Page 173 of Beautifully Ruined

My throat is tight and my stomach in turmoil and I’m having trouble sitting still.

What I want is to storm the fucking gate. Or the store.

If I wasn’t so fucking in a panic about her, I’d be stone cold furious.

“Short answer yes.” I shake my head. “Long answer is it’s going to take a little bit of time.”

“How much?”

“Maybe half an hour, if I work hard.”

“Do it in five.”

“Oh, real easy for you to say…” I trail off because there’s an expression on his face I don’t like. “Problem?”

“Not sure. This is harder than it should be…” He frowns, tapping furiously on his keyboard. Then he lets out a laugh. “Yes. Got it.”

I finish the hack I’m doing and then start to work on the viruses. It’s not them per se, it’s getting them there, but as I look at the feed coming in from the USB link Vi set up, I see how to do it and it shaves ninety percent of my estimated time off it, and I’ve got them up and loaded in minutes.

Enzo’s quiet.

Too quiet. He’s staring at his computer, hands not moving.

My mouth goes dry. “What is it?”

“There are people around, but not a lot. A chick’s blowing a dude, and I do not think that’s meant to be happening.” He shakes his head as I snatch his computer.

“It’s a training center for sex work in some capacity.”

He tries to snatch it back. “Yeah, but he’s definitely a guard.”

I look at the image. “That’s Violet’s friend.”

“That’s the other thing, where’s your girl?”

My heart beats wildly as I start to swipe though about twenty different camera feeds.

I find a few that are locked, but it doesn’t take me long to bypass whatever security they have and then I stop.

On the third camera.

Violet.

Something’s wrong. Very, very wrong.

She’s on the floor, hands up and tied to a pipe…or is that handcuffed?

I want to throw up. I want to kill every asshole in there.

I force myself to take a slow, deep breath. It looks like a cell.

And she’s not alone.

The feeds are color, which is why I knew it was her friend, Macy, blowing that guard. And I can appreciate what Vi’s wearing, in a distant way. It floats, that appreciation, like it’s untethered, like it’s an offer from somewhere to keep me sane.

Vi’s awake, she’s looking around, and she doesn’t look hurt. No blood, no bruising that I can see,

I want to zoom in, but I can’t, the camera system doesn’t do that. But she looks like she’s in one piece, and her clothes are all on.