On the gray world, it is so easy to find despair and anger. Their pain burns so hotly sometimes it blinds us to anything else. But there are moments, rare flashes of light in the darkness, joy so bright we cannot help but see it.
There is a little girl on the gray world whose father is teaching her to dance. Her steps are all wrong but she is laughing anyway, and so is he, and we feel, just for an instant, his heart filling at the sight of her dimpled smile.
Then the music stops, and the lights too, and darkness sweeps across the gray world as it often does when their machinery fails. Everywhere we feel fear and anger rising like hot spikes, but in the little girl’s heart she feels only contentment, as her father carries her to bed. We cling to that tiny light as the darkness closes in all around.
I’M AN IDIOT.
That doesn’t do it justice. I’m dumber than every mark I ever laughingly hacked, I’m below basement IQ, and I have no idea what to do about it. I’m stuck helplessly watching everything I planned and everything I wanted spiral beyond my reach.
She told me over and over not to trust anybody. I can still hear her voice.
If you never give someone a weapon, they can never use it against you.
But I did all that and more. She knows my face, she knows my real name. She knows I’m the Knave. Stupid move after stupid move.
But none of them were the dumbest thing I did. That honor doesn’t even go to the moment I forgot to dim my screen, so she could see her own file there when she woke. It doesn’t go to every moment I ignored the signs that should have told me that my quarry wasn’t Towers.
The gold medal goes to the moment I knelt there like an idiot, speechless, while this girl I’m falling for walked out of my life. I should have said something, anything, rather than just watching it happen.
There’s no way I can justify what I did, no way I can excuse what my obsession turned me into—but I should have tried. I should have apologized. I should have begged.
I tracked her palm pad after she left, watching her icon move up the levels on my screen, heading to her old apartment. I watched until it suddenly started to move too fast, and then the surveillance cameras showed me she’d dumped it on a courier. A little after that, she was simply gone.
If I can’t find her tonight, then I don’t know if I’ll ever find her again. Not without tracking her—and after what I’ve put her through, I couldn’t bring myself to betray her that way, not even for the chance she’d listen to my apology. I just have to pray she’s where I think she’ll be, and I’m willing to risk the police—I’m willing to risk LaRoux himself—for a chance to see her one more time.
Because I know what I owe her. And even if I lose her forever, I want to deliver on that debt.
I’m waiting at the shuttle dock in one of the tuxedos all the guys are wearing. I could have fed ten families for a month on what it cost, but this isn’t the time to skimp on expenses and give someone a reason to look at me twice. With what the Knave earns for elite hacking jobs, my credit balance can take it. If I pull this off, I’ll be helping out a lot more than ten families by bringing down LaRoux Industries.
And I’ll be helping Sofia.
I know I’m focusing on the way the jacket constricts my movement and the shoes don’t have proper grip, because I don’t want to think about the fact that she hasn’t shown up yet. She has to come. Not just because this is her best and only chance at finding dirt on LaRoux, not just because I don’t think I can bluff my way in without her, but because…she has to come.
The words take up residence in my head, echoing around my skull in a quick, relentless drumming rhythm. Please, Sofia. Please, Sofia. Please, Sofia.
My breath catches every time a car door opens, tiny shots of adrenaline firing through my system, sending shivers down my spine every time I catch a glimpse of a new dress, a hint of whoever’s inside. Then comes the crash, every time a new face emerges and it’s not her.
Please, Sofia. Please, Sofia.