Page 11 of Branded Souls (Ember Hollow Romance #3)

Fox

I typed on my keyboard with aching fingers. My knuckles had come a long way in the past week, but I still regretted the choice to fuck them up so bad on that punching bag. I rolled my stiff shoulders back and forth, wincing at the pain and tension in them.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, I paused my work and pushed back from my desk. I took off my blue light blocker glasses and massaged my fatigued eyes. Staring at the screen most of the day took its toll no matter how hard I tried to prevent it.

A knock came from behind me. I spun my office chair around to see Emersyn standing in the doorway of my office.

I glanced through the glass panes behind her, finding it suspicious that she didn’t have August with her.

“Can I come in?” She tilted her head innocently.

A wide, fake smile was plastered on her face. When I didn’t reply right away, her gaze flicked behind me toward the conglomerate of monitors I worked on.

“Or…are yo u too busy?”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m always busy.”

She stepped inside my office anyway. “I won’t keep you long.”

I set my glasses on my desk. I liked Emersyn well enough, but I had an inkling that I wasn’t going to like what she had to say.

“What do you want?”

She pursed her lips. “What makes you think I want something?”

“You don’t usually come to see me without my brother with you.”

Emersyn smoothed down her long auburn braid that fell over her shoulder. “That’s not very fair. I thought we were friends, Fox.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. She was more than my brother’s girlfriend. I considered Emersyn my friend, and I didn’t have many of them, but she was giving off a strange energy.

When I continued to pin her with my steady stare, she glanced away, chewing at the side of her lip.

“Fine.” She sighed. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“What did you want to ask me about?”

She paused, nervously shifting her weight. “It’s about Skye.”

I tensed at the sound of her name. “I don’t know if I’d be helpful with that. I don’t know her anymore.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Maybe that’s true. But you did, at some point. I’m getting worried about her.”

I ignored the way my stomach clenched.

I’d known something was off about Skye when I caught a glimpse of her at the brewery. I’d spent days trying to keep myself busy with work, so I didn’t think about her or the fact that she had been with Detective Whize .

“I met with her yesterday,” Emersyn continued. “She seemed off, distracted. She asked me to do some work for the documentary. Which is fine. I don’t mind helping out with it.”

She trailed off.

“How are you doing with this whole thing, by the way?” I asked with gentle caution.

Emersyn was a strong person, she prided herself on it, but it hadn’t been that long ago where she faced one of her worst nightmares—the Shadow Stalker himself. It couldn’t be easy working on something so close to wounds that were still healing.

She waved me off, though something in her expression sharpened. “I’m good. It’s easier to keep busy, keep working. This is all a part of my job with the podcast anyway. I love what I do, even when it’s hard.”

I nodded. I understood that.

“But something is different with Skye. This isn’t—I mean, I’m not sure it’s normal.”

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “She can get kind of obsessive about things when she’s working.”

I tried not to linger on the memories in the depths of my mind, pushing their way toward the surface.

Memories of how she used to come to my house and hunker down at my desk to work on school projects for hours on end.

She was good at school, committed herself to her studies and got good grades.

She wanted scholarship offers, and when she set her mind to something, she usually accomplished it.

I’d always admired her. She inspired me in many ways, pushed me to be better .

“I don’t know her that well,” Emersyn continued, and I focused my attention back on her—not the past. “But it seemed like she wasn’t distracted with the documentary, but rather something else.”

My brow furrowed. Before I could speak, the ringing of a phone cut me off.

Emersyn reached into her pocket. Her eyes widened when she glanced at the screen. “Weird.” She looked up at me briefly before answering the phone. “Hey, Skye.”

My spine straightened.

Emersyn was silent as she listened to whatever Skye said on the other end.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, worry pinching the bridge of her nose.

My foot tapped in an anxious rhythm. A long time seemed to pass before Emersyn got another word in.

“I don’t know if I’d be able to fix that,” she stared directly at me, “but I know someone who probably does.”

T his was about the last place I wanted to be.

I studied the surrounding woods as I got out of Emersyn’s vehicle. The cabin Skye had rented was very secluded. My nerves buzzed with quiet alarm as we headed toward the front door, as if someone was watching through the thick brush on the outskirts of the property.

And who was to say there wasn’t? Again, I was bothered by how unsafe it was for her to be out here in the middle of the woods by herself .

I shouldn’t care about what’s safe for her anymore, though. She could look out for herself. She always had.

It was easier said than done.

“Thank you for coming,” Emersyn said as we stepped up onto the small front porch.

I stuffed my hands in my jacket pockets. It’s not like I could’ve said no when she asked me to come. Apparently, Skye was having some sort of computer emergency…and I was the computer guy.

Although I had told myself I wasn’t going to get involved with the Shadow Stalker documentary, this was different. If Skye was having technical issues, she couldn’t do her work. The longer it took her to make this thing, the longer she would be here interrupting my life.

I had come here for me, really. To make sure she could get out of this town as fast as she had left it.

“Let’s get this over with,” I muttered, nodding toward the door.

A faint line creased Emersyn’s forehead, but she didn’t say anything before knocking.

Skye opened the door almost immediately, and my breath caught.

She looked worse than I’d last seen her.

Skye was still stunningly beautiful, of course. She always was. But her usual rich, vibrant skin was pale and ashy. Her eyes seemed tired, shadowed in dark circles. Her cheeks seemed hollower than when I’d last seen her, as if she wasn’t eating enough.

My jaw tensed.

“Hey,” Emersyn said with a friendly smile.

Skye didn’t return it. Her gaze darted to me briefly.

“Hi,” Skye said, her tone tight .

An awkward pause settled over us until Emersyn said, “Can we come in?”

Skye blinked. “Oh.” She stepped back, glancing at me for another second before looking away. “Please, come inside.”

Emersyn went in, and I followed.

The cabin was small. It was designed for one to two people at most. Worn oak cabinets hung on the right side in the kitchen.

A small couch faced a TV mounted in the back left corner.

Close to the front door, opposite the kitchen, was a dining table that looked as if it was being used as a makeshift desk.

Stacks of papers were organized in tidy piles.

A camera and collapsed tripod were laid out there next to an open laptop.

Skye folded her arms over her chest, as if she were cold.

She wore an oversized sweatshirt and leggings, which was more casual than she usually dressed.

Skye had always been very aware of her appearance.

She’d wanted to come off as put together.

Capable. She never wanted anyone to look at her and think less.

“That’s the computer that isn’t working?” Emersyn asked as she approached the table.

Skye nodded, the desperation stark in her eyes. “I have no idea what happened. It was working fine this morning. I went out for a few hours and when I came back to upload some footage, the whole thing went crazy.”

I glanced at the laptop. It looked like it had been turned off or went to sleep. “May I?”

Skye nodded again.

Sitting down at the empty seat in front of it, I pressed the spacebar to wake the thing up. “Can you describe the problem? ”

I didn’t look at her as the screen lit up.

“I don’t exactly know,” she said softly.

The uncertainty in her voice was something I wasn’t used to hearing.

“At first, I thought it was the Wi-Fi out here slowing things down. But then…stuff started disappearing. I’d click on something and it would say it was corrupted.

I can’t access any of the footage I’ve already shot and a lot of my files seem to have vanished. ”

The uncertainty skirted the line of panic the longer she talked.

I frowned as the home screen finally popped up. I opened the activity manager to get an idea of what was going on.

The first thing I noticed was the CPU usage—it was way too high for what the system should’ve been doing on startup. The fan kicked on loudly, the computer heating up even though I hadn’t opened anything.

“Something’s running in the background,” I muttered.

“What does that mean?” Skye asked, voice tight.

“Could be nothing. Could be a stuck process. Or…” My eyes narrowed as I spotted a program I didn’t recognize using a surprising amount of power. I clicked into the directory. No application name, just a string of numbers and letters.

That was never good.

“Have you plugged in any unfamiliar devices lately?” I kept my voice steady.

“No? I mean…” Her brow furrowed. “Well, last week, Brandon—Detective Whize—gave me a thumb drive. He said Emersyn asked him to bring it to me.”

I looked up at Emersyn. She hadn’t mentioned that.

“What thumb drive? ”

Emersyn lifted her shoulders. “I’ve known Brandon for a long time. He said he could help with the documentary and I told him to connect with Skye.”

“Where is it?” I turned back to Skye. “The thumb drive.”