued, “There’s a Duskwood legend about this guy called the man without a face. Cleo talked to a kid in town and he said that he saw Hannah get taken into the woods by the legend. I’m working with Jessy and Richy to figure out how much of it is actually valuable information. I’ll keep you updated on anything we do find.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, but I am not too sure how much merit you should put on a lead like that.” 

“Don’t worry,” Elsie snorted, “I’ve got plenty of skepticism in my bones.”

The hacker laughed again, this time sounding less strained, “I don’t doubt that. We should talk about the note, it’s getting late, and I would prefer to sleep tonight.”

“You sleep?” Elsie joked, glancing at the time on the phone. 12:57. Shit, it was late.

“Once in a blue moon,” he replied, “Now the note.”

Elsie grimaced, “I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t read it. Couldn’t get my eyes to cooperate long enough to make out what the document said.” She heard a vague questioning sound from the phone and sighed, “I was a bit drunk, ok? Still a bit tipsy now and I don’t want my headache to come back.”

What sounded like a muffled snicker came through but before Elsie could defend herself the hacker spoke, “Alright, I’ll just read it to you then,” and he did. 

He paused occasionally at different parts to discuss a point he thought was important and Elsie stopped him a few times to highlight details he hadn’t noticed. By the time they finished they’d determined that Hannah had written the note after visiting a family with an unknown companion. Although this note was far more structured than the first Elsie was certain that she had also written it to help her process the events that occurred at the house. They both agreed that she’d been there to get information on some kind of incident that had happened some time ago, but neither had any clue of what that incident could be.

“So this family is connected to Hannah in some way,” the hacker mused, “She felt guilty when they were nice to her.”

Elsie hummed in agreement, “So definitely some history there. Do you know anyone in Duskwood named Iris with emerald eyes?”

The hacker sighed and Elsie could hear the exhaustion in it. They needed to wrap this up soon so they could both sleep. “I’ve never been to Duskwood, I could check the town’s official records though.”

Elsie nearly volunteered to do it for him before remembering that the only way to get those records would be to hack in. Instead she said, “Let me know if I can help in any way.” Then she remembered something he’d said earlier, “Did you ever get Poke’s number?”

A soft swear from the hacker told her that he hadn’t. “I’ll get that tomorrow,” he sighed, “And you can help find out who Iris is by asking the group, someone there might know.” He paused and then asked, “Earlier you lied to the group and told them I had found evidence that the body wasn’t Hannah’s. Why did you do that?”

A myriad of curses built up on Elsie’s tongue. She bit them back and mentally scolded herself for being an idiot. “I was sure it wasn’t Hannah’s body,” she started, flailing for a direction to go with the lie, “I just wanted to give them some hope,” she finished lamely. It wasn’t the most believable lie she’d ever told, but also somehow not the least believable either. 

“I see,” the hacker went quiet, “Don’t do that again.”

Elsie sighed, “I know, it was an impulsive decision.” The talk of the body made her pause, why hadn’t it been the first thing the hacker brought up? The hacker should’ve been ecstatic to find that Hannah wasn’t dead. “Did you already know?” she asked, “I mean, before Thomas told the group.”

“No,” the hacker admitted, “I was so sure it wasn’t Hannah, but I couldn’t bring myself to check. The thought that it could’ve been her…I didn’t want to entertain that possibility.”

For the nth time, Elsie found herself wondering how the hacker knew Hannah and what they were to each other. There were few people she would willingly risk herself for like the hacker was doing for Hannah and all of those people were either family or very close friends. The way the hacker talked about Hannah spoke of a complicated history; there was a protective edge there, tempered by something that sounded like regret. 

“I understand,” she said, and yawned loudly, unable to hold it back. The hacker caught it and yawned too, making her laugh.

“It’s late,” he said when he stopped yawning, “We should rest if there’s nothing else to talk about.”

Elsie didn’t know what possessed her to ask, but the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “The question I won earlier, will you tell me your name?” The hacker went silent and she quickly rushed to take it back, “Sorry, I don’t know why I asked that. That was stupid. Forget I said anything.”

“My name?” the hacker sounded bewildered, “Why do you care about knowing my name?”

The words echoed in her mind, ringing all kinds of bells, but whatever connections her subconscious was making were too hazy for Elsie to properly conceptualize them. She was tempted to retort with ‘You know my name’ but that wasn’t entirely true. Instead, she offered a simple but true, “I want to know more about you.”

The silence was loud. Elsie felt an embarrassed flush crawling up her neck. She shouldn’t have asked. She’d overstepped some unspoken boundary, and now the hacker would pull away. Her thoughts started to spiral, whispering worst case scenarios.

It all stopped when the hacker spoke.

“My name is Jake.”

“Hello Jake,” she smiled.

He sounded a bit distant when he replied, “Hello Vi.”

Part of her noticed that this was the first time he’d called Vi instead of Vivienne. The other part picked up on the strange tone in his voice. “Are you ok? I’m sorry if I pressured you into telling me your name.”

“No, yes?” his words tripped over each other, “This is dangerous, I’m getting careless, telling you so much. You know my voice and my name, you could destroy my entire life with that information. At the same time…I want to tell you things. I want to trust you.”

It made Elsie smile, “You can trust me. I have plenty of experience keeping secrets.” A pang of guilt spiked through her at that. Jake had laid out his secrets for her and trusted her enough to put himself at risk of discovery to tell her his name, but she still held her secrets close to her chest. Hell, he didn’t even know her real name. 

A pulse of recklessness surged through her and Elsie opened her mouth, ready to divulge her name when Jake spoke first. “I have a question for you.”

“Go for it,” she said. There were a thousand things he could ask. Elsie figured she’d be able to answer anything he threw at her, she owed him that much for his trust. Within reason of course.

“Are you dating anyone?” His words came out in a jumble, spoken almost too fast for her to comprehend. It took her a moment to process what he’d asked and the blush that had just died down flared right back up. She could feel her entire face burning and if her blush were luminescent the room would’ve been glowing red.

She’d been prepared for anything but that.

“I…” she didn’t know how to answer that. Technically, Elsie had been single for two days now. Emotionally…she wasn’t sure. She and Caiden were over, that ship had sailed, but it felt wrong to rebound this quickly. It had been nearly four years after all, and she had loved Caiden, trusted him enough to eventually let him know her secrets. There was something here though too, she wasn’t sure what just yet, but she could feel it. 

The words that came out were clumsy, a poor representation of the turmoil in her mind, “Not really? I mean, no, I’m not, but I don’t know if I want to date right now?”

Jake didn’t respond instantly, and she got the sense that he was just as embarrassed to have asked. Elsie couldn’t help the smirk that crept across her lips at that thought. “Why? You have a ’friend’ you want to introduce me to?”

“No!” he stopped himself and Elsie heard him clear his throat, “I don’t know why I asked. I…”

She smiled, “Relax, I’m just messing with you. I like getting you all worked up.”

“Really? Can’t say I hadn’t noticed,” he said wryly. It only made Elsie wheeze out a laugh.

In the darkness of her room Elsie snickered and remarked, “You’re cute when you’re flustered.” The undignified choking sound from the other side of the call made something warm flare up in her chest. 

She froze. Was she flirting? 

It’d been a while since she’d done something like this and gotten such a reaction. With Caiden, it’d always been more like banter than true flirting with how long they’d been together. Jake was different, more reserved, and easily flustered. She needed to tone it down. Hell, Elsie wasn’t even sure if whatever was growing here would last or if she even wanted to let it grow, and she didn’t want to be the one to break his heart.

“It’s late,” Jake suddenly said. Elsie could tell that he was changing the subject again, but she let him. After all, she didn't know how to continue either.

She nodded even though he couldn’t see it, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

They hung up and Elsie turned her attention back to sleep. Her mind was clearer now, but tired. She yawned as she fluffed the pillow and settled in, letting sleep pull her in.

Oddly enough, she dreamed of Nym. He stood in the alley where they met, staring at her with pure confusion etched across his face. His mouth moved, ‘ My name? Why do you care about knowing my name?’ 

The sentences bounced around in her skull, his voice playing on repeat. Elsie scowled into the dreamscape, she had no idea where this was going and she didn’t like it. The words kept repeating, discordant now, as if two people were speaking not quite simultaneously. She slapped her hands over her ears and snarled into the cacophony.

Her thoughts scrambled. Names. Everything was focused on names. She’d asked two people for their names today. Nym had responded with those cursed sentences ricocheting through her mind and Jake… Jake had responded in the exact same way.

Elsie bolted awake.

Her fingers were flying across the phone even as her mind raced, comparing voices. It was a close thing, close enough that any differences could be attributed to shitty phone speakers. The screen unlocked to reveal her chat with Jake. It could all be a coincidence and she’d look stupid, but there was a minuscule chance she was right and she couldn’t risk not knowing. Before she could feel too foolish, she typed the question and hit send.

Vivienne: Nym?

It was past three in the morning, he wouldn’t be awake.

The ellipses began to dance.

Chapter Text

Elsie studied the poster Richy had sent. It wasn’t the prettiest looking thing, but it had Hannah’s picture in the center and stated that the search would start on Sunday at 2 p.m. at Roger’s Garage; so all in all, it accomplished what it was supposed to. 

“So this is being organized by a church group in Duskwood?” she questioned, noticing the little motif near the top.

On the other side of the call she heard what sounded like something metal being dropped onto the ground and Richy cursed quietly before responding, “Yeah, the Gate of Hope. Cleo’s mother runs it, she’s the Miranda I mentioned earlier.”

Elsie hummed, “How big are Duskwood’s forests?”

“Massive,” Richy admitted, “But there’s a chance we could comb a good chunk of it if enough people show up.”

He kept talking, but Elsie was distracted by the faint sound of tires crunching over gravel. She stood from the porch swing where she’d eaten breakfast and padded over to the other side of the balcony, wincing as her ankle twinged. From there, she could see a beaten-up gray sedan coming down the driveway toward her. 

The sun rising from behind her made it impossible for Elsie to see who was in the car due to the glare on the windshield, but she suspected she already knew who was inside. There was only one person who knew exactly where she was staying, after all.

“Vi? You still there?"

“Sorry, yeah. I just got a visitor.” She explained, returning to the swing to collect her plate and chug the rest of her coffee, “I have to go in a moment.”

“No worries,” he replied, “I should get going on this repair anyway. Stupid thing’s more trouble than it’s worth.” She listened to him go on a short rant about how the car he was currently fixing came with a whole host of issues. After a minute, he finished with an exasperated, “It’d be a lot easier if I had someone to help me, but all the newbies get hired by TT.”

Elsie smirked, “Why don’t you ask Jessy? I’m sure she’d be happy to help you.” The silence on the other side was telling, and she didn’t have to think very hard to picture the embarrassment on Richy’s face. “No, seriously,” she said as she set her dishes in the sink, “Jessy’s no idiot and you know you guys don’t get nearly enough work to keep either of you busy all day.”

“Maybe I will,” was all Richy said before he hung up, leaving Elsie snickering to herself as she left the phone in her room and headed to the door. 

She stepped back outside just in time to see the new car park beside her own. The driver’s side door opened and a head of dark hair exited. It’d taken over an hour that morning to convince Jake to come to the beach house and, to be honest, Elsie hadn’t really expected him to show up,.

Luckily, she’d left the gate open anyway. 

“Need any help?” she called down when she saw him lean back into the car and pull out what looked like a laptop bag. Even from an entire story up Elsie saw him jump, his head whipping around to find the source of the sound. She waved when he spotted her and leaned against the railing as he headed started climbing. 

She didn’t stare, not exactly, but Elsie had to admit that her eyes darted to Jake more often than would be considered normal. He was wearing another dark hooded jacket and jeans, similar to  the ones from yesterday. The hood of the jacket was down, either from Jake forgetting to pull it up or him actively choosing to let her see his face.

Elsie pushed that thought aside and studied the bag slung over his shoulder. It looked almost like a normal laptop bag, just much wider and bulging like he’d shoved a concerning number of devices into the pockets. She wondered what he had in there beyond the expected laptop. It couldn’t be his entire setup, unless he’d concentrated it into one device to help with evading the FBI. 

He got to the top of the stairs before she could lose herself too much in speculation and for a moment, neither of them spoke. Elsie scanned his face, taking in features she hadn’t noticed yesterday in the dark alleys. His eyes were different out of the shadows, the bright sunlight lightening the blue to something akin to the color of the sky. The bags under his eyes were still present, slightly darker now from the lack of sleep last night, further emphasized by a slight hint of stubble around his jaw.

“Hello,” Jake began awkwardly. Then his expression steeled, and he met Elsie’s gaze evenly, “I think we have a lot to discuss.”

“We do,” she agreed cautiously, “You want to do it out here or go inside?” She saw his eyes dart around at her words; locating escape routes, she realized. Elsie didn’t know what he’d gone through due to the FBI, but whatever it was had made him into a very wary man. 

“Outside is fine,” he said eventually. 

Elsie nodded and led him over to the chairs in the shaded half of the balcony, motioning for him to sit. “I’m gonna grab some coffee, do you want a cup?”

Jake shook his head and Elsie retreated into the house to pour her second coffee of the day. She paused by the counter where she’d placed her pack of water bottles and grabbed one on a whim in case Jake actually did want something before returning to the door. 

Elsie hesitated at the door, looking out onto the balcony. Jake had claimed one of the chairs and had his laptop open on the table, the bag tucked beneath his chair with the strap looped around one of his legs. He was typing away on the keyboard and even from where she was standing, Elsie could see the code sprawling across his screen. She couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be since she couldn’t see the actual letters, but she assumed that it was probably a breaching program or something similar.

She opened the door and went outside before the duration of her staring could turn creepy. 

The instant he heard the door open, Jake stiffened and whipped his head around to look at her. Elsie raised the cup and bottle in her hands placatingly and made her way over to the table, setting everything down before grabbing another chair and plopping down.

“Alright,” she began, “Where do you want to start?”

Jake was silent long enough for her to take a sip of her drink, but Elsie didn’t rush him. When he finally spoke, he voiced a question she’d already been expecting, “Is Vivienne your real name?”

It was a reasonable first question. She’d decided last night that it wouldn’t hurt to tell him her true name; it wasn’t like he’d be able to turn her in to the FBI without revealing himself and Elsie highly doubted that he was an agent sent to sniff her out. If the FBI somehow knew she was still alive they hadn’t shown any sign of it, and sending someone like Jake to find her would be a lot more trouble than it was worth. Plus, he’d already trusted her with his name.

She ignored the part of her brain that said he could be lying.

“No,” she said, “It’s Elsie.”

He frowned, “Is that a nickname for Elise?” 

Elsie startled, “How the fuck did you know my middle name?” 

She shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d dug into her fabricated history, but him throwing that out so casually caught her off guard. It couldn’t have been easy to find either, especially since the account she’d been using had no identifiers other than the name Vivienne.

“I didn’t know until this morning,” Jake admitted, “I was…curious, so I dug further than I did the first time and found your social media accounts through the photos. From there it was easy enough to find your place of employment and access your files.”

She leaned back in her chair, “Damn, that’s impressive, but I guess you’re a hacker for a reason.” Elsie eyed him warily, “Find anything interesting?” 

She hoped that came off as casually as she’d intended, but her insides were clenching at the thought of what else he could’ve found if he’d dug deep enough. Elsie knew she was good at forgeries and covering her tracks, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think that her work was flawless. There were definitely ways for people to tell that her whole identity was fake, especially if they knew what to look for.

Jake shook his head, “Not really. Although there was very little I could find dating to any time before a few years ago,” he paused, forehead furrowing for a moment, “Your voice is different.”

“What?” The word came out in a rush, more of a breath than a sound.

“In all the calls, your voice had a higher pitch, and you sounded slightly more nasally,” he paused, “I didn’t recognize your voice until after you figured out who I was. The speech patterns were the same, but your voice in person sounds nothing like it does online.”

Elsie forced a laugh, “My phone is an old piece of crap, the microphone on the thing malfunctions like crazy, I’m surprised I even sound human through it.” The scrutinizing look didn’t leave Jake’s face, and Elsie blurted, “Is Jake your real name?”

“Yes,” Jake answered slowly, “Technically Jacob, but that’s insignificant.”

Elsie pounced on the new topic, “What, not gonna tell me your full name, Jacob ?”

He grimaced, but anything he would’ve said was interrupted by something on his laptop that caught his attention. Elsie watched as he scowled at the screen and leaned forward, carefully rewriting something.

“What’re you working on?” she questioned, squashing the urge to walk over and look.

“Duskwood’s cameras,” he said distractedly, still messing with the code, “They don’t have proper CCTV like bigger cities, but a lot of houses and businesses have security cameras. I have been trying to get into them, but they all have different security measures. Not too difficult, but it takes time and a good connection.” 

“Need the wifi?” Elsie offered, already unlocking her phone and pulling up the picture of the network name and password that she’d saved yesterday when she set up the router and modem she’d bought. He made a vague affirmative noise, and Elsie set her phone down next to his laptop. 

She sipped her coffee and stared out at the beach; the sun had painted the dunes with a golden hue, and if the weather held, Elsie wouldn’t mind going for a dip if not for the slight issue of her guest. 

She glanced at Jake, his brow was furrowed as he scrolled through something on his laptop; he’d moved her phone, and it was now hidden somewhere behind the screen. She couldn’t imagine the man doing something as casual as swimming in the ocean for fun. Hell, with his pale skin, she’d bet that he would burn into a crisp long before he hit the waves.

As if he sensed her gaze, Jake looked up sharply, his eyes immediately finding hers. Elsie felt heat rise to her face as if she had been caught staring, even if she’d only glanced over milliseconds ago.

“You have a scrambler. That's why you were at Peter's yesterday.” 

It was more of a statement than a question. 

Elsie froze. 

“Well, I wouldn’t want the FBI to show up here too, now would I?” The words were out before she could even think that it might be a bad idea to let him know that she knew about his situation.

Jake’s expression shuttered, “How do you know about that?” 

Elsie swore under her breath. It was too late to backtrack now.

“The day after Thomas added me, the FBI came to my work and asked for me. They’d intercepted a signal from my house that was tied to a wanted hacker,” she offered with a wry smile, “I figured I wasn’t the one they were after, and you were the only hacker I’d been in contact with recently, so it wasn’t hard to connect the dots.” 

Jake looked deeply unsettled, “And why didn’t you turn me in? I brought the FBI to your doorstep, any rational person would’ve given them all the information they had.”

“Just what would I have told them?” Elsie scoffed, “At that point I knew nothing about you other than the fact that you were a hacker who was looking into Hannah’s disappearance. Plus, they told me that it was probably a false alarm because you’d been sending out decoy signals for a long time, so—”

“Did you say the signal came from your house?” Jake cut in suddenly. Elsie nodded slowly, not liking the look on his face as he continued, “I didn’t send out any signals from your location.”

Elsie’s words died in her throat, “What?”

Jake met her gaze evenly, “I didn’t use your location to send any signals out. I didn’t want the FBI anywhere near you in case you did know something about Hannah.”

“Then does that mean… shit.” Elsie lunged up from her chair, swiping her phone from where it was still sitting on Jake’s keyboard.

Her fingers shook slightly as she opened the app for her home security cameras and swiped through, running the one that overlooked the driveway and front door back for the footage that spanned from three days ago to the present. She saw herself and Caiden come and go several times, and the FBI appeared a few times, but nothing else appeared to happen. Elsie cursed and searched the timeline again, slowing the footage and examining it carefully, on high alert for any signs of tampering.

Still nothing.

“Wait,” Jake’s voice made her jump. At some point he’d moved his chair over to her side of the table and was watching from over her shoulder, “Go back a few seconds. There’s a figure that pops up near the bottom left.”

Belatedly she realized how weird it was that she’d immediately jumped to assuming that some other criminal had found her house. She couldn’t dwell on that now, it could be a problem for later.

She rolled back the footage and scanned the corner. There were two figures in the bottom, with only the tops of their heads visible. Elsie instantly recognized the dirty blond head on the left as Caiden’s, but the other head had much lighter bleach-blond hair that Elsie was certain didn’t belong to anyone she knew in Fainstville. The timestamp indicated that the interaction had occurred around dusk three days ago, roughly matching the timeline for just before the FBI had shown up.

Elsie let the footage play again, and another figure appeared around three in the morning, creeping around from the back of the house and huddling behind one of the bushes lining the west side. A beam of bright light flared, and Elsie realized that whoever it was had opened some kind of device. Her chest tightened as she realized that had to be the source of the signal the FBI detected. If whoever that was was actually a wanted hacker like the FBI had said, there was no way they’d sent out their signal unintentionally, not unless they were being extremely careless. 

Or purposefully leading the FBI to her.

She let the video continue as her mind raced, considering the possibilities of who that could’ve been and how they’d found her. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that that unknown hacker found her specifically. The most logical explanation was that the hacker was working with the FBI; not an impossibility, since most people on the dark web would be more than willing to sell out others to save their own skin. It was why most people didn’t team up. Still, the thought made Elsie’s skin crawl. She didn’t need other hackers trying to track her down as well as the FBI.

Suddenly, Jake reached out and tapped the screen, freezing it on a frame of Caiden talking to the stranger again in the same spot. Elsie frowned, the footage had come from just last night. Caiden was supposed to be staying with his brother. Why was he still hanging around?

She let the video play again and the figure vanished almost instantly, moving out of frame. Caiden on the other hand slunk up to the house, checked under the rock where they used to keep their spare key, and walked away moments later when he found empty earth instead. Elsie had given the key to Mila when she’d left, not expecting Caiden to need it when he had his own.

She saw nothing else in the footage besides cars driving by and neighbors walking their dogs until nearly four in the morning. A figure dressed in a dirty gray hoodie and dark jeans crept up her driveway, their head swiveling from side to side as if watching for potential witnesses. Elsie leaned in, scrutinizing the figure for any identifying information as they approached the door and appeared to drop something in the mail slot. They turned to go and Elsie got a glimpse of their face, but from what she could see, they’d covered their face with some kind of mask and with their hood up, she didn’t even know if it was the same person Caiden had talked to earlier.

“At least they didn’t break in,” Elsie sighed, leaning back in her chair.

“The first or second person?” Jake asked dryly.

Elsie snorted, “The second. The first guy was Caiden, he has a key, so I don’t know why he was looking for our spare.”

“I see,” Jake paused a moment too long, “Would he know who the other person was?”

“No idea,” Elsie shrugged, “But it’s worth a shot and I need to ask him why he was there anyway. Feel free to set up anywhere or head out if you want to. I’ll let you know what I find.”

“You are surprisingly calm for someone who just found out that a wanted hacker was stalking your house,” Jake commented, “I would have expected you to call the police.” 

Elsie laughed as she headed toward the stairs,  “These past few days have been anything but normal, honestly I stopped reacting ‘normally’ the moment I answered Thomas's text,” she paused and glanced back at Jake, “Plus, it’s not like I can call the police when I'm actively collaborating with a wanted hacker.”

She headed down the stairs to the beach before he could reply, already pressing Caiden’s contact. It only rang once before he picked up.

“Elsie?”

“Caiden,” she greeted, “Mind telling me why you tried to break into the house?”

He was silent for a moment, “Shit, I’m sorry Els. I was on a walk and remembered that I had some stuff left in the house,” Caiden snorted slightly, “Unfortunately I didn’t remember my key.”

“Bullshit,” Elsie shot back, “I’ve known you for years Caiden, I know when you’re lying. And you shouldn’t even be in town, your brother lives an hour away.” It wasn’t a video call, but she didn’t need to see him to know his face had morphed into his default “ oh shit” expression. “Seriously,” she continued, “You could’ve just asked me for the spare or told me you needed to get back in the house. I’m not gonna keep you from it. Hell, I didn’t even ask for your key back!” Elsie finished exasperatedly.

Caiden sighed, “I know—” the sound of a car door opening and closing briefly interrupted, “—but I didn’t want to bother you. It’s been…weird…and I think we both needed some space.”

“I…yeah, that’s fair,” Elsie admitted, “We can go back to that after you tell me what’s going on.” 

She’d made her way all the way to the beach and left her shoes on the dry sand as she stepped into the surf, wincing at the initial wave of chilly water. Caiden’s side of the call had gone quiet, as if he’d muted himself or ended the call. Elsie pulled her phone away from her ear and squinted down at the screen, shading it with her hand. The call was still connected, but a little mute icon was present beside Caiden’s profile picture. 

She huffed in annoyance, “Caiden, fucking unmute and talk to me. I will drive back to Fainstville to slap you if you don’t get your ass back on this call right now.”

“—la—on’t—giv—ucker!” the garble of half words crackled through Elsie’s phone at full volume. She yelped and pulled the phone away from her ear, swearing under her breath at the scare it’d given her.

“Hello Elsie,” Mila’s cheerful voice took her by surprise, “Don’t mind any yelling in the background, Caiden is currently trying to break into my bathroom.”

Elsie released a startled laugh, “What? Why do you have his phone Mila?”

Mila hummed noncommittally, “The poor thing was all worked up about having to ask you to move back into the house. I couldn’t just let him suffer.” The noises in the background increased to a frenzied crescendo at her words and then faded away into a resigned silence, leaving Elsie with only the sound of Mila’s soft giggles. 

“Move back in?” she questioned, “Did something happen with his brother? Where has he been staying?” Worry crept into her mind; even if they weren’t together anymore, Elsie couldn’t help but be concerned, and she didn’t want to think of Caiden struggling to live on the streets, even if that was unlikely to happen with Mila living close by.

The older woman sighed, “His brother just got a new girlfriend, and she didn’t like Caiden being around. He was at a hotel, but I told him it wasn’t a sustainable option if he didn’t want to drain his savings. I would’ve offered to let him stay here, but my nieces are going to be staying here for two weeks while their parents vacation starting tomorrow.”

“That idiot,” Elsie snorted, “Tell him that he can stay at the house, I don’t mind. We can figure things out for the long term when I get back.”

“I’ll give him the spare then,” Mila decided, “Lord knows Caiden would never have thought to ask me for it.”

“What happened to his key?” Elsie queried, “Did he fucking lose it?”

The sound of a door unlocking and opening reached her ears, and a few seconds later Elsie heard Caiden’s voice hissing curses at Mila, an undercurrent of embarrassment coloring his words.

“Hey,” he said, having apparently retrieved his phone, “I didn’t lose the fucking key, I accidentally left it in the house when I returned your card.”

Elsie laughed, “Of course you did. Mila’s getting the spare now,” she paused, “Caiden, yesterday did you talk to someone in front of the house? I saw another person’s head.”

“Some random dude,” Caiden replied easily, “That was the second time he came around, said he was looking for an old friend and thought they lived in our house.” Before Elsie could ask who the guy had been looking for, Caiden said, “Someone called Niiv. I told him no one who lived there went by that name, and he left.”

“Shit,” Elsie breathed, “Did you tell him my name?”

“No? Why would I have done that?” Caiden sounded confused.

“Ok, that’s good at least,” she muttered, running a hand through her hair. “If you see him again, don’t interact. I need to find out who that was.”

Caiden sucked in a breath, “Elsie, who do you think he was? Is it related to…” he trailed off, as if trying to avoid the obvious answer.

Elsie grimaced, “Yes. Not many people knew me as Niiv though, so it’d help if you could give me a description of whoever that was. You’re not in danger though, just don’t let them know that you know me.”

“Oh, that makes me feel real safe,” Caiden snarked, “Just go back to the house they already suspect you live in, I’m sure this won’t turn into a shitshow.”

“I’ll figure it out!” Elsie snapped, “Worse comes to worst I’ll reveal where I am now, and they’ll come to me instead. Best case scenario, it’s actually someone who was friendly, and I don’t have to do anything.” She stopped, remembering what had happened in the footage, “When you get to the house look for a paper or something that was shoved in the mail slot. It might tell me who they are.”

Caiden instantly refused, “Hell no! What if they’re watching for that or something? You said you’d keep me out of your fucking hacker stuff!”

He kept ranting, but a shout caught her attention. Elsie glanced back toward the house and saw Jake on the balcony, waving at her. She squinted and saw her other phone in the hand he was waving, the faint sounds of voices from her chat reader traveling down to her. 

She swore, “Just do it, Caiden, please. They won’t fuck with you if they want me, trust me.” That was a lie, but what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him, and to be fair, Elsie hadn’t pissed off that many people who would resort to kidnapping or torturing uninvolved people for leverage. The FBI hadn’t stooped that low yet. 

There was a long pause, “Fine,” Caiden said, “But you’re gonna owe me so much after this.”

Elsie smiled, “I’ll bring you back a souvenir.” Caiden laughed and Elsie reached her shoes and stepped into them. “I have to go, send me a picture of whatever came in when you get to the house.”

She trudged back to the stairs and began to climb, her feet leaving flecks of sand on every step. Jake met her at the top of the stairs, the phone held out for her to take. Dan’s voice was coming from the device, ranting about how he’d had enough of something. She took it and unlocked it quickly to reach the spy chat between Dan and Cleo, then offered the phone to Jake to read.

He shook his head, “I heard most of it when it happened. I didn’t know you had a second device.” He gave her a scrutinizing look, “Your chat reader surprised me as well, I wasn’t expecting to hear voices when you were outside. It’s a fascinating program, you’ll have to tell me where you found it.”

Elsie winced, she hadn’t had to actively juggle using multiple phones before since she’d never taken the other one out of her office before the Duskwood situation started. Clearly, she should’ve practiced.

She hummed noncommittally, “I’m gonna call Cleo and ask her if she wants to talk about what happened with Thomas now. It’ll give me an excuse to figure out what was going on between her and Dan as well.”

The look on Jake’s face told her that he knew she was running away from the conversation, but he still nodded and retreated into the house. Elsie glanced through the door and saw his laptop set up on the living room table, the charger snaking around the edge of the couch to the outlet embedded in the floor behind it. A wired keyboard and mouse were sitting on the couch,  connected to the laptop and slightly askew, as if Jake had set them down in a rush to get to the phone.

Elsie turned away as he sat, padding to the edge of the balcony and leaning against the railing as she called Cleo.

“Hey,” she started when Cleo answered, “How’re you doing?”

“Fine,” Cleo instantly replied, her tone slightly waspish, before she backtracked, “Sorry, I just had an infuriating conversation.”

Elsie hummed sympathetically, “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“I…” Cleo hesitated, then barreled on, “Yeah, I do, actually, if you’d like to listen.” Elise made an encouraging sound and Cleo continued, “Dan got mad at me because my mom asked his mom to help with the forest search. I completely understand why he wouldn’t want her to participate because she has enough trouble walking on flat roads, but what does he expect me to do about it? I have just as much control over what my mother does as he does his!” 

She paused for a breath, and Elsie stayed quiet, letting her gather her thoughts for the rest of her rant. “I wouldn’t have minded asking my mom to talk Sophie out of it, but he just had to be so rude! Now I’m just mad, and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised because that’s how Dan usually is, but I just want to wring his neck some days!”

“Mhm,” Elsie agreed, “That was a really shitty way for Dan to act. He shouldn’t have taken his anger out on you.”

“Right?” Cleo snarked, then she took a deep breath, “Thanks for letting me rant there, I needed that more than I realized.”

Elsie smiled even though Cleo couldn’t see her, “Glad to help. If you ever need someone to shit talk with or vent to, I’m your girl.”

Cleo laughed, “I might take you up on that,” Before Elsie could reply, she asked, “Do you have time to talk about last night now? I should’ve done this yesterday when you asked, but my mind was so frazzled that I couldn’t string my thoughts together properly.”

“Of course,” Elsie said, “Just give me a moment to grab a notebook.” 

She made her way back inside quickly, raising a finger to her lips when Jake’s head turned toward her. She paused behind the couch and mouthed, ‘Listen’. He nodded and opened a new document on his laptop as if intending to take notes.

Elsie settled on the far side of the couch where she hoped his typing wouldn’t get picked up by her phone and said, “Ok, go ahead,” as she put the call on speaker.

“After the call dropped, the door opened, and I saw Thomas come in. Obviously, I came out of hiding because it was Thomas and confronted him,” Cleo paused as if organizing her thoughts, “He was acting strangely and when I asked him why he was there he told me that he had just been to the police and got the news that it wasn’t Hannah so he came to her apartment to look for more clues.”

Elsie frowned, “That doesn’t sound too abnormal to me, you were there for the same reason. What else did you notice?”

“No, he was acting insanely suspicious,” Cleo insisted, “and I heard a key when he opened the door, he doesn’t have a key to Hannah’s apartment!”

Elsie sucked in a breath, “Are you sure? Maybe she gave him one and never told you.” 

“She did,” Cleo said, “A long time ago, back when they’d only been dating for a few months. I told her she was an idiot for doing that so soon, but he had that one for years until a few weeks ago. He and Hannah got into a big fight, I don’t know what it was about, but it was bad enough that Hannah never told me anything about it.” Elsie heard a faint hint of frustration in her voice, but Cleo continued, “He returned the key to her then and I don’t think she ever gave it back to him. As far as I know, Thomas shouldn’t have been able to get into the apartment.”

Silence fell as Elsie processed the information. She mulled it over, and Elsie had to admit that it didn’t look too good for Thomas’s innocence at the moment.

“Cleo,” she began, then paused as she realized a damning fact, “Why didn’t you or Thomas ever tell me? Who else knew about this and never bothered to say anything?”

“I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about Thomas!” Cleo defended, “If Thomas or I told you about this at the beginning it would’ve biased you against him, and we all know that he isn’t the one behind all this!”

Elsie took a measured breath, “So you thought hiding it would make him look less suspicious?” When Cleo didn’t answer, she rubbed her temples, “You knew this would look bad, I don’t fucking know why you didn’t think that hiding it looks even worse.”

“I did it because it’s not Thomas, I’m sure of that! He’d never even hurt a fly, and he loved Hannah so much that it’d be unthinkable. It was better that you focused on other possibilities.”

“That’s not for you to decide!” Elsie hissed, her voice raising despite her efforts to not lose her temper, “Of all the idiotic, fucking stupid reasons. He’d never even harm a fly~ Well, news flash, a person isn’t a fly! Thomas could be a murderous piece of shit, and you’d still be professing his innocence when he’s standing over your dead body!”

“I’m sorry, Vi,” Cleo said timidly, “Really. I won’t hide anything else.”

“You better not,” she snapped, still worked up from her tirade, “I can’t have this happen again, Cleo, hiding things is just going to make finding Hannah a lot harder. If you want me to do this right, I need to know everything .”

Elsie heard Cleo sigh through the phone, “I will, I promise, and I’ll let Thomas know that you know about the argument. He can probably tell you more about it if you want to investigate yourself.”

“Good,” she huffed, exasperation making her tone sharper than she’d intended.

“I…” Cleo hesitated, “I’m going to go call my mom and take care of the thing with Dan’s mom now. I’ll talk to you later?”

Elsie wasn’t stupid enough to not notice the blatant change of topic, but she let it go, saying her goodbyes before turning off the phone. She glanced over at Jake as she dropped the phone onto the table and slumped backward into the couch.

“Well?” she asked, “Get anything from that?”

Jake looked deeply displeased, which vindicated her, and Elsie felt her rage subside slightly at their shared annoyance. “Thomas somehow got a key to Hannah’s apartment or knew how to pick the lock,” he stated, “We still do not know why he went there, and he didn’t tell the group about it when he texted last night.”

Elsie nodded, “I could talk to him? See if I can get him to admit anything. Maybe—” 

The phone cut her off, the notification sound blaring out followed by Cleo’s voice saying, “I forgot to tell you, Thomas took something from Hannah’s apartment. I didn’t see what it was, but it was small enough for him to hide in his hand.”

“Well,” Elsie grimaced, “That changes things.”

Jake hummed, “You should message Thomas. I will continue my work with the cameras, and we will update each other later.”

“Don’t forget about Poke’s number,” Elsie added as she stood, taking both phones with her, “I’ll be around, let me know if you find anything.”

He nodded and turned his attention back to his laptop. Elsie made her way back to her bedroom and flopped into the chair, nearly opening her laptop before remembering that she didn’t have any active code or projects to be checking on. Instead, she pulled out the phone and opened her chat with Thomas, gnawing on the inside of her cheek as she debated what to say.

She eventually settled on simply asking him if he had time to talk. There was no point in trying to spring the conversation on him if Cleo already told him that she’d told Elsie about the argument; Thomas would know what she wanted to discuss and have time to figure out what he wanted to say about it no matter what she did.

While she waited for a reply, Elsie’s gaze flicked back to the window. From here she could see the roofs of several neighboring houses and a small sliver of ocean. The sun shone over the entire landscape, washing it with a warm yellow hue. Elsie’s skin prickled, longing to bask in that warmth. 

Five minutes , she decided. She’d give Thomas five minutes to respond, and if he didn’t, she’d go out and enjoy the beach for a while before it got too hot. She wasn’t going to let her vacation go to waste after all.

Unsurprisingly, Thomas didn’t respond. 

Elsie did notice that both his and Cleo’s status indicators said they were online, and she couldn’t help but wonder if they were talking about the argument. She didn’t have access to their chat yet, and Elsie made a mental note to ask Jake to patch her in later. 

Then she paused. She could patch herself in; she already had a program that should work from the many times she’d been hired to catch someone’s partner cheating, and it wouldn’t take more than an hour or two to get it working if this messenger was similar to any of those.

Elsie flipped her laptop open and retrieved the program before hooking up a wireless connection to the phone and diving into the messenger app’s code. The messenger was fairly generic, and its code was nearly identical to that of the app she’d originally written the code for. It only took Elsie a few minutes to tweak a few lines before the program was ready to go, and she released it carefully, monitoring its progress on her laptop. 

Once it'd bypassed the first layer of firewalls, Elsie grabbed her laptop bag and retrieved her signal amplifier. The thing was nearly seven years old, but it'd been her saving grace during college with how spotty the school wifi had been. Yaris had laughed when she told him what she'd been using it for, made some kind of joke about how he shouldn't have bothered to mod it to secure the signal if she was just going to use it to do homework. The memory brought a smile to her lips, even as she imagined how much he and MJ would've teased her if they knew she'd kept the thing for so long. 

She linked the phone and her laptop with the amplifier before pading over to the bathroom to apply sunscreen. On her way back, a faint curse caught her attention; Elsie paused, glancing down the hallway into the living room. She could just barely see Jake's profile, but she could tell he was leaning over his laptop if the sound of keys clicking was any indication. Something clearly wasn't going right for him, and she could hear his disgruntled muttering from where she was standing. 

Her earlier thoughts of her friends hovered in the forefront of her mind, and for a moment Elsie closed her eyes, pretending that there were four people in the house, not two. 

MJ would've been with Jake on the couch, talking the other man through whatever was going wrong with the program because that was how he'd always troubleshooted years ago. Yaris would've been joking that it was a misplaced comma or missing parenthesis while Elsie egged him on, both scanning the code too despite their shenanigans. They'd balanced each other out, their haphazard little family. 

A memory of the last time they'd been together washed over her. She and MJ had been up late, taking far longer than it should've to fix one of his codes because they kept distracting each other with banter. She'd been ranting about how a guy had tried to come onto her and her friends at a bar which had somehow turned into hypotheticals of what it would be like if the two of them went to a bar together.

Yaris had joined just as MJ jokingly suggested that the they should meet up and test out who had the most accurate prediction and, as usual, immediately started teasing the two of them for planning a date. It had quickly devolved into the three of them joking about what a disaster a proper meetup would be and the code didn't get fixed till the next day.

Elsie missed it viscerally. 

“Elsie?” She blinked, Jake was leaning back on the couch, peering down the hall at her, “Are you alright?”

She shook herself slightly, blinking back the tears as they tried to form. “Yeah,” the word caught in her throat and she swallowed roughly, “Yeah, I'm good.” 

Jake’s brow furrowed, his mouth started to open, but Elsie fled into her room, shutting the door a little too hard behind her. She scrubbed the back of her hand over her eyes and winced when she saw the amplifier sitting innocently on her desk. She’d known that doing something like this, working so closely with another hacker after all these years would dredge up memories; she just hadn’t expected it to be so painful. 

The urge to leave the house bubbled up in her chest and Elsie gave in.

She barely took the time to grab her earbuds and both phones before retreating from the room. She stopped by the kitchen to fill up her water bottle and found Jake with his laptop, hunched in a way that made her back twinge, fingers flying over the keyboard as he typed furiously. As if he sensed her gaze, he paused and looked around, a frown etched on his face.

“I’m gonna head out for a bit,” Elsie told him when he noticed her in the kitchen, “How’s it going with the cameras?”

He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, “I’ve gained access to about a dozen of the cameras nearest to Hannah’s house, but I have not had the time to look through the footage yet. My program is running into some trouble on the Poke front as well, he has an extra layer of firewalls that keep people from finding his number and those are so amateur that my programs are struggling.”

“I thought you were a professional hacker,” Elsie teased, “Surely you aren’t getting overpowered by some random guy with a firewall.”

Jake scowled, “I could get through easily if I were actively hacking it. My current focus is these cameras, I have enough alternate routes and improvisation processes in rmy programs to get through anything Poke can come up with.” He seemed to realize how defensive he’d gotten and paused. A tinge of red lit his ears as Elsie laughed. 

“Mhm,” she hummed, “Don’t worry, I’ve seen the program you gave me for Hannah’s cloud, I couldn’t have done bett—” she cut herself off, internally cursed at her slip-up and hurriedly added, “I imagine that whatever defenses the cloud has would probably be harder to get through than whatever homemade thing Poke has.” 

The look on Jake’s face made her skin itch, and Elsie squashed the urge to fidget, holding his gaze with a carefully crafted expression of indifference as if she hadn’t almost given herself away. Hell, she was pretty sure she’d slipped up in every conversation she’d had with the man since he’d shown up at the house. She twisted the lid of her water bottle on and stepped toward the door with a faux casual, “I’m going for a walk, text me if you find anything,” before striding out the door, pretending that she couldn’t feel his eyes burning into her back as she retreated.

Elsie waited till she reached the bottom of the staircase to drop the facade, sinking onto the bottom step with a lengthy huff. She really needed to get her mouth under control. Being around another hacker had awoken the serpent of jargon that had been resting in her mind, and she couldn’t afford to keep slipping up, no matter how much she had missed being able to talk to someone who understand code. 

A chime from one of the phones caught her attention and Elsie glanced down at the devices in her hand. It was the Duskwood phone, Jessy’s voice already floating out from the speakers.

Jessy: I just thought of something that could help us!

The library has a book about the man without a face!

I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier

ButI don’t remember its name 😒

Richy: When were you planning to get the book?

The library closes before you get off work

Elsie paused to connect the phone to her earbuds and walk down to the shore as Jessy and Richy continued discussing. 

Vivienne: Is there an ebook version? Or could we find it online somewhere?

Jessy: Mhm, I don’t think so 

It’s pretty old if I remember right and I don’t know if it ever made it out of Duskwood 🫤

I could try to make it there on my lunch break though!

Richy: That’s halfway across town

You won’t have enough time to look around for it

Jessy: I could ask the librarians, they’ll know where it is

Richy: That could work 🤔

Jessy: Especially if my favorite boss gives me a few extra minutes of break 😉

The cool water of the ocean lapped at Elsie’s feet and she stopped to shed her sandals, content to bathe in the warmth of the rising sun and listen to her friends banter in her ears. Then she heard Jessy call her name, pleading for her to look up the book’s title so she could find it quicker. Elsie jokingly refused and laughed at Jessy’s faux annoyed response before asking for the link to Duskwood’s library catalogue. 

The two went quiet barely a few minutes later, citing an approaching customer as an apology. By then Elsie had already opened the library website and was hunting for the book Jessy wanted. There was only one search bar, with a small blurb instructing her to enter in a title, topic, author, or isbn. She typed in “Man without a face” and hit enter, watching as a few books popped up as a result. A quick scan through the summaries narrowed it down to a singular book, Midnight in Duskwood: A collection of Legends and Stories .

Out of curiosity she looked the title up online and found that Jessy had been right, there was nearly no mention of the book, only a few hits on various social media sites from people Elsie assumed were Duskwood residents. There was no activity from the chat, so she figured they were still busy with the customer. It wasn’t a time sensitive issue, so she slid her earbuds back in the case and paused at the surf, closing her eyes and breathing in the fresh salty air. 

The sun was high in the sky and Elsie was floating in the shallows on a float she’d snagged from an empty house next door when she heard a faint but familiar notification alert from the Duskwood phone. She rolled to an upright position, careful to keep her bandages dry, and walked back to shore. The phone sat where she’d left it on a towel under the beach umbrella she’d also taken from next door. She sat and squinted at the screen, a grin spreading across her face moments later.

Her program had broken through Cleo and Thomas’s chat. 

Elsie skimmed it quickly, not noticing anything too suspicious. All the recent messages were from hours ago, when she had just spoken to Cleo. The chat revealed that Cleo had only warned Thomas that Elsie knew about their meeting at Hannah’s apartment and wanted to talk to him. Surprisingly, she hadn’t even mentioned the fact that she knew Thomas took something with him or that he had a key he wasn’t supposed to have.

Elsie hummed, that was good, Thomas wouldn’t know exactly what to prepare for. Although if he was guilty he likely already had lies prepared. She let that thought skip away for the moment when the presence of another notification from the phone drew her attention. 

She frowned at the sms message in her inbox. A simple, “I need to know who she’s been talking to, how much?” followed by a string of numbers from an unknown number. Part of her had forgotten that it was abnormal for her to go more than a few days without a new client, the other part hadn’t realized that days had passed. She didn’t really need the money or the distraction so she declined after a brief tracking of the number showed the client to be a typical woman wanting to know if her partner was cheating. 

The sound of the messenger’s ringtone mere minutes later kept her from wandering back out to the ocean. Elsie glanced down and saw Jessy’s profile picture smiling up at her. She accepted the call and Jessy’s voice instantly came out, bright and cheerful, “Hi there Vi!”

“Hi Jessy,” she replied, “Any luck on that book you’re after?”

Jessy laughed, “I’m actually on my way to the library right now, Richy let me go on my lunch break a little bit early since he didn’t need my help at the moment.”

Elsie glanced at the time on the phone, 12:47, which meant it was 11:47 in Duskwood, reasonable for lunchtime. Her own stomach grumbled slightly as if reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She turned her attention back into the call just as the other woman asked, “And did you tell Richy to make me help him with that car?”

A giggle bubbled out from her chest at the hint of confusion she could hear in Jessy’s voice, “Yeah, did you guys have fun?”

“Actually yes!” Jessy responded, “I haven’t really done much with cars so I mostly just handed him tools so he didn’t have to crawl out from under the car. I doubt I was much help, but Richy seemed happy to have me around.”

Elsie heard the smile in Jessy’s voice and her own lips quirked upward in response, “Oh, that’s good,” she said, wading back into the ocean and resettling on the float, “I figured you two would work well together.”

“Haha, of course we would! We’ve been friends forever,” Jessy giggled, “Richy would be lost trying to run the garage without me!” She paused, and Elsie heard the sound of a crosswalk beeping. Then she continued, “But what about you, what’ve you been up to? Richy said you had a friend over.”

Elsie hesitated, then plowed ahead, “An old friend heard I was taking a vacation near where they live and came to bother me during my time off,” she told Jessy, keeping her tone light.

“Oh! You’re on vacation? Where’d you go?” Elsie gave her the name of another coastal town she’d seen on the map and Jessy launched into a story about one of the beaches she’d visited in Spain a few years ago. Elsie let her ramble, closing her eyes but still chiming in with questions and reactions as she relaxed into the conversation. It didn’t take long for her to become genuinely engaged, sharing a few of her own trips that she remembered from her college days and family vacations. 

Nearly ten minutes later Jessy cut herself off, “Oh! We’ve reached the library already, I lost track of time.” Elsie heard the sound of a door opening and then Jessy whispered, “I’m going to go talk to the librarians, hopefully they can tell me where the book is.”

A moment later she heard Jessy speak, her voice fainter and clearly not directed toward the phone, “Hi Mr. Roth! How are you?” The response was too quiet for her to hear, but Jessy laughed, “I’m doing good, glad to hear your garden is flourishing, the other day Alicia was just telling me about how much time you spend on it.” Another quiet response and then, “I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m in a bit of a time crunch. Could you point me to where Midnight in Duskwood is on the shelves?”

This pause was longer and Elsie thought she heard a male voice say, “Grabbed…never…face.” Then Jessy said, “Oh…that’s alright Mr. Roth. Thanks for the help anyway!” before she heard footsteps and the door again.

“Can you believe that?” Jessy exclaimed when Elsie could hear cars in the background again, “I walk all the way over here and skip my lunch, just to find out that they don’t even have the stupid book? I didn’t want to yell at Mr. Roth but I can’t believe they didn’t make a note of that or something on the website! They’ve known it’s been missing for days! Days! He couldn’t even tell me who had it because they never properly checked it out and pretty much stole it! Who knows when we’ll be able to get our hands on it at this rate. Mr. Roth did say they have another copy ordered, but it could take weeks for it to come in!” 

Elsie sighed, she didn’t know what she’d expected but hearing that someone had gotten to the book before them wasn’t exactly inspiring confidence. At least this lead hadn’t really been their only one. Then she paused, the cogs in her mind whirring, “Jessy, how interested would you say the people in Duskwood usually are about the legends?”

“Uhm,” Jessy paused, “I’m a bit of an outlier here, most people are more like Richy. They tend to grow out of believing in the legends.”

“So that book we’re after wouldn’t be very popular, right?” Jessy made a vague sound of agreement tinged with confusion, but Elsie pushed on, “What are the chances that Hannah goes missing, our leads bring us to this book, and it just happens to have been stolen not long before we came looking?”

“Not very likely?” Jessy queried, “Vi, where are you—” Elsie heard a sharp inhale, “You think our culprit has the book?”

“It seems a little too convenient that we can’t get more information on the man without a face don’t you think?”

Jessy hummed, “It’s a good idea but I don’t know how far we’d get with trying to find out who it was. Mr. Roth said it was a person wearing a black jacket with the hood up who came in just before the library was going to close, but that’s all he knew. He was busy trying to check in the last of the books for the day so he didn’t pay much attention to the person until they’d already grabbed the book and took off out the door. He nearly missed that the person had even taken a book in the first place!”

“What about cameras? We could try to get footage off those and see if anyone recognizes our mystery thief,” Elsie suggested, Jake might even find them with all the other cameras he’d been looking through.

She heard Jessy sigh, “I don’t think the library has cameras, not many of the older buildings in Duskwood do. Everyone pretty much knows each other already and there isn’t usually a ton of crime.”

“I see. Well, it can’t hurt to—” a shadow fell across her face and Elsie’s eyes flew open with a jolt, her limbs flailing as she struggled to stand and catch the phone before it fell into the water.

Jake stared down at her, amusement dancing across his face.

“Fuck, I didn’t even hear you walk over,” she gasped, “You’re gonna give me a heart attack or something, idiot.”

“I wasn’t particularly stealthy,” Jake retorted, “It’s not my fault your ears are defective.”

Elsie splashed a handful of water in his direction in lieu of responding, laughing at the disgruntled scowl it elicited, “I should take a picture, you look like such a wet cat of a man.”

Jake raised an eyebrow and retaliated by crouching to sweep his arm across the water, sending a small wave crashing into Elsie’s face. She sputtered, laughing even as she shook wet strands of hair from her face. A grin split her face and she returned the gesture, skipping her hand to shoot a few well-aimed streams high enough to threaten Jake into stumbling backward to avoid getting water in his eyes.

“Ooh, is that your friend?” Jessy cut in, “What’s his name?”

Both Elsie and Jake froze. She swore internally; how the fuck had she forgotten that Jessy was still there, listening through their call?

Elsie recovered first, and blurted out the first name she could think of, “This is Kevin,” 

“Oh, hi Kevin!” Jessy chirped, “I’m Jessy, one of Vi’s friends!”

Jake stared at Elsie, panic clear in his eyes. She fought off the urge to laugh, despite the fact that the hacker looked exactly like a deer in headlights, and offered him the phone. He glared at her as if he could sense her mirth but came close enough that Jessy would be able to hear him.

“Uhm, hi, Jessy,” he stumbled, “It’s nice to meet you.”

Jessy laughed, “Nice to meet you too! I hear Vi’s vacationing near your home?”

Jake offered an evasive, stilted response but Jessy didn’t seem to notice, content with continuing to chat his ear off. The conversation lasted only a few minutes, but by the time Jessy reached the garage and bid them farewell Elsie could tell that Jake had reached the limit of his ability to talk to strangers, that or he had indigestion. 

She ended the call and grinned at him, “Congrats, you survived talking to someone new!”

Jake snorted, “How lovely.”

“You can’t say that that was a complete disaster,” Elsie pressed, trudging out of the water to plop down on the towel. 

“I suppose I can’t,” he agreed reluctantly, “But that was extremely dangerous, she knows what my voice sounds like now.”

Elsie sighed, “I doubt she’d make the connection that Kevin and the sketchy hacker are the same person. The group doesn’t even know that we’ve met.” He didn’t look convinced so she added, “And if she ever seems to be connecting too much I’ll throw her off the trail, promise.”

Jake grimaced but nodded in response, some of the tension leaving his frame. Elsie glanced up at him and failed to suppress a giggle; she’d been right in assuming that the poor man would burn like paper.

“What?” he questioned, his brow furrowing into reddening hills.

“Get under here,” she laughed, reaching out to snag his sleeve, “You’re burning up out there.” To her surprise he let her drag him down onto the towel without resistance and took the sunscreen she offered, smearing it across his skin. “I take it you don’t usually go outside?” she asked, staring into the mesmerizing glimmer of the ocean.

Beside her Jake huffed a breath, “Not anymore, I don’t spend much time outside unless I’m moving.” Elsie just hummed, giving him a chance to keep talking, and he did, “I was never particularly fond of outside activities, but I miss being able to go out without fear of being caught on a camera or identified by agents.” He chuckled softly, “I don’t miss the sunburns though. It’s unfortunately a product of my genetics; both my parents have pale skin, although my mother tended to freckle more than she burnt.”

Elsie risked a glance over and found him staring out at the horizon, the sunscreen closed beside him and a white smear on the side of his neck. She repressed the urge to swipe it away and instead asked, “Have you ever been to the beach?”

Jake turned to look at her, a faint smile on his lips, “My mother took me once, when I was very young. I barely have any memories of it, but I remember swimming in the ocean and my mother laughing.”

“That’s so sweet,” Elsie smiled, “I went a couple years ago with my sister’s family, taught my niece how to build a sandcastle and helped her collect seashells.” Dani had been barely two, all clumsy toddler feet and sticky fingers but she’d waddled after Elsie with determination, lugging the bucket to and from the ocean to craft her blob of a castle. “Our parents took us every summer when we still lived at home. My sister wanted to keep that tradition alive even when our parents weren’t there to organize it, but our schedules never seemed to line up. That summer was the first time I was free from classes and they were free from work at the same time.”

“That sounds…nice.” There was a faraway note in Jake’s voice that piqued her interest. He sounded almost envious. 

Elsie hummed, “Yeah, it was. Do you have siblings?”

She watched his face from her peripheral vision and saw his face contort, flashing through several emotions before he stiffly said, “Two half-sisters. I do not think they know of my relation to them.” He hesitated, then abruptly said, “I have Poke’s number, you should attempt to contact him.”

Elsie wanted to press for more, but relented, “Want me to call or text him?”

“You have to call, his account automatically blocks texts from people he did not message first.” Jake pulled a phone from his pocket and unlocked it to reveal a document with a string of numbers. Elsie stared at the phone in surprise as she copied the number. She hadn’t even thought of the hacker having a phone, for some reason she’d assumed that he did everything from his laptop.

A low battery warning appeared just before she started the call. Elsie dismissed it without a second thought, she’d have time to charge it later.

“Hello!” a voice greeted, “Are ya calling about what I think you’re callin’ about?”

Elsie glanced at Jake and saw her own confusion mirrored on his face, “Uh, yeah,” she replied anyway, “As long as we’re both thinking of the same thing.”

Poke chuckled, “I bet it is, ya know ya don’ hafta call me about it, just bring the thing down to the shop and we’ll take it.”

‘Ask what the thing is,” Jake mouthed. Elsie hesitated, it’d look bad if she contradicted her earlier confidence in knowing what “the thing” was now, she’d have to try a different path. “Aw dude, I didn’t grab the thing,” she protested, “I just grabbed the number. I thought that was all I needed!”

“Man, man, man,” Poke chided, “Ya didn’t read the thing? I said ya had to bring the advert with you.”

“Dude I wasn’t paying that much attention,” Elsie complained, “Now the thing’s probably already gone. Unless…” she let her voice trail off hopefully, “Could you send me the advert and I could print it out myself?”

The silence dragged on longer than Elsie expected, then Poke sighed, “Fine, but only to prove that old man wrong. He’ll see this advert wasn’t a bad idea. Just don’t go printing it all willy-nilly and sharing it with all your friends. This is a one time thing, ya hear me?”

“Yeah, thanks man!” Elsie replied as a notification dinged on the phone. She opened the new chat with Poke to find an image of the advert, boasting a 10% discount for key purchases with the advert present. She handed the phone to Jake, letting him see as she asked, “Just a quick question, you guys can do any key right? Cause I’ve been losing the keys to my house like crazy and the last time I tried to get them copied the guy fucked it up.”

Poke snorted, “Guy sounds like an idiot. We can copy any key, guaranteed or your money back,” his voice dropped low, “ And, ya seem cool, so don’t narc to the police or anythin’, but we can get you a key even without a copy if ya know what I mean.”

Elsie shared a look with Jake, they’d need to unpack all of this later, “Great, great, that’s exactly what I need,” she laughed, “Thanks for all this man.”

“No problem,” Poke said, “Hope to see ya soon.” 

With that he hung up and Elsie sighed, “Well, that was something.”

“We know what Dan bought from him now, and how Thomas got into Hannah’s apartment,” Jake paused, “From the conversation we saw between Thomas and Dan it seems that Thomas would have obtained this key quite recently.”

Elsie hummed, “But it sounded like this was something that they’d been planning for a while, remember? Thomas asked Dan if he was still holding up his side of the deal.”

Jake grimaced, “Unfortunately, without more information we cannot make any conclusive inferences.”

“Wait, can’t you get access to their chat logs? They probably talked about whatever the plan was!” Elsie suggested, “Do you have a program that does that?” She didn’t see why he wouldn’t, but the chats he’d hacked for her hadn’t shown any of the old messages, just new ones as they came in. She only had access to the chat log between Cleo and Thomas, the one she’d done herself.

“I already checked,” Jake admitted, “there was nothing about this plan that I could find. They likely spoke about it in person where there would not be a record.”

“Mhm, that makes sense,” Elsie paused to think, then realized, “Hey, wait. Why can you see the chat logs but I can’t?”

Surprise flickered across his face, “I didn’t think you’d notice.” She glared at him and Jake added, “I’ve been using a different program. It’s easier to redirect incoming messages to two recipients when the target is not a device that I have direct control over, like your phone. For my own chat reading I can use different programs that give me access to the entire chat log,” he hesitated, “I could do the same for your chats, although I would need access to your phone and it would not apply to any new chats unless I hack through your phone each time.”

Elsie shook her head, “It’s fine. As long as one of us has access it should be enough.” Plus she didn’t really want him rifling around her phone; she was sure there was plenty of incriminating evidence there. They discussed a bit longer, but without being able to talk to Thomas there wasn’t much they could do other than speculate. 

With a sigh she flopped back onto the towel, “Well, it doesn’t seem like we can really do much else.”

“Yes,” Jake paused, then offered, “I did get through most of the relevant cameras in Duskwood, we could check through the footage for Hannah’s whereabouts the day she disappeared.”

Elsie hummed in agreement, “That sounds like a good plan,” her stomach grumbled, reminding her that it was nearing two, “Wanna grab some food and eat while we scour the footage?”

A quick rinse to get the salt out of her hair and the construction of two sandwiches later, Elsie was at the dining table with Jake’s laptop settled on the table between their plates. The first camera’s footage was one screen, having been sourced from a neighbor across the street from Hannah. It was a doorbell camera and the plants the neighbor had set around their stoop blocked some of the street from view, but it was enough to see Hannah leaving her apartment on foot at 9:48 in the morning.

“When did she go missing?” Elsie asked, trying to visualize the timeframe.

“2:17,” Jake instantly answered.

Elsie frowned, “And you know that how?”

“I saw the kidnapping happen over the phone,” Jake explained, “Much like Thomas with your number, that time is seared into my mind. I rushed to track Hannah’s phone immediately, but her kidnapper shut it down before I could lock on the location.”

“I see,” Elsie hesitated, “Are you…doing ok? That can’t have been an easy thing to witness.”

Jake resolutely kept his focus on the laptop, “I’m fine, I just need to get Hannah back home safe. Anything else is irrelevant.” He tapped the screen, “She headed toward the town center, we should check the cameras along the way.”

Elsie turned her attention to tracing Hannah’s path that day. It seemed that the woman had gone to the pharmacy first, with the camera from inside capturing her at the counter at 10:33. She left at 10:46, at which point Elsie assumed Mrs. Sully saw her rush from the pharmacy looking pale. From there they eventually tracked her to Roger’s Garage at 12:21, with her appearance on several cameras around town suggesting that she’d wandered around for the few hours in between. The cameras at Roger’s Garage told them that Hannah left at 1:19 in her car after a lengthy conversation with Richy. A few other cameras caught the vehicle heading out of town into the forest. 

After that she never reappeared, though they saw her car drive back into the parking lot of her apartment complex just after two in the morning. The person who got out was clearly not Hannah. They were dressed entirely in black, with the hood of their jacket pulled over their face and what looked like a bandana tied over their nose and mouth. A pair of sunglasses obstructed their eyes and they hunched strangely as they walked, preventing even the identification of their height.

Elsie chewed on the inside of her cheek, glaring at the person on the screen, scanning their figure for anything that might narrow down who they were. She didn’t like how little they had to go off of, hell they didn’t even know where exactly Hannah had been taken from.

Jake let out a huff, “Another dead end.” His fingers twitched over the keyboard, hovering over it before he withdrew to clench them in his lap.

“I mean, we know her pathing from that day,” Elsie offered, “And the timeline. That’ll be helpful when we get more information.”

“That is true, although—” the sound of a notification from her phone cut him off. Elsie glanced down and saw that Jake’s program had grabbed another file from Hannah’s cloud. She opened it and blinked in surprise; it was a picture of a tree with what appeared to be a raven drawn on the bark with charcoal.

“Why did Hannah have this?” Jake asked, frowning as he dug into the photo’s metadata, “It says she took it herself less than a week before she was kidnapped but I have no idea why she would do so.”

“I don’t know, but this seems related to that legend that I’m checking out with Jessy and Richy. The guy marks his victim’s doors with the sign of the raven and that looks like a raven to me, though that tree isn’t exactly a door.”

“I’m not too knowledgeable about Duskwood’s legends,” Jake admitted, “Perhaps it would be best if you talked to Jessica and Richy about this photo.”

“Mhm, good idea.” Elsie opened the Legends chat and sent the photo, expecting a quick reply since both of them were showing as active. While she had the messenger open she sent Thomas another chat, pressing for him to message her back or call her.

Jessy: 😯Is that the sign of the raven?? 

Vi where did you find this?

Elsie grimaced, there wasn’t exactly an easy answer for that. She went with a half-truth.

Vivienne: Don’t freak out, but it kinda came from Hannah

Richy: What?

Jessy: Oh…ok

I trust you Vi, so I’m not going to ask for an explanation right now

Richy: I have some questions though 🤔

Jessy: And Richy will wait to interrogate you too 😑

Richy’s typing bubbles paused, danced, paused, and stilled.

Richy: Fine 😒

Vivienne: Ok, so Hannah had this picture

Jessy: But why?

And where did she even find a tree with the sign of the raven? 

Maybe in the forests around Duskwood?

Richy: I don’t think we’ll be able to tell from a single tree

Jessy: Not unless we find the tree ourselves

Vivienne: That’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack

Jessy: Anyways, this is totally confirmation that the legend has something to do with Hannah’s disappearance!

Richy: Mhm, I don’t know

Jessy: Seriously, look at the legend: he marks the doors of sinners with the sign of the raven and then takes them away

Hannah had a picture of the mark and then she disappears and Alfie says the man without a face took her into the woods

That can’t be a coincidence!

A pop-up notification appeared as Elsie started typing a message about the mark being on a tree, warning her that the battery was at 5%. She swore, if it had been her normal phone she wouldn’t have worried, but this phone was much older and the battery drained faster than usual. The last thing she wanted was to have it die on her in the middle of finding out information.

“Want me to grab the charger?” Jake offered, having seen the notification from where he’d been reading the chat over her shoulder. 

Elsie nodded, “Thanks, it’s on the desk in my room, the one with the white charging block.”

She turned her attention back to the chat as he left and saw that Richy had brought up the tree without her, pointing out the issue of whether Hannah had sinned as well, while Jessy tried to defend her original idea.

Jessy: Still, the fact that she had this picture means that she knew about the legend

Maybe she was researching it like us!

Oh no…

Could she be the one who took the library book?

Vivienne: I don’t think so

She would have just checked it out

Richy: Agreed, Hannah would never steal from a library

Jessy: But that doesn’t change the fact that this is a solid connection!

The man without a face is going to lead us to Hannah, I know it!

Not even our boring old gearhead can deny it! 🧐

She could see Jessy’ triumphant grin and hear Richy’s exasperated sigh through the screen. It made her smile, though it dimmed into a slight frown as she realized that Jake hadn’t made it back with the charger yet. She was about to call for him when Richy sent another message, catching her attention.

Richy: So if we’re done with talking about the man without a face…

Jessy: 🤔

Richy: I have a theory

And you don’t have to confirm it or anything Vi

But I’m pretty sure that you saying that the photo came from Hannah has something to do with that hacker

With that he went offline before Elsie could even respond.

Vivienne: Seriously?

Jessy: I was thinking the same thing 🫤

Vivienne: That’s not necessarily a bad thing though?

Jessy: Mhm I don’t know

We don’t really know anything about the hacker

He’s suspicious, not to mention really creepy 

Work is calling, I’ve got to go help Richy, bye Vi 🙃

Elsie sighed. She could understand their skepticism, hell she’d been just as suspicious of Jake before she’d gotten to know him better. The others didn’t have that, so she couldn’t blame them for seeing him as a suspect. Still, it didn’t feel right to not attempt to lessen their suspicions.

Movement from the corner of her eye made her glance up toward the hallway. 

“Did you find the charger?” she asked when she saw Jake standing in the doorway. He was holding something, clutching it close to his body in a way that prevented her from seeing what it was. She frowned at the blankness of his face, any emotion carefully shuttered, “Is something wrong?”

He made his way over carefully, movements stiff, tension outlined in every inch of his body. Elsie shifted, trying to see what he was holding. She didn’t like the way he was acting, it reminded her too much of a cornered cat, ready to lash out and run.

He set her amplifier on the other side of the table.

Elsie’s body moved without her even meaning to, lunging for the device and snatching it before he could grab it again. She cradled it close, not sure why she hated the idea of him having it so much.

“I saw your laptop,” Jake began, his eyes darting from her to the amplifier.

Elsie stiffened, “What do you mean?”

He met her gaze evenly, “You left the screen on, I saw the codes.”

“…Fuck.” 

The barely whispered word seemed to be all the confirmation he needed. 

He moved and suddenly Elsie was staring down the barrel of a gun. Her pulse spiked, pounding so hard she felt as though she were vibrating. She forced herself to stay still, to stay sitting. He was standing barely three feet away, no chance of missing if she tried to run.

“Jake—”

“Who are you?” he interrupted, “Did the FBI send you to get rid of me?”

Memories of a night sky lit hellishly bright by an imploding warehouse rose unbidden. She clenched her hands into fists, nails biting into her palms, “No, fuck no. I’d never work with those bastards.” 

She’d laugh if the situation weren’t so serious. Her , working for the FBi after all that they’d done. Elsie would sooner set herself ablaze than join those fuckers. 

Something in her tone must have convinced Jake too because some of the wariness faded from his eyes, “Then who are you?”

“I…” she hesitated, there were too many answers for that question, too many names that could fit. She went with the one he was looking for, the one that would explain the amplifier and the code, if he even knew who she was talking about, “Aquix.”

Jake laughed, a sharp, derisive thing, “Aquix, really?”

So he did know who she was. Elsie wasn’t sure if that meant she hadn’t kept herself as low-profile as she’d intended or if he just kept an eye on every hacker out there, she wouldn’t put it past his paranoid ass. 

“What, you don’t believe me?” she challenged, “Why else would I be running code or have that scrambler? You’re a hacker too, this should all be normal to you.”

“It would be,” he agreed, “Except for the small fact that no hacker would risk having another around. You would know that if you were Aquix.”

“You don’t even know Aquix, how would you know whether they’d risk it or not?” Elsie retorted.

“I know they’ve been at it long enough to know the usual dangers,” he snapped, “Nothing good ever comes from working with others, no hacker with half a brain would risk it.”

“UnderN3t did.”

He scowled, “Really? That’s your defense?”

She scowled right back, “It’s a good one, isn’t it? They worked together for years and look at what they accomplished!”

“And look at what happened to them!” Jake scoffed, “Whatever benefit they got from collaborating was canceled out by the target it put on their backs. If you’re naive enough to believe that doing the same is a good idea, that’s your problem. Don’t drag me into your mess.”

Elsie fought down a snarl, the urge to defend her past bristling in her throat, “And you know so much about working with others, Mr. Socially Inept? I doubt anyone could stand your idiosyncrasies for longer than a day!”

Jake didn’t respond. If anything his expression shuttered even more, rippling into a mask of calm that weakened her tenuous hold on her temper.

“I can prove it, I just need my laptop,” she spat, then tried to reel in her anger and offered, “You could even get it for me, I won’t leave this room or anything, promise.”

Jake sneered, “Do you truly believe I’m that stupid?”

Elsie sucked in a deep breath, calm , there was a gun pointed at her, she needed to stay calm, “I’m not lying to you,” she insisted, meeting his gaze evenly, trying to convey her sincerity, “I swear I’m not lying to you and I know you don’t believe me, so let me show you.”

For a moment it seemed to be working. The gun wavered slightly and Elsie pressed on, “I get that you’re paranoid, hell knows I’ve spent enough days looking over my shoulder to understand that, but you can trust me, please trust me.”

She realized that was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words left her mouth.

“Trust?” Jake repeated, “You have hidden all of this from me, lied to me about who knows how much, and you want me to trust you?” His words reminded her of another fight, with another man not too long ago, only this time there wasn’t a four year relationship on the line.

“I have my reasons,” she defended, “You should understand that with how cagey you are about everything.”

Anger flared in his eyes, “Oh, do tell me about how our situations are the same; I’m sure the FBI has you high on their wanted list for breaking into a few phones.” His tone was venomous, “You have no idea how it feels to be hunted constantly, never knowing where the next threat could come from.”

Her own temper flared, “You don’t know shit. I’ve dealt enough with the FBI to know how they run.”

“I’m sure you do,” the condescension in his voice made her jaw clench.

“Don’t act like you know me or what I’ve experienced,” she gritted out, “You are not the only one here with issues, but I am trying to make this work. It would be great if you could pull your head out of your ass long enough to see that I’m not a fucking threat!”

“So you say,” he shot back.

Elsie tamped down the urge to throw something at him.

“I have told you who I am, multiple times. I fucking offered to prove it, but I can’t do shit if all you’re gonna do is stand there and argue in circles!” She was fully yelling now, but Elsie couldn’t be bothered to care.

“Forgive me if I’m hesitant to trust the word of a stranger I met days ago,” Jake retorted, “I have not survived for this long by—”

“For fuck’s sake,” Elsie slammed her hands down on the table and shot to her feet, “Just le—”

A crack split the air. Too loud, too close.

Fire burned across her ear and Elsie froze. A trickle of warmth trailed over the shell of her ear and down her jaw; she raised her hand just in time to catch a droplet of blood.

“Shit,” her eyes snapped to the source of the sound just in time to see Jake’s arm dropping, the gun falling with it. His eyes were wide, brimming with horror. The faint click of the safety being turned on was too loud in the silence—both of them flinched at the sound. He moved as if to walk around the table and Elsie jerked away, stumbling back a few steps. 

Jake froze where he stood, “I’m sorry,” he breathed, face pale even through his mild sunburn.

“No,” Elsie cut in, her voice shaking more than she wanted, “Don’t…just—just stay right there.” She turned and spotted the hole in the wall behind her, a dark blemish in the creamy drywall, with the faint glow of sunlight peeping through. Goosebumps prickled across her body as she realized just how close she had come to dying.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mea—”

“DIdn’t mean to what?” she burst out, “Aim a gun at my head? You just shot at me, point blank! You…fuck! You don’t get to do that! Who fucking does that? I was just going to get my laptop and, fuck!” 

Her entire body was shaking from adrenaline, the world going hazy. The faint smell of gunpowder was seeping into her nostrils, all metal and smoke.

It was overpowering. 

Her stomach rolled in response and she rushed to the sink. Her eyes watered as the bile burned her throat. The pounding of her heart, the shaking of her body, it was all too familiar. She was back in a burning warehouse, screaming a long-dead name, struggling to be heard over the sound of creaking beams. 

She sank to the floor with a muffled sob..

A hand settled on her shoulder and Elsie yelped, lashing out. A figure was crouched in front of her, holding their hands out, empty. She could see a lump at their side, a gun , her mind supplied. Had the FBI found her? She couldn’t see the usual gear, no bulky vest or helmet, no radio chatter or earpieces. They were speaking, garbled words that didn’t reach her mind. She struggled to focus, to pull herself back to reality.

Her eyes caught on the sunlight flooding in from the window behind her. It lit the figure’s face, familiar yet not. Not the one she was looking for. She nearly turned away, but a flash of blue flickered, drawing her gaze. Blue like the murky blue-gray she’d seen in an alley. Blue like sunlight glinting on a pale, pale face. Blue like the eyes she was staring at now, shadowed with worry.

“—k? El—e, can —u h—r m—?” She frowned, waiting for the words to register, for the sounds to unscramble, “Elsie? Talk to me, are you okay?”

“Jake?” she croaked, wincing at the weakness in her voice. 

His hand rose, hovering between them as if he wanted to help but wasn’t sure what to do. The worry on his face brought fury seething back under her skin. She hated that she’d found another trigger, hated that it was because he’d shot at her, hated that he was there to see her fall apart and was trying to help as if he hadn’t been the one to cause it.

Her voice was steady when she spat, “Get out of my house.”

It took entirely too long for the numbness to drain from Elsie’s body. 

It threatened to overtake her, drowning her in waves of shakes. She fought it, forcing herself to keep moving, doing everything, anything, to avoid succumbing. She deleted the hacked chats Jake sent her and replaced them with her own, tried her best to keep up with the Duskwood group when they argued over Jessy’s brother; it wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to keep her anchored. 

It was hours before she felt like herself again, solid and present in her mortal flesh. She made dinner and settled outside on the balcony, watching the sunset while eating the pasta she’d made, relishing in the final rays of warmth. 

Elsie didn’t often lose herself as badly as she had earlier; in fact, she hadn’t experienced an episode like that since her first days on the run. Fainstville was a quiet place, there wasn’t much there to activate her triggers. Neither Caiden nor Mila ever knew how bad her episodes could be since she’d only ever had a few episodes in front of each, consisting of a few minor hitches when she’d passed too closely to the oven while it opened at the Traveler’s Hearth and been startled by the wave of heat as well as the notable day when she and Caiden had set their stove on fire. 

The quantity and duration of the episodes she’d had in the past few days was deeply abnormal. She knew it was a combination of stress, Hannah’s case, and the FBI being too close; the constant assault of memories and phantom threats created a positive feedback loop that Elsie didn’t know how to stop.

Still, she knew she’d never run, not from this. Elsie didn’t know why Hannah had sent Thomas her number, but she was too invested now, her conscience would never let her abandon Hannah like this. She and the rest of UnderN3t hadn’t gained a reputation for being the most moral hackers for nothing.

A chime from the phone beside her jolted Elsie from her contemplation, an incoming call from Jessy brightening the screen. She took a final steadying breath and answered, “Hello?”

“Vi! Hi,” Jessy greeted, “I need your help with something.”

Elsie blinked, “What’s up?”

“Ok,” the screen turned from Jessy’s profile picture to a live video, “So this,” Jessy held up a white sleeveless blouse decorated with a flower-print, “or this?” She held up a second hanger with a long sleeved white blouse with brown stripes.

“Mhm,” Elsie chewed her pasta and swallowed, “The first one? The second one looks too businessy.”

Jessy beamed, “Exactly what I thought!” she set the shirts aside, “So…black pants or black skirt?” 

“Pants,” Elsie suggested, suddenly thankful for the conversation, mundane enough that she could turn off her brain for a while, “The top’s already flowy enough.” Jessy hummed in agreement and stepped out of view, “What’re you getting all dressed up for?”

“Oh, uhm, I have a date,” Jessy admitted. Elsie paused mid-bite, did she miss that earlier? It wasn’t too much of a stretch, not with how little her brain was functioning in the hours before.

“Oh?” she didn’t have to fake the curiosity in her voice, “Who’s the special someone?”

To her surprise Jessy let out a long sigh, “Don’t get me started or I might just reconsider going at all.”

Elsie hummed, “Well you can’t say that and expect me to not ask,” she paused then added, “Though you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’ll let you finish getting ready in peace.”

Hesitation scrawled across Jessy’s face, but then she sat and pulled a makeup kit close, “Alright, but no names. And no trying to sleuth out who I’m talking about!”

She should laugh at that, she thought, so Elsie forced a light chuckle that only sounded slightly fake, “So I take you’re not super excited about this date?”

“No,” Jessy sighed, “I mean, I want to be. He’s nice enough, but I’m just…angry at him right now. This date was his idea of making things up to me and I agreed earlier, but now I’m having second thoughts.”

“Ah,” Elsie said, “Do you like this person? Will this date be enough to get him back into your good graces?”

Jessy laughed, “I’m not sure, he annoys me every other day.”

“Then why are you going out with him?” 

“Mhm, that’s a good question. I guess It’s because I don’t really have a good reason to say no,” Jessy mused, “Which doesn’t really make sense now that I say it out loud. What about you Vi, what would you do here?”

Elsie hummed, “I’m not sure if I have anything that could help you here. It really just depends on your relationship with this guy. Admittedly, I wouldn’t go on a make-up date with anyone I wasn’t actively dating.”

“Oh?” Jessy teased, “I hear a story there.”

“Not much of one,” Elsie said, trying to give Jessy enough to make her stop asking, “My old boyfriend asked me on a handful of make-up dates after arguments, I accepted maybe a third of them.”

You had a boyfriend?” Jessy questioned, interest clear in her voice.

“Yeah?” Elsie replied, “Is that surprising?”

“No, no at all! You said ex and I guess I just assumed that you’d be the type to find the one first try,” Jessy admitted, “You know, the highschool sweethearts till the end kind of thing.”

Elsie laughed, for real this time, “You’re not completely wrong, that was my first relationship and it lasted for almost four years so—”

“Four years?!” Jessy interrupted, “That’s such a long time! You have to tell me everything , how did you not end up getting married? Why did it end? When did it end? Was this a college thing?”

“Uhm, it was…complicated. I—we had some uh disagreements about my past. I was hiding things and he couldn’t,” she swallowed hard, realizing that this was the second time she’d ever spoken about what had happened. “It wasn’t something he could look past. So we went our separate ways, it was better for both of us,” she tried to ignore the waver in her voice, “We’re still friends. Just taking a bit of space, it’s um, kind of why I went on vacation.”

“Oh Vi,” Jessy’s voice was soft with pity, “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

Elsie shook her head before remembering that Jessy couldn’t see her, “No, it’s fine, really. I’m not sure why I reacted so badly, I thought I already processed it.”

That was a boldfaced lie, but Jessy didn’t need to know.

Still Jessy’s face didn’t lose its sympathetic expression, “I don’t think you have Vi, and I’m here if you want to talk about it.” 

They lapsed into a comfortable silence as Jessy applied eyeliner and Elsie finished her pasta. She was starting to debate going inside when a sudden clatter from Jessy’s side made her look down at her phone, questions already forming on her lips.

“You said you went on vacation to get away from it?” Jessy demanded.

Elsie blinked, “Yeah? We broke up a couple days ago.”

“A couple days?!” Jessy exclaimed, “Oh my god, Vi how are you even functioning?! I would be so heartbroken and you’re here helping us find Hannah and acting like everything’s normal!” Elsie’s attempt at protesting didn’t even reach Jessy’s ears as she barreled on, “Screw this date, we’re having a girls night. Go get yourself a drink and some ice cream, I’m going to find a movie!” 

She debated declining, but Jessy had already rushed off. With a sigh Elsie made her way back inside, dropping her dishes off in the sink as she grabbed some snacks. She paused by the fridge, debating getting a seltzer before filling a cup of water instead; she didn’t want to find out what her drunk, emotionally spent self would do.

A quick check of her new chats revealed a few miscellaneous conversations between her friends and people she didn’t recognize plus a few messages from Dan. To Jessy.

Dan: Hey are you on your way? I’m waiting outside

Dan: Place is getting packed, I’m gonna grab us seats. Text me when you’re here

Dan: Want me to order anything for you?

Dan: Jessy? Are you getting my messages?

Guilt nearly made her close the chat, but a few earlier messages caught her attention. Elsie scrolled up. Her eyes widened as she read, hazy memories snapping back into place. Dan had flaked on his job at Phil’s bar, at Jessy’s brother’s bar. Not only that but Cleo had gone and interrogated the man, bringing back some vitriolic quotes about his thoughts of Hannah. No wonder Jessy was so pissed at Dan. 

“Alright,” Elsie reopened the call at the sound of Jessy’s voice, finding the other woman seated in what looked like a cozy living room. “What do you want to watch?”

A chime from her phone pulled Elsie from where she’d been digging through the data files of the Aurora’s security cameras. She instinctively checked her own phone first, but found nothing but a few messages in the Traveler’s Hearth group chat. Then Dan’s voice came from the phone as the chat reader kicked in.

Dan: Hey, you online?

She replied affirmatively, then followed up by asking why he was messaging her out of the blue. 

Dan: Just bored, nothing special

The nonchalance was a weak facade, not to mention the fact that she’d seen his other messages to Jessy, the ones that had been left on delivered. If she had to guess, he needed someone to talk to but was too proud to ask someone he had to face on a daily basis. She was the perfect candidate, familiar enough to be friendly but not so close that he’d have to worry about looking her in the eye later. 

Vivienne: I’m not doing much right now if you want to chat

Dan: Ehh, why not, not like I got anything better to do

Vivienne: What’s got you so bored? Nothing good on TV?

Dan: Ha wouldn’t know

Been sitting in this restaurant for I dunno how long now. Couple hours?

Got stood up yknow? 

But my dumb ass keeps sitting here, waiting as if she’ll still show up

Elsie winced, despite Dan fully deserving being stood up she still felt bad for the role she’d inadvertently played. Maybe if she hadn’t told Jessy about her own problems Jessy might’ve gone on the date.

Dan: Least the whiskey’s good, expensive shit thouh

Bank’s gonna hate me

That explained a lot. Maybe she’d overthought why he’d messaged her, she was the only one online at the moment. And it explained why he was being so open with her compared to his normal hostile attitude. 

Vivienne: Maybe you should call it quits for the night

Go home and sleep it all off

Dan: Nah, its not bad here

The typing bubble appeared again, dancing for such a long time that Elsie thought he’d decided to take her advice and go home.

Vivienne: Dan? 

Where are you?

Dan: At the Black Swan, fancy ass place but she loves it

Me not so much

People next to me just left to get away from me

Fuckign town pf fucking snobs

So it seemed a drunk Dan was a sad oversharing Dan. Elsie hummed, debating what to do. Jessy had gone to get ready to sleep over half an hour ago after their movie had finished, but there was a chance that she was still awake. 

Vivienne: Hey Jessy, are you still up?

There was no immediate response, but her phone kept talking as Dan ranted and rambled, airing grievances against the others to defend his own issues—not that Elsie had even mentioned anything that should’ve set him off. She let him keep going as she waited hopefully to see Jessy come online, mostly tuning out what he was typing. 

Then it went quiet again, no more badly spelled texts being read aloud by a struggling chat reader, just the faint hum of the air conditioner. 

Vivienne: Dan?

Still there?

A longer pause than she wanted to deal with when it came to drunk people. If Dan had passed out on her…

Dan: Vi?

I did something bad

Fuck . 

She was about to call up the group chat to get someone to bail him out of whatever mess his drunken self had gotten into, already imagining a burning restaurant, when he added:

Dan: I let Thomas in

Vivienne: What do you mean?

Dan: He was at Hannah’s

I let him in

Ah. So that was the big secret. Elsie would’ve been shocked if she hadn’t already discovered that fact earlier with Jake. Still, it was good to have confirmation and now she would be able to question Dan to get more information too, though she doubted that would be happening tonight.

Vivienne: It’s ok Dan

You were just helping him out

Dan: He didn’t have a ket Hannah took it

She didn’t want him in

Fucl

Hes a suspect damn it

I fucked it all up

Vivienne: You don’t know that for sure

I’m sure there was a logical reason why Thomas wanted to get in, maybe he was looking for clues

Dan: He had a hunch

Elsie blinked. Anticipation began to thrum under her skin, waiting to see what Dan would write, already flicking through potential theories. Shit, she hoped drunk Dan wasn’t just pulling bullshit out of thin air.

Dan: There was a bracelet hr saw

At Hannah’s

He thought she was cheating on him, wanted to find out who this douche was

So I pulled some strings

He’s sure whoever tha guy is is who took Hannah

She scrambled to write the new lead down, mulling over the new revelation even as she pressed for more information. There wasn’t much, just a bracelet he couldn’t describe other than the fact that it had the initials J.H., which was really helpful; not. J.H. could be the lover’s initials sure, but it could also be a combination of their initials with Hannah’s, hell it could even be some kind of reference to an inside joke. Still, she dutifully noted it down.

Dan: Shit I should head oit

Lord knows I've had enough for tomight

Elsie looked up sharply from where she’d been finishing the notes on the bracelet. The phone was in her hand in a blink.

Vivienne: Absolutely not

Dan: Hjh?

Vivienne: Stay there, I’ll get one of the others to come to you

Don’t drive Dan, I’m serious

She pulled up her chat with Jessy before he could respond, sending a slightly more detailed, more desperate text. When that got no response she called, but got Jessy’s voicemail.

Dan: I’m fine Vi, stop worrting

Don't bothrr the othera

Vivienne: You can’t even spell, do you really think you can drive a car right now?

Dan: Antidisestablishmentarianism

Can I go now?

For a moment Elsie glimpsed what it must feel like to be a mother. 

Then she fought off the urge to slam her head into the table.

Vivienne: No

Stay there

No one was answering. It wasn’t even that late, just barely past eleven. She tried everyone, calling and texting, debating whether Duskwood had a taxi or Uber she could call. The phone chimed again and Elsie swore, glaring at the newest messages.

Dan: Ive got this

Go do your thing with that bradcelet

Vivienne: Dan

Don’t get into that fucking car

I swear

The delivered status mocked her. She hissed out a breath and sent one last text.

Vivienne: At least text me when you get home safe

That message sat on delivered too and Elsie sighed, she’d done everything she could—it was up to Dan now. 

Instead, she settled down to ponder the bracelet. Without a picture or more thorough description there wasn’t much she could do in terms of figuring out where it came from, but those initials…If Thomas thought it was a gift from a lover there was a significant chance that those could be the lover’s and Hannah’s initials together. 

There was only one person Elsie could think of who might fit that role.

Her gaze flicked to the hole in the wall. It made sense. Why he was so willing to risk his safety to find Hannah, why he’d been on a call with her as she was taken. But Elsie couldn’t see him being the type to date a taken woman, or the type to kidnap a woman he was dating. Then again, what did she know? He had just fucking shot at her hours ago.

The sound of a familiar ringtone startled her out of her thoughts and she answered after a few rings, surprised that he’d be calling so late.

“Hey,” Caiden began, “You said to call you, I have the paper that you were asking about.”

Shit. She’d completely forgotten about that.

“That’s—wait, did you just get to the house?” Elsie glanced at the time, it was half past eleven, “Were you with Mila all day?”

Caiden chuckled awkwardly, “She might’ve sat me down for an impromptu therapy session, wanted to know if I was doing ok and everything. Then she made lunch, and made me talk some more, and then dinner…and you know how she gets.”

Elsie laughed, “Good ole Mila, glad I’m not the only one she does that too.”

“Right?” he snorted, “Anyway, I got back about an hour ago, was just unpacking.” He hesitated, “I set up in the guest bedroom, if that’s alright?”

“Of course,” Elsie replied, the hesitation was a change from the way Caiden had been jumping between pretending that everything was fine and being angry at her—it made something inside her squirm with discomfort, “Caiden, I’m not going to kick you out of the house. We’ve known each other long enough that I know you won’t trash the place or some shit.”

The sigh he let out was barely audible but Elsie heard, “That’s good, cause the apartments around here are shit and my ass is too broke to buy a house like you.” 

He paused again and Elsie felt strange. The conversation felt wrong, disjointed in a way it had never been before. Almost like they’d forgotten how to talk to each other, as if they hadn’t spent the last few years chatting aimlessly about everything.

“Um, well, I’ve got the paper right here. Do you want me to read it or send a picture?”

She paused, mulling it over. There was a chance that the FBI was still tapping her phone or something, if that paper had anything incriminating she couldn’t let them know about it. She connected her phone to her laptop and activated one of her defensive programs, meant to shield calls, a bastardized version of something she’d once helped Yarris with. 

“Read it, I’ll write it down as you go,” she instructed as she grabbed her notebook and a pen.

“Ok, so it says…”

‘ Niiv, I’m hoping that I got this right. I found a way to fix this all. I’d like your help. I know this sounds like a trap, I apologize for how little I can say here. I promise I’ll explain everything when we can chat properly.

Come find me in Terbythia. ’

Elsie’s hand froze, pen hovering above the page. It’d been years since she’d even thought of it…

“Terabythia, wasn’t that a movie or something?” Caiden’s words came from far away, barely processing in her mind.

She couldn’t breathe. 

“Or wait, it’s spelled weird. Or is that normal, I don’t fucking know.”

The sheer weight of hope was crushing her.

“Tera- by -thia,” she breathed, “It was, is, one of the first projects we made. Our own digital kingdom.” 

“I—ok?” Caiden didn’t understand, she didn’t have time to explain.

“I have to go,” it felt like her skin was vibrating, “Thank you, for the note. Make sure you burn it.”

Caiden was firing off questions but Elsie didn’t care. She hung up with shaking fingers.

They steadied as she opened her browser, typing in the url. Terabythia.com . It was dumb, a stupid pun Yarris had made when they’d first thought of it. Elsie and MJ had fought against it, but Yarris won out, somehow. The landing page was blank, the name wasn’t original, but whoever had bought the domain hadn’t bothered to take care of it. It had made it a lot easier to hack the page, to make it a gateway; a creek to cross. 

The hidden entry field was still there and Elsie typed the lines unseeingly, her hands moving across the keyboard from sheer muscle memory. It was complex, complicated in ways that made it near impossible for anyone to guess, full of redundancies and codes that would normally be considered mistakes. Put together though, they became an old rope tied to a tree, opening the path. 

Her screen flickered, flashing black then fading in to reveal a badly drawn throne room. They’d drawn it together, three hackers without a single artistic bone between them. The thrones were at the head of a lopsided table, each one gaudy with color, questionable in design. 

Only one was filled. The leftmost seat housed a blob with a goofy face. A nametag sat on the table before it: The Scribe . To the right two more nametags rested in front of chairs, claiming the seats of The Sentinel , and The Informant . 

The Informant’s chair looked like it was falling apart, with wreathed cobwebs and missing chunks. The Sentinel’s looked fresh, a rectangle of white that was supposed to be a note stuck to it. 

Despite the situation Elsie smiled, being back here reminded her of simpler days when the three had just been messing around, wasting time coding in little things like chairs that would decay to match how long the occupant was offline. It’d been their communication hub before they’d worked to make a more secure chat, something more fitting for the role they’d grown into. 

She clicked on the note.

Welcome back Niiv. I’ll be checking here everyday. Leave me a time and we can coordinate. I think it should be safe here, this place is too unsecured for the FBI to even look into it. -Yarris

She had suspected who it was the moment she heard Caiden say Terabythia. Only Yarris would’ve thought of this place. Still, the sight of his name signed at the end of the note filled her with an emotion she couldn’t even begin to describe. 

He’d been dead in her mind for so long she didn’t know what to do with the information that he was alive. Not only alive, but alive and looking for her. Her chest tightened with hope, hope that Yarris had found MJ too, that they could be together again. They could take down the FBI. They could have their lives back, she was sure of it.

Elsie shook her head, silently chastising herself. She didn’t even know if it was Yarris who left the note, it wasn’t impossible to imagine that the FBI had found the place even if it was made so crappily that few would even connect it to UnderN3t. The last thing she needed right now was to get the FBI on her scent.

As she debated what to write her gaze drifted across the screen as if searching for ideas. She scanned over the time in the corner, idly noted the 11:51 glinting there, and then paused as it processed. 

It was 11:51, well over half an hour since she’d heard from Dan. 

She swore under her breath as she checked the phone, no new messages, no indicators showing anyone else was online. Duskwood was a small town, in no world would it take that long for Dan to get home in a car. 

A quick search through her folders brought Elsie to her trusty tracker code and she linked it to her phone, watching as it hitchhiked on the message she sent.

Vivienne: Dan, did you get home?

There was no response, but a few minutes later her program sent back his coordinates. She looked them up, a backroad on the fringes of Duskwood. A second location came through after a few more minutes; the coordinates were the same. Dan wasn’t moving. She cursed and checked the chats, hoping someone was online; all the indicators were red, offline. 

In the end it was an easy choice. 

Elsie looked up the Duskwood police station’s number, disguised her number with one with a Duskwood area code, and called. At the last second she remembered her voice changer and tweaked it a bit to sound different from the one she’d been using with the group. 

“Duskwood police station, this is Officer Fitzson. What do you need assistance with?”

She didn’t even have to fake the worry when she said, “I think I heard someone drive off the road.”

“Where?” the officer’s voice sharpened, “How long ago was this and how certain are you that there was an accident?”

“Uhm, maybe five or ten minutes ago? I was out and didn’t have my phone,” she was rambling, but Elsie knew she needed to make this sound real, “I couldn’t see anything but it sounded like it was out on Kings Street, the back half near Aspen drive. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t want to leave anyone stranded, you know?” 

For a moment all she could hear was the sound of typing, then Fitzson said, “Understood, we’ll send a patrol out to check. Is this a good number to contact you Miss…?”

“Bisston, Alice Bisston,” she lied, “Please let me know if you find anything.”

“Thank you Miss Bisston. We will let you know if there are any updates or if we need your statement. Have a good night Ma’am.”

With that Elsie hung up. They wouldn’t be able to reach her again, but that didn’t matter. She’d gotten someone out to Dan, that was what mattered. 

Now all she could do was wait.

Well, that and hack into the police servers to keep an eye on any updates. 

It was easy enough to get in using the same website she had yesterday. Dan's case was the newest in their ‘incidents’ folder with nothing but a transcript of her call and which officer had been sent to check it out. She checked Hannah and the dead body's files as well before switching back to Terabythia. 

The note still sat open, waiting for her to tell Yarris when to meet. Elsie gnawed on the inside of her cheek as she thought. Then she huffed and sent the message before she could overthink it any more than she already had.

Finals time. First year. Join exactly on time.

It was short, got the point across, and more importantly, it was a test. 

The end of her and MJ's first year of college had been notorious. The group had taken on a hard project, hacking in and finding or making incriminating files in a pretty big corporation for a client who wanted to take it down. The security systems had been good, and the client had given them a deadline, which meant a lot of long days made longer by the fact that all of them had upcoming exams. 

The final days of the project fell on MJ's final exam days while Elsie and Yarris had finished a week earlier. As a result, scheduling their meetings for finalizing the hack had been difficult to say the least. In the end they'd settled for 2:40 in the afternoon, after all of MJ's morning exams and early enough that he would still be able to make his later exams. 

It was an odd enough time from long enough ago that she doubted the FBI would understand the reference or guess it by luck. She'd join early and if Yarris was already there she'd know that someone was impersonating him, same for if he joined late as both would indicate that whoever was there didn't know the right time.

She hoped it would be enough. 

She hoped she hadn’t fallen for some FBI trick.

No sooner had the thought left her mind than a flare of light pierced through the house’s back window. 

Elsie shot to her feet, scrambling to the window, staying low to keep her silhouette out of the window. She silently swore at herself for leaving the light on and peeked out from behind the curtain. There were a pair of headlights at the gate, illuminating a figure trying to open it before realizing that it was locked. 

Panic raced through her mind. That couldn’t have been a coincidence

She squinted, trying to see the car’s details, looking for certain aspects that would mark it as FBI. Outside, the interior lights of the car turned on, revealing the gray exterior of the car. Something niggled in the back of her mind. 

It clicked and Elsie scowled, already storming into her room and snagging the gate key. 

The flashlight from the phone bobbed across the gravel as Else trudged up the driveway where the car still sat. She stopped a few feet from the wrought iron, glaring into the headlights, waiting. 

The driver’s side door opened and the figure stepped out, hesitating before closing it and joining her at the gate. 

“Jacob,” she greeted coldly. The fleeting grimace on his face at the name made something vindictive inside her hum with satisfaction.

“I’m sorry,” Jake began.

Elsie cut him off, “For what? Accusing me of being with the FBI, or dismissing my identity because of your own fears? Oh wait, or was it shooting at me with a fucking gun ?”

“All of the above,” he admitted, “You’re correct, I have been on the run for so long that the idea of encountering anyone like myself made me paranoid. I will not say that I should not have questioned you, but I should have done so in a different fashion. Shooting at you was…inexcusable, I let my fear overpower rationality. Elsie, please believe me when I say that I never intended to hurt you. I would like to continue working with you to find Hannah if you allow it.”

Silence fell as Elsie mulled it over.

“Has anyone ever told you that you sound like a pretentious prick when you get uncomfortable?”she mused aloud, continuing before he could respond, “I can tell you practiced that shit on the way over, But I can also tell that you meant it. We work well together and I’m certain we can find Hannah, so I’m willing to give you a second chance.”

“Tha—” she held up a hand to stop him, “Not so fast, before I let you back into my house we’re gonna set a ground rule. You leave your gun at the door. I want that fucker in plain sight at all times. Got it?”

She looked him dead in the eye as he nodded, “Good, I’ve got some new leads. Get your ass in here and we can talk it over.”

With that she unlocked the gate and stepped aside, letting the car creep by. This wouldn’t be the end of that conversation, of that she was sure but for now Elsie was willing to let things settle down. She’d had enough excitement for one day, she could tackle the rest of the issues tomorrow.

The universe had clearly had other plans, because the minute she’d latched the gate again the phone at her side began to ring. She pulled it out and instantly answered when she saw Jessy’s contact, frowning as she realized that it was a voice call, not a video call like Jessy usually preferred.

“Jessy? Is everything ok?”

There was silence on the other side for a moment before she heard the faint sound of sniffling. Then Jessy cleared her throat and croaked, “Vi the police just called…Dan’s been in an accident.”

“Fuck,” Elsie breathed, “Is he alright?”

Another stifled sob, “No, they…they took him straight to the hospital. It’s bad Vi, they said his car was—” Jessy’s voice broke, “It was upside down, they think he drifted off the road and flipped into a ditch. I don’t even know if he’ll live.”

“He’s alive now,” Elsie insisted, starting toward the house, “Dan’s tough, you know he’ll pull through.”

“I hope so,” Jessy agreed, her voice a near whisper, “I have to go to him. The police will tell his mom, I have to be there with her. They said he was calling my name when they cut him out of the car, they thought I was with him in the wreck. That’s why they called, they were trying to find me by my phone. God this is all my fault. If I hadn’t stood him up…”

Jessy kept circling back to the fact that she had to go be with Dan’s mother at the hospital, to keep watch for his recovery. She rambled seemingly aimlessly, but Elsie could hear her moving around on the other side of the call as if she was walking around getting her things ready to go out. 

“Jessy,” she interrupted, “Please don’t drive to the hospital, you’re in no condition to get there safely.”

The sounds on the other side paused, “I can’t just abandon him, Vi.”

“I know,” Elsie sped up, rushing back to the house, “I’m not asking you to. Just let me get you a ride to the hospital. You won’t be doing Dan any favors if you crash too.”

“I…ok,” Jessy relented, “Who did you have in mind?”

Elsie paused, she hadn’t really considered that question, but subconsciously she’d already decided that it would be Richy. He seemed to be the closest to Jessy after all, but she wasn’t sure if that was who Jessy would want. Hesitantly, she offered, “I was going to call Richy. Unless you want me to get someone else?”

Jessy was quiet for a moment, “Let him sleep, let the group sleep for tonight. It’s been crazy enough with Hannah missing, this’ll only add to the stress. I’ll tell them in the morning.”

Elsie disagreed, “Wouldn’t it be better to tell them now? You’d want to know if something this serious happened to any of them.” A thought crossed her mind and she winced, “I hate to even think this, but what if he gets worse? They deserve to know before anything irreversible happens.”

“No!” Jessy’s voice rose for a moment then wilted, “I know, but, I’d rather wait until I know more. If things start going bad I promise I’ll call them all right away. I just…can’t right now, ok?”

 “Ok,” Elsie sighed, “Who do you want me to call?”

Jessy hummed weakly as Elsie trudged up the steps to the house, “Can you try Phil? He should be awake and at work. You don’t have his number, but the Aurora’s is online. He’s more likely to answer that one anyway.”

“Yeah, just give me a minute. I’ll call you back as soon as he’s on his way, just wait for me, ok?” She couldn’t help the note of pleading in her voice; this conversation felt a little too similar to the one she’d had with Dan earlier and Elsie would be damned if she let the same thing happen here.

“I promise,” Jessy said, “Please be quick?”

Elsie hummed an affirmative and hung up before wrenching the door open and scrambling inside. She beelined for the couch where her laptop was, only partially taking in the fact that Jake had set up his equipment there again. She dropped onto the other side of the couch and navigated to her already open tab on the Aurora, ignoring whatever questions Jake was asking. 

She punched in the number and what felt like an eternity later a voice answered, “This is the Aurora, what can I do for you?”

“Is Phil Hawkins there?” 

“You’re talking to him, what do—hold on a sec,” the audio went muffled as if Phil had placed his hand over the receiver, but Elsie still heard him yelling at someone in the bar, “Sorry about that. What were you saying?”

“You need to take Jessy to the hospital,” she explained, then quickly added, “She’s not hurt, she just needs a ride.

She heard a sigh, “Does she even know how busy I am? The bar is full, I’ve got a new server training, and there’s a musician here tonight—No, tell her I don’t have time to drive her around. She can go by herself or get one of her friends.”

“She’s your sister,” Elsie snapped, “It’s less than an hour to the hospital and back, your bar can survive without you.”

“ Half -sister,” Phil emphasized, “And you don’t know my staff. If I walk out of here all hell breaks loose and I lose hours of profit. It’s just not worth it. If you’re so concerned you can drive her yourself.”

“Look, I don’t have time to argue right now. I would go help her in a heartbeat if it was possible, but I’m too far away, you’re the next best thing,” she fought to keep her voice level, “I don’t know you and from what I’ve seen so far you sound like a dick, but Jessy’s my friend and she asked for you, so clearly she must trust you. Would it really be too much for you to not be an ass for one night and help your sister out?”

For a minute all Elsie heard was the sound of distant chatter and clinking glass, then Phil huffed, “You’re persistent, I’ll give you that. Tell Jessy I’ll be at her apartment in five.”

He hung up before she could say anything and Elsie ran a hand across her face in an attempt to bleed out the stress building under her skin. She texted Jessy to let her know Phil was coming and then called. To her surprise Jessy declined the call, explaining that she wanted to gather a few items for the hospital and brief Phil on what was happening first. Elsie let Jessy know she’d be waiting for her call and then flopped back, sinking into the couch with a sigh.

“Did something happen?” Jake’s voice made her jump, a swear falling from her lips as she remembered the man on the other end of the couch. 

She sighed again, “Dan’s in the hospital. The idiot got drunk and I couldn’t convince him to not drive. Jessy’s heading to the hospital to be with him and his mom.” She glanced over and offered a tired smirk, “I’m surprised you didn’t already know, I thought you were keeping track of everyone’s communications.”

“I am. I was busy with other tasks and hadn’t had the chance to catch up on everything,” he met her gaze evenly, “I found your contact information, Aquix’s information. It gave me the number you use for the group.”

“Good job,” Elsie replied dryly, “I’m glad to hear that a wanted hacker could get past the challenges I set up to deter children and noobs.”

Jake snorted, “That’s not what I meant. I looked through what I could and it matches with what you told me earlier. I was wrong to assume that you were working for the FBI or pretending to be Aquix.” He paused again, eyeing her with an indecipherable expression, “And that wasn’t a simple barrier. You left quite a few traps there that still let people reach your information, why?”

“I like to know who’s asking me for work before I take a client,” she shrugged, “The traps tell me how experienced the client is, gives me a better idea of how to interact. And it lets me know who’s been trying to get through even if they don’t actually contact me.”

“Fascinating,” there was a distant look in his eyes now, “I used a similar system before the FBI went after me. Nothing that told me how experienced clients were, but a system that ensured only people well-versed in the hacking world would get in.”

Elsie hummed, “So you don’t hack for others anymore?”

“Not with the FBI after me,” he grimaced, “I haven’t risked showing myself online for years, but they always find me. Doing this, searching for Hannah, is the most I’ve done since I went on the run other than necessary measures to monitor the FBI for safety.”

The mention of Hannah reminded her of what Dan had said earlier, “That reminds me, I have a few questions for you. I need you to answer as truthfully as possible alright?” When he nodded slowly Elsie pressed forward with the first question, “What is your relation to Hannah?”

“We were close years ago and lost contact. She reached out to me shortly before her disappearance.”

She noted how he twitched slightly at the question, the way his gaze flicked away briefly and the subtle press of his lips before he responded; that wasn’t the whole truth. Her gut told her that he wasn’t outright lying to her, but she wasn’t stupid enough to just believe he wasn’t hiding anything.

“Mhm,” she let the sound draw out, giving him time to get more uncomfortable, “If you were to get someone a gift, say a romantic gift, what would you get? Other than flowers or chocolates, of course, something more personal.”

The question clearly caught him off guard and Elsie watched as red tinted his cheeks and ears, “I, what?”

“Answer the question,” she couldn’t keep the hint of amusement out of her voice, “What would you gift a romantic partner?”

He sputtered, “I don’t know, it would depend on the partner I guess?”

“Any patterns you can think of? A tendency to give jewelry or clothing or keepsakes?”

“No? I don’t know?” his bewilderment made his words lilt up, turning everything into a question, “Elsie, I have the government after me, how many people do you think would want to date me with that particular problem?”

She winced internally. He wasn’t wrong, you couldn’t really hide that fact for forever and people tended to run when the FBI got involved. 

“Last question, what do you think of those couples accessories with their initials on them?”

Jake frowned, “As in those hearts with A+B that people carve into jewelry? They’re terribly cliche, although I suppose it could be seen as sentimental.” He paused and Elsie could practically see the gears turning in his mind, “You think I was romantically involved with Hannah and gave her something with our initials on it.”

She watched his face carefully. The words came out flat but flickers of some emotion flared in his eyes. Not love or any other form of affection that Elsie recognized, but rather something like shock and discomfort. 

“You haven’t confirmed or denied it,” she pointed out, “I had to check, you never fully explained how you’re connected to all this and for you to risk yourself so much Hannah must be very important to you.”

He shook his head, “That is something that I cannot tell you, maybe someday, but I am not ready to part with that particular secret yet. I will say that I am not, nor was I ever, in a romantic relationship with Hannah. I assume one of the leads you mentioned pointed toward Hannah having a lover?”

“Exactly,” Elsie pulled up her chat with Dan and showed him, “I don’t have a full description, but Thomas apparently saw the initials J.H. though I don’t know if that means they were together like for a singular person or linked with a + like you thought.”

Jake blinked at the screen, “You’re trusting that I told you the truth?”

“More or less,” she shrugged, “You probably lied about the extent of your relationship with Hannah, but the rest seemed reasonable. Plus, if you’re so scared of the FBI that you’ll do that ,” she gestured at the bullet hole, “I doubt you’re lying about being on the run, and like you said, having the government on your ass does not make relationships easy. So I think it’s pretty safe to rule out the theory that you were dating Hannah and then kidnapped her.”

“I am sorry about that,” Jake said awkwardly, “I owe you more apologies and explanations than I managed earlier.” 

Elsie snorted, “Yeah, you sure as hell do, but that can wait till tomorrow. I’d like to deal with my crises one at a time, thank you.”

As if saying that had summoned it her phone began to ring, flashing up Jessy’s contact. Elsie felt some part of her relax, having been unconsciously worrying since Jessy had gone offline. She glanced at Jake, “Could you look into people who might fit? Anyone who might be J or J.H.?”

He nodded and she answered the call, ready to remotely support Jessy for as long as her friend needed her.