Don't Turn Around (7 page)

“Call him right away?” Bob pressed.

“At your earliest convenience.” Peter slouched in his chair, but his leg kept moving. “That’s
exactly
what he said.”

His parents exchanged a glance. They’d pulled into the driveway minutes after him, a little after eleven, and immediately hustled him into his father’s office.

Peter’s focus kept drifting to the imprint of a large bootheel on the carpet by the armchair. The front door had already been repaired by the time he got home, so this mark was the only real proof that he hadn’t imagined the whole thing.

Not that he’d had any trouble convincing his parents. And yet they were treating Peter as if he’d done something wrong.

His mother nervously fingered a string of pearls as she leaned against his father’s desk. Priscilla was wearing her official “casual” outfit, a thousand-dollar Gucci sweat suit. Her makeup had gathered in the creases around her eyes and mouth, and her hair was mussed, like she’d been running her hands through it.

Peter hadn’t seen either of them this anxious in a long time. Stressed, sure, but it had been years since they’d looked this tense and fearful. Like something very bad was happening and they were helpless to prevent it. It was unnerving.

“And he didn’t say why they broke in?” Bob asked, eyes narrowing.

“Nope.” Peter’s eyes shifted away to the fireplace.

“What were you doing, Peter?” his mother asked worriedly.

“Nothing. Just hanging out.”

“You must have been doing something,” his dad said, a disapproving note in his voice.

“I wasn’t. Man, I can’t believe some jerks broke into our house, and you’re trying to blame me for it.”

“We’re not blaming you, Peter,” his mother said soothingly. “It’s just—” Another glance at his father. “Well, Mr. Mason doesn’t do things without a reason.”

“
Mr
. Mason? Who the hell is this guy? How do you know him?”

“That’s not important,” Bob said.

“Well, it seems pretty important based on how you’re giving me the third degree.”

They fell silent.

“I’m going upstairs to crash,” Peter announced, getting to his feet. “Getting beat up really took it out of me.”

“We’re not done talking yet, young—”

“Let him go, Bob,” his mother said. “It’s past midnight.”

His father looked peeved, but pointed a stubby index finger at Peter and said, “We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Great,” Peter grumbled. “I can’t wait.”

“Good night, sweetheart,” his mother said, but her focus remained on Bob. They were doing that thing he hated, where it was like they were communicating telepathically, leaving him out of the conversation.
Typical,
he thought, stalking out of the office. They never really told him anything, still treating him like he was eight years old.

Peter trotted up the flight of stairs and down the hall to his bedroom, which overlooked the pool behind their house. Inside his room, he automatically headed over to his desk, then remembered that his laptop had been stolen. He made an exasperated noise and flopped down on his bed, digging out his cell phone to text Amanda.

Still up?

He waited a few minutes, but she didn’t respond. Which meant she was either already asleep, or still working on her paper and didn’t want to be bothered. That seemed to be happening more and more lately. The fact that she was already living away from home made him keenly aware of their age difference. Funny how it hadn’t seemed like a big deal when she was a senior in high school and he was a junior. Now it was like she’d leaped ahead of him and joined the league of adults, and he was left behind at the kids’ table.

He opened the picture he’d taken of Amanda the weekend before, when they’d met for lunch at a diner near campus. Peter had caught her unawares when she was looking out the window.
Just wondering how long it’ll rain,
she’d claimed when he asked. But she had that familiar look in her eye. Amanda was a private person—it was one of the things he liked about her; she wasn’t one of those girls who talked your ear off about silly, inconsequential things. It was what had first attracted him to her, the fact that she was so serious about everything. And when she gave you her undivided attention, focusing all that intense energy on you, there was nothing better.

In the photo, though, she was clearly a million miles away. Worse yet, her expression indicated she’d rather be somewhere else. Peter hadn’t noticed it at the time, but now whenever he looked, that was all he saw.

He turned off the phone and sighed. He’d already applied to Harvard for early acceptance, figuring that way he and Amanda could still see a lot of each other. And he was pretty much guaranteed to get in. He was a third-generation legacy, and Bob had given the university a ridiculous amount of money over the years to make up for Peter’s mediocre grades.

Now he wondered if he might not be better off applying somewhere else instead. Stanford, maybe. After all, Silicon Valley was the tech capital of the world, and he’d be working in that field when he graduated. Sunny California, far, far away from here.

It was sounding better and better, Peter thought as he rolled over and shut off the light.

CHAPTER FIVE

N
oa stared at the screen, the mouse hovering over the file labeled with her name. Even though it was Sunday, there was a chance that shortly the server would be flooded with users. Which greatly increased the likelihood that her presence would be discovered. She flashed back on what Vallas had said, about the guys breaking into his house. Maybe he wasn’t being melodramatic.

She clicked open the file and skimmed a few of the documents. There were slides, diagrams, pages and pages of medical notes. Noa couldn’t decipher most of them; they were a muddle of unintelligible scientific jargon. All she could tell for certain was that they involved some sort of experiment.

Her hand unconsciously went to her chest again. Was that what they’d done? Treated her like a guinea pig, maybe even removed an organ or something? If so, it didn’t seem to be anything she could live without—all things considered, she felt all right. Still, the thought of some stranger undressing her, cutting her open, and poking around inside her … it made her blood run cold. Noa forced it from her mind. With effort she dissociated, trying to treat this like it was just an assignment, a problem to solve that had nothing to do with her.

Okay, then,
Noa thought, running a hand through her hair and forcing herself to draw a deep breath. It was obvious that whoever had access to these files was supposed to know the backstory; these were just test results.

She stopped dead on one photo: a shot taken of her lying on the metal table. The camera was positioned above and slightly to the right. The IV was there, and the other trays were wheeled closer, hovering around the table like casual observers. There were no other people visible. She was even paler than usual, almost blue. It looked like one of those morgue shots they showed on TV cop shows.

Noa shuddered and closed the file, then double-checked to make sure it wasn’t on the flash drive she was giving Vallas. She hesitated, then sent a copy to her personal email file, along with everything else in that folder.

She signed off the server and went back to the bed to lie down. Part of her felt like she’d never been so tired in her life, yet at the same time Noa was certain she wouldn’t be able to sleep. It was almost nine a.m.; she’d have to be out of the hotel room in two hours, anyway. She’d considered paying for two nights up front, but figured it was smarter to keep moving. Maybe she could find something moderately better, or at least cleaner.

And she needed to get a phone, too. She debated whether or not to contact Vallas right away. Knowing now that the project was linked to what had happened to her, she wasn’t gung ho to hand the flash drive over. Who knew what he planned on doing with the information? Was this going to be another of /ALLIANCE/’s exposés? Were they planning on pranking the people who had cut her open?

For her at least, that wouldn’t suffice. Noa decided to put him off for a day. She’d just tell him she hadn’t gotten around to it.

She logged on to her account. The email backup of the files was there, along with another email from Vallas. He sounded impatient, asking if she’d found anything yet.

She was about to compose a reply when another email popped into her inbox. She didn’t recognize the sender, A6M0, but it was rare for spam to make it through her filter. And the subject heading read:
Warehouse Fire
.

She hesitated, then opened it. There was a jpeg photo in the body of the email. Based on the angle, it was taken from the security gate as she passed by on top of the fire truck. So one of the cameras had been positioned high enough.

Against the solid mass of the truck Noa appeared tiny, her body stretched in a taut
X
against the side rails, terror in her eyes. Seeing that, the ball of panic she’d managed to hold at bay since waking up on that table seemed to explode. Her heart hammered, reminding her of the incision in her chest. She tried breathing deeply to calm herself, but that just made her aware of how dry her mouth was. Shakily, she sat back in the chair, fighting the tears that were welling up. Why were they still after her?

And how the hell did they know her email address? It was bad enough being snatched off the street, but the virtual world was where she usually felt safe and protected. She’d deliberately structured everything, including this particular email account, to be relatively inaccessible. Still, she knew what she was capable of when she set her mind to it. Most other hackers weren’t in her league, but those who were could probably track her down if they had a mind to.

She was so distracted by the image that it took a second to realize there was a link pasted below it. Fighting past a growing sense of dread, Noa opened it. And frowned.

It was a website for shampoo.

She double-checked the link, then tried it again.

Same result.

Noa sat back, stumped. What on earth was going on?

She didn’t intend to sit around and wait to see if they could trace her to this hotel room. Noa quickly bundled up the laptop, pulled the hood over her hair, and left the room.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Amanda said.

“I know, right?” Peter had ducked out of the house early. He hadn’t slept well anyway, and wasn’t in the mood for another “talk” with Bob and Priscilla. So he met Amanda at a diner just off the Tufts campus, the same place they’d had brunch last week.

Peter watched Amanda push oatmeal around her bowl. His was also practically untouched, but for different reasons. Once again, he’d ordered oatmeal to appease her, when what he really wanted was a giant plate of runny eggs. Dating a vegan wasn’t always easy. Amanda never pressured him about it, but then she didn’t have to. The expression on her face when he chewed on a piece of steak said it all.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Amanda demanded.

“I asked a friend to help me find out more about that company,” Peter said. “Someone from /ALLIANCE/.”

“Right, /ALLIANCE/.” She rolled her eyes.

“What?” he demanded. “You liked them enough when they helped with that animal lab-testing thing.”

“Sure,” she acknowledged. “But that doesn’t mean I have to like the name.”

Peter shrugged. He hated when she adopted this superior attitude. Amanda had been with him when he came up with the idea for the group, and the name. She hadn’t seemed to think it was stupid back then. Of course, that was before she became a “worldly college student.” “When you start a hacktivist group, you can call it whatever you want.”

“Don’t be like that,” she said, pointing the spoon at him.

“Like what?”

“You know, angry. I’m sorry; it’s a good name. I’m just stressed. I was up most of the night working on this paper.”

So she hadn’t taken his call, Peter noted, even though she’d still been awake. “What’s it for?”

“Feminist Lit and Theory,” she said. “It’s an amazing class. It’s making me think I might want to major in Women’s Studies.”

“Instead of sociology? I thought you wanted to become a social worker.”

“I could minor in that. Beside, you can major in pretty much anything,” she said dismissively. “I could get an art degree and work on Wall Street. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Crazy,” Peter agreed. Funny how they’d already veered back to talking about her. “Anyway, I’m hoping she’ll find something.”

“She’ll?” Amanda raised an eyebrow. “There are girls on /ALLIANCE/?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“But I thought the whole thing is that it’s anonymous,” Amanda said. “How do you know it’s a girl?”

“I met her last night.”

“What?”

Peter was pleased by the note of jealousy in her voice. “I paid her to help.”

“Oh, you didn’t. Peter, what were you thinking? How much?”

“Not much,” he said defensively. “Besides, there’s a kind of honor code with hackers. She won’t screw me.”

“Sure she won’t.” Amanda shook her head. “Honestly, Peter. I work with people every day who take advantage of other people.”

“You’re comparing a bunch of homeless junkies to hackers?” he scoffed.

Amanda stiffened and her eyes flashed. Peter immediately wished he could take it back. This was her trigger point: Her brother, Marcus, had run away from home when he was fifteen, and was found dead of an overdose under an icy park bench less than a year later. As soon as she was old enough, Amanda started volunteering at a shelter downtown that specialized in trying to get runaway teens off the streets. Of all her many causes, that one she held dearest. And he’d just mocked it.

Amanda started pulling on a pair of fingerless gloves, tucking the ends into her long wool coat.

“Wait, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay, Peter. Listen, we’re both tired.” She unbuttoned her purse and took out a twenty, then tossed it on the table. “We should probably just go home and get some sleep.”