Even in the darkest moments, the beginnings of love can be found.
Jayna Chacon is stuck in a rut. Her job is interesting, but she doesn't have any friends or anything else she's particularly passionate about. That is until a group of strangers start...
"Thank you for never making me regret confiding in you."
I didn't know how far away Jake was from me, but with those words, it felt like his hand reached out across the distance and pressed against mine. It wasn't everything I wanted to hear, but it was enough, for now.
I had to admit that I was a bit shocked by him saying the government was after him. I mean, surely there were a lot of hackers out there that the government wasn't after, right? Not like I really knew for sure, but it just seemed like there were probably too many for the government to worry about every single one.
My voracious curiosity wanted to know what happened, but Jake was gone. For how long, I didn't know. I suddenly felt alone and on the verge of tears again. And then my day only got worse when stupid Marcus came around again. Damnit!
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I wanted to scream at his idiocy, but I was at work as usual. I certainly wasn't going to dignify his nonsense with a response. And getting more texts from him was the last thing I needed. So I blocked him. I wish I had done it a lot sooner. With a satisfied smirk, I set up the next decryption and then hurried back to work.
Meanwhile, time seemed to drag on while Jake was away. Thank goodness for Jessy. Our friendship continued to grow, and she made me smile. My one wish was that the people I had met during this unexpected journey would remain in my life after the bad times were over.
For everyone's sake, I hoped we found Hannah soon. My energy was flagging and I felt like I was just muddling through. If I was the emotional instinct, Jake was the voice of reason that gave me guidance and reeled me back in. I thought about him all the time while he was gone.
Then one day, he messaged me. It made me happier than I should be to see his simple little smiley face on my phone.
I asked him why he had time to help me with such a simple task as making a few phone calls. He was going to make time? That worried me a little, that he was putting himself at greater risk by contacting me. But he was a super-smart guy, which was part of why I found him so attractive. He seemed to know what he was doing. Plus, I selfishly wanted him to stay with me a little longer.
When he asked how things were going, I had to be honest about the growing voices against him in the group. First, he had tried to thwart Lilly's vote with what they perceived as a threat. Then, he had convinced Lilly to take down the video, and they assumed again that it was with threats.
I knew him better than anyone in the group. Whatever his reasons, he wanted to find Hannah enough to put himself at risk. He felt it was his job to keep everyone focused on this objective, and he was prepared to take on their disapproval because of it.
Because I cared about all of them, I didn't want them opposed to each other and I especially didn't like their accusations against him. I made sure he knew that he had an ally in me. He then reminded me that he trusted only me.
I flushed. Had he read my chat with Jessy? She had asked me again about Jake saying she might not feel so creeped out about him if she knew more. I had given in, hoping that feeding her the slightest little tidbit of information about Jake would ease her mind and improve her opinion of him. I took what I thought was the most harmless information I had and handed it to her on a silver platter. I wasn't even sure was true, but to say he wasn't from Duskwood meant he could be from anywhere else in the world. It seemed like the safest concession to make to her.
I felt horribly guilty about it afterward–still did–and unfortunately, it didn't seem to do much to make her feel better, either. She even suggested that he was threatening me, too, which I quickly disregarded as absolute nonsense. I really hoped that if Jake read that conversation, he understood where I was coming from and that he could still count on my discretion.
While he was gone, I finally got around to buying that memory card and offloading all the Duskwood-related files to it. For some reason, I felt it would be safer to not have them on my phone anyway. I would keep the card at home in the lining of my purse, which had a hidden pocket. I had also decided that since this group liked video chats so much, I installed an app that would record my screen with just two taps of the volume button.
I wanted to talk to Jake about these things and ask his opinion. But I held back, just like I made sure not to mention our sort-of fight about our not-relationship that happened before he left. He didn't say anything, either. He'd apparently said his piece about that and wasn't planning on talking about it any further. Lia was going to lose that bet, I thought miserably.
