Duskwood: Love's Beginning

40 - Jake

I came out of my feverish stupor to the sound of my phone beeping. I wiped my eyes, trying to get them to focus. I was hungry and thirsty, but I had no food or water left and I was too dizzy to even sit up. 

Reaching blindly for my phone from the bedside table, I saw that I had two notifications. The first was that Jayna had posted to her Facebook account; something she had not done in a long time. I sighed in relief; she must be free. But then what had happened to her phone? I stared at the post, trying to process why she would put something so odd. I left it to the side for the moment and checked on her phone; if she had logged back into it, my system would have automatically restored the connection. She was still offline. My fogged brain struggled to put the pieces together.

My other notification was about an email. When I found that message from Hannah on my old email account, I had turned notifications back on in case she used it to contact me again. However, this email was from Lilly. When I opened the message, it was not what I expected. All that was included was another email address, with mine and Jayna's names in it.

I quickly looked up the metadata on the Gmail account. It had been created just today after I had received the notification that Nym-OS had to wipe and crash Jayna's phone. The location linked to the IP address used to log in was a mobile device in Portland. I knew those coordinates by heart; that was Jayna's apartment building.

Now Jayna's post made more sense. It wasn't the most secure password, but I still appreciated her leaving a clue for me and saving me the effort of hacking into the account. I logged into the email and looked around.

I saw there were no sent or received emails to the account yet, but there was a single draft message. My clever girl, I thought. I opened it eagerly, wiping sweat from my face. I read it once, twice. Some things she said confused me, but I couldn't think about them right now. My sole focus was that I had a way to contact Jayna, and she would be driving toward me today. She might even be on her way right now.

I argued with myself. Why put her even more at risk? But the selfish part of me wanted to see her, to touch her, even if it was the only time. I tapped out a quick text, then used the motel's phone to contact the front desk with instructions. The movement caused more pain, and I had to lay very still, taking shallow breaths. Just hold on a little longer, I told myself as I drifted back to sleep.