Duskwood: Love's Beginning

7 - Jayna

I had to admit, the phone call from the kidnapper rattled me. And I did think it was this hacker at first. But it would be counterproductive for him to spend so much time encouraging me to keep going while threatening me to stop, so I concluded, for now, that they were two different people. His nonchalance about me being threatened was not appreciated. His rationale that the kidnapper felt we were "hard on his heels" made sense, but it didn't make me feel any better.

On top of that, stupid Marcus was texting me again. Having some stranger threaten me and someone I used to know harassing me right before was not amusing.

This is why I may have been a little extra snippy with the hacker. What can I say, I get sarcastic when I'm angry. Some of the powerlessness I felt was hitting a bit too close to home. I took a deep breath and reminded myself it was not the same thing.

Then, the worst happened. Jessy told us there was a body of a woman in the forest. The police hadn't released a name yet. We debated it, and for some reason, I felt I should tell Thomas. I knew from another one of those text conversations I was spying on that he had his doubts about me. It hurt a little that he was suspicious of me even though he'd brought me into this group, though it was understandable. The others were much closer to him, however, and I felt like it would hurt them less if I broke the bad news to him.

He bailed the second I finished texting him without a word. I informed the group and Dan went a little ballistic, accusing Thomas of acting like a suspect. I instantly regretted inserting myself in that way–it would have been better if the news had come from someone else, maybe Cleo. But she was already busy telling Lilly.

As usual, Dan had a snarky comment about everything and didn't appreciate that I didn't agree with him. Privately, I found it a little suspicious that Thomas took off when I told him about the body. But I wasn't about to start throwing around accusations based on a single incident. Unlike Dan.

I was at work and sneaking around, working on the cloud hack, and answering texts in between patients. It was a little stressful because we were always so busy. But when the hacker texted me, I was compelled to answer right away.

When I told him I already knew about the body, he said he was impressed that I "had this important information" before he did.

Impressed? Was he giving me a compliment? He explained it meant the group had accepted me. I didn't really feel like one of the group so far. Richy seemed nice. Thomas had seemed friendly at first but was now more standoffish and I knew he didn't trust me. Jessy was great and I could see us hanging out all the time if we didn't live 4+ hours apart. But I did feel guilty about spying on their private conversations.

So I wasn't sure if I could consider this a compliment or not that I'd been included by someone who had no idea I was spying on her. I had a bad feeling that this would all blow up in my face at some point, sneaking around behind their backs. I also wasn't convinced that the hacker guy didn't know before me. How could that even be possible with his unlimited access to the internet?

Then later, as if I didn't feel bad enough already, Richy texted Jessy about something he wanted to tell her about me. Offline, so we couldn't see it. The hacker seemed to notice right away and questioned me about it. I tried to brush it off, but then I started to feel a little needy and asked him if he trusted me. And questioned why he trusted me, someone unknown to him. Then he dropped a bombshell–he felt an immediate connection to me?

I didn't know how to react to that. I had been so rattled at the start of this ordeal. I had been burned well and good by Marcus and my so-called friends, so I had tried to be careful with my feelings when I encountered this group. But I had to admit, they had started to grow on me. Even this mysterious stranger whose name I didn't even know.