Don't Turn Around (34 page)

But then, he probably wasn’t looking so hot himself. He hadn’t shaved yet, and could barely remember the last time he showered. Suddenly self-conscious, he tugged the sheets up over his bare chest. Like the first time they met, Peter was at a loss for words. Finally he managed, “Hi.”

“Hi.” She smiled wanly at him. “I thought maybe we could talk.”

“Yeah, sure.” Peter sat all the way up. He wished he could get out of bed, maybe talk to her on the sofa across the room. But he was only wearing boxer shorts, and the way things were between them now, he wasn’t comfortable sauntering across the room in them.

She cautiously approached the bed and perched at the foot of it. “You look terrible,” she said after a minute.

“Thanks,” Peter said wryly.

“Your mom told me what happened.” Amanda cast her eyes down to the floor. “I feel awful about it. You could have stayed, you know.”

“No, I couldn’t have,” he said.

She looked up at him. “I’m sorry about that, too. If it makes you feel better, I pretty much haven’t seen Drew since then.”

Peter mulled that over. Surprisingly, he discovered that he didn’t really care. Just seeing her was like stumbling across vestiges of a past life, similar to finding a photo album of a family vacation you’d long forgotten. Almost like their relationship had happened to someone else. He didn’t know what to say, so he shrugged.

Amanda’s face clouded over. “I came here because … well … something happened. To me.”

Peter scratched his cheek. The beard growth was starting to itch. Maybe he should shave today. “Amanda, I’m kind of wiped out. I don’t really—”

“Look, I know you’re angry at me, and you have every right to be. But it’s just …” Amanda’s voice cracked and tears spilled down her cheeks as she said, “Please, Peter. I don’t have anyone else to tell about this.”

After everything that had happened, Peter discovered that his anger at her had dissipated. Watching Amanda cry, his chest didn’t contract the way it would’ve a week ago. But he didn’t exactly feel nothing, either. Something inside him shifted, and he opened his arms. “Okay. I’m sorry, come here.”

She buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed. Peter rubbed the back of Amanda’s head, the wool of her cap scratchy under his fingers. He noticed that she’d brought something in with her. It sat at the foot of the bed.

“You got me a laptop?” he said before he could stop himself.

“What?” She sat up, wiping her eyes, and followed his gaze to the foot of the bed. “Oh, no. The maid found it on the doorstep this morning.”

“No one had to sign for it?” Peter asked, puzzled.

Amanda shrugged, looking nonplussed by the interruption. “FedEx must have left it.”

Peter reached down and pulled the box up to him. It was a brand-new, top-of-the-line MacBook Pro—the same one Mason had stolen from him. No packing slip. No FedEx or UPS stickers on it. “Weird,” he said.

“Peter,” Amanda said, sounding annoyed. “This is serious.”

“I know, sorry.” He set the box back down. “Tell me.”

Peter sat in the window seat that overlooked their pool and brooded. Amanda had left an hour earlier. He’d asked her to stay, said she could crash in a guest room if she wanted—after all, they had three. But after spilling the story of what had happened, she’d started acting strange. Like maybe she shouldn’t have told him after all.

Sure, he’d been angry. It was bad enough that creep Mason had messed with his life, and probably killed Cody. But now he’d gone after his girlfriend—or whatever she was now. Had they actually done something to her? Or was it just another cruel joke, a way to demonstrate the power they had over him and everyone in his life?

At the thought of them stripping off her clothes and marking up her skin, Peter’s fists clenched. If he ever saw Mason again, he’d strangle him. Didn’t matter how many thugs were there; they’d have to kill him before he’d stop.

His eyes fell on the laptop again. Was that from Mason, too? Probably came preloaded with spyware or something. Well, he wasn’t about to let a Trojan horse into his life.

Peter got to his feet and crossed the room in three steps, grabbing it off his bed. He’d throw it in the trash, maybe knock it around with a hammer first to release some of his rage.

Then he saw the note. It was so tiny he almost missed it. Black print scrawled within the photo of the laptop in the center of the box. He drew it close to his face, squinting at it. Two words, written along the seam where the laptop closed. They read:
burnt toast
.

Noa.

He sliced his finger on a slip of cardboard while wrenching the box open. Slid out the laptop: There didn’t seem to be anything unusual about it. All the standard Mac slips of paper were there: the warranty, crap about getting started. Frustrated, Peter laid them out and examined them: nothing. He started going through everything else in the box: the plug and USB cables, lots of accessories sealed in plastic. Nothing.

Peter plugged in the computer and turned it on, waiting for it to power up. After what seemed like forever, the welcome screen popped up, the standard Apple display of a night sky shot through with stars. He sifted quickly through the applications menu: It contained the usual preloaded software. He dug deeper into the registry, looking for anything out of the ordinary....

Fifteen minutes later, he spotted it tucked away in a cache file: /Library/Caches/QuadNekro. The kind of thing you’d only find if you were looking for it, a useless bit of code that wouldn’t have any effect on a computer’s performance. A message left more or less in plain sight.

He fell back against the pillows. Noa was okay. She’d gotten away. Peter felt a rush of relief and elation. Maybe there was hope after all.

But he had to go somewhere else to get online; it wasn’t safe here. Quickly he threw on some clothes and grabbed the laptop, wrapping the power cable around it. That gave him a little pang—he pictured Noa doing the same when they’d left Cody’s place.

He forced the thought away. Grabbed an old backpack from his closet and put the laptop inside, then tucked his wallet in his back pocket. Raced downstairs and found his car keys hanging where they always were, on the metal strip in the kitchen.

His mother was opening the door as he crossed the hallway. Seeing him she startled, almost dropping a stack of mail.

“Peter! You’re—”

“Bye, Mom. I’ll be back later.” He dashed outside without waiting for a response.

He tore down the driveway in his car. No way to know if Mason’s goons were still following him. There was a Walgreens a mile away. Peter needed a new cell phone anyway, and there was no way he’d go back to one that could be monitored. He’d buy another TracFone, and use that to get on the 3G network. It wouldn’t be as fast as a wireless connection, but it should work.

Twenty minutes later he was in the parking lot of a supermarket down the street from Walgreens. He’d parked far from the entrance, keeping a solid twenty feet between him and the nearest car. He’d been checking his rearview mirror the entire drive, but couldn’t tell if anyone was behind him. Not that it mattered. The NSA wouldn’t be able to access what he was doing if they were parked right beside him.

Part of him hoped they were watching, wondering what he was up to. Peter felt like daring them to mess with him again.

It took an excruciatingly long time to get the TracFone hooked up to the laptop so that he could sign in to the Quad. He immediately scrolled down the page, scanning the chat threads, praying it would be there.

It was. Nekro was listed as invitation-only and required a password.

He typed in,
burnt toast
.

And just like that, he was in. There was only one other user, listed by the handle PER5EF0NE.

Peter smiled. Noa must’ve appropriated the project name for her new handle, which was kind of a cool way to thumb her nose at the bastards who’d experimented on her. To confirm it, he typed,
Why’d you steal that car?

A few moments passed. His heart thudded against his rib cage as he waited. Finally, PER5EF0NE wrote,
To visit my parents. What was the baby’s name?

Smart—she was just as paranoid about making sure it was him. The baby? She must mean Cody’s neighbor’s kid, the one they babysat for ten minutes. Crap, what was its name …

Ethan!
he typed triumphantly.

A beat, then she wrote,
Sorry about Cody
.

Peter fought back a tear. He hadn’t cried yet, oddly hadn’t been able to. But seeing those three words on-screen nearly unleashed the flood. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and typed,
Yeah, me too. U okay?

4 now
.

U need to get out of Boston,
he wrote, thinking about the risk she’d taken delivering the laptop to his doorstep.
Like, yesterday
.

Already gone
.

Good. Don’t let them get u again
.

They won’t
.

I still can’t believe they covered it up
. Peter pounded at the keyboard, fuming.
I mean, the goddamn NSA and FBI? Why did they go along with it?

Bigger than we thought. I told you not to trust cops. We’re going to stop them, though
.

Peter wrestled with his emotions. He wanted to believe her, but they were still just kids; those were just words. They’d already taken their best shot at stopping all this and had utterly failed. Still, he typed,
How?

Just get /ALLIANCE/ up and running again, we’ll need it. Check in here every day. Don’t worry, we’ve got a plan
.

Sounded like she was still with that guy, the one he’d dubbed “Molotov cocktail man.” The thought bothered Peter more than he’d like to admit. But at least Noa wasn’t alone, he told himself. It was good that someone was watching her back. Even if for the moment, it wasn’t him. Peter typed,
Better than the last plan, I hope
.

Definitely. This time we’ll be the cavalry
.

And she signed off.

Peter spent a long moment staring at the screen, then logged off and powered down the phone and laptop. He tapped his finger on the steering wheel, thinking. Did he really want to get involved in all this again? Risk his parents, and Amanda?

Yeah,
he thought, remembering Cody.
Hell yeah
. He’d do whatever they needed him to.

If you’ve found this, then you’re already one of us. This won’t be an easy thread to follow. Because of the people we’re up against, you’ll have to work for it. We’ll always leave bread crumbs, but they might get swept away, or be too hard to track. But we’re trusting that even if you only find this entry, you’ll pass it along. Because the one thing we have going for us is numbers. There are more of us. And if we work together, we can stop them
.

I don’t like talking about myself, but I don’t have a choice anymore. I was taken by them. Experimented on. And I’m not the only one. They’re preying on everyone outside the system, the kids no one cares about
.

Well, I care. And I’m going to fight them. We’re building an army, both here and in the real world. We’re going to beat them at their own game. Even if you think you’re safe, even if you’re one of those people with parents and a social security number and a warm place to sleep, you need to listen. Today they’re coming for us. Tomorrow, it might be you. So I’m asking for your help. I’m asking you to open your eyes, your ears. See what’s happening in every major city across the country. Kids are vanishing. Kids are dying. And the cops and the government are part of it
.

Follow me and we can save them. We’ll lead them back into the light
.

My name used to be Noa. But you can call me PER5EF0NE
.

Posted by PER5EF0NE on November 7th
/ALLIANCE/ /NEKRO/ /#PERSEF_ARMY/
<<<<>>>>

Acknowledgments

Books are always a group effort, and this one was no exception. My wonderful friend Lisa Brown provided an introduction to Daniel Ehrenhaft, who in turn gave me the opportunity to run with these characters and see where the story took them. I was fortunate enough to have Barbara Lalicki and Karen Chaplin expertly shepherd the project from there. My agent, Stephanie Kip Rostan, and her colleagues at the Levine/Greenberg Literary Agency are the best team a writer could ever hope to have in her corner. Without all of their efforts, there wouldn’t be a book in your hands right now.

A heartfelt thanks to my panel of experts: Dr. Kjersti Kirkeby, who told me more about the hypothalamus than I ever wanted to know, and Jonathan Hayes, a formidable writer and forensic pathologist who cheerfully answered any and all postmortem inquiries. Kelli Stanley, auteur and classicist, helped me come up with a plausible Latin name for an imaginary disease. Bruce Davis, certified computer genius, taught me how to hack into the NSA (not really, but he patiently responded to all the tech questions this luddite lobbed at him). I also want to thank the Bostonians who sent photos of their fair city to provide backgrounds for specific scenes, including Krista Clark, Andrew Hirsch, and Annie Fuller.

My beta readers bravely waded through the rough terrain of my first draft, and they improved the manuscript tremendously with their feedback and suggestions. This time around I’m indebted to Noah Wang, Trish Collins, Dana Kawano, Jason Starr, and Chynna Starr.

My sister, Kate, always serves as my first reader and editor. She’s a fantastic sounding board and a constant source of lovingly constructive criticism (with regard to both my writing and my wardrobe). The rest of my family (especially my parents) have supported me through a wide variety of zany careers, including this one. Much love to you all.

Kirk Rudell threw me a rope whenever the plot led to a dead end, and was always there for me when I needed him. Thanks for that.

Ironically, my laptop suffered a terminal meltdown during the editing phase and I lost a few years’ worth of emails (if only I possessed even a fraction of Noa’s skills!). Consequently, there might be some people that I’m unintentionally forgetting—if you’re one of them, please accept my abject apologies and know that I’ll thank you twice in the next book and will send you a muffin basket. At least one of those things will definitely come true.