2025-02-18 19:22:36I pushed open the rusted metal door. The smell of cigarette smoke and old wiring filled my nose.
The underground hacking den looked the same—dim lights, walls lined with servers, the air thick with heat and tension. The glow of computer screens painted the room in blue and green light. Some people were lost in their screens, others watched me carefully. And then, I saw her. Riley sat at a desk, typing so fast it made my head spin. The moment she noticed me, she stopped. Then, she sighed and leaned back in her chair, throwing her boots up on the desk. “Well, well. Look who’s still alive.” She crossed her arms, smirking. “What do you want, Nathan?” Her voice was playful, but her sharp hazel eyes were already scanning me, calculating the risks. I stepped forward. “I need your help.” She let out a short laugh. “Last time I helped you, I almost got killed. Remember that?” I did. Too well. She barely made it out that night. She saved me. And I never forgot the way her hands shook after. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.” Riley’s smirk faded a little. She swung her legs off the desk, leaning forward. “Define important.” I hesitated. Then, I said the name. “Elias Graves.” The change was instant. She froze. Her hands curled into fists. She knew something. But instead of answering, she turned away, walked to a cabinet in the corner, and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. She poured herself a drink without looking at me. I took a step closer. “Riley, talk to me.” She sipped her drink, then turned. Her voice was lower now, serious. “You don’t get it, do you?” She set her glass down hard. “Elias Graves isn’t just some name. He’s—” She stopped herself, shaking her head. “Never mind.” My patience ran out. “Damn it, Riley! If you know something, say it.” She slammed her glass down, eyes blazing. “And what if I do? Huh? What if I know exactly what you’re walking into? Would you even listen?” The room felt smaller. Tighter. I forced myself to calm down. “Try me.” For a long moment, she just stared at me. Then, to my surprise, she let out a bitter laugh. “You never change.” She rubbed her temple. “Fine. You want to play with fire? Let’s burn.” She grabbed a laptop and powered it on. The screen glowed, lighting up her face. Her fingers moved fast over the keyboard. In seconds, encrypted files filled the screen. I leaned in, scanning the data. What I saw made my stomach drop. Surveillance footage. Reports. Transactions. All connected to Elias Graves. Riley exhaled sharply. “This is why I wanted out.” Her voice was strained. “Graves isn’t just a ghost in the system. He owns the system. Every encrypted message, every digital trace—he sees it all.” A chill ran through me. “How long have you been tracking him?” I asked. She hesitated. “Too long.” She tapped the screen, highlighting a name. I followed her gaze. My breath caught. It wasn’t just some account. It was my name. I blinked. “What the hell?” Riley folded her arms. “Yeah. You’re not just looking for Graves, Nathan. He’s been looking for you.” My pulse pounded in my ears. “I don’t understand—” “You will.” She pointed to a grainy security video. It showed a man in a dark suit standing in an alley, speaking to someone just out of frame. Then, the camera shifted. I saw his face. Elias Graves. And the person he was talking to— My chest tightened. It was someone I trusted. Someone close. The room felt too hot. The walls too tight. Riley watched me carefully. “Yeah,” she murmured. “Now you get it.” Betrayal tasted like metal on my tongue. I swallowed hard. My mind spun. “How long have you known?” Riley hesitated. “A while.” My hands curled into fists. “And you didn’t tell me?” She scoffed. “Oh, right, because you’re so good at listening when people warn you.” She had a point. But still— I stepped back, trying to think. Someone I trusted had been working with Graves. I looked at Riley. “I need names.” She met my gaze. “Nathan, if you go down this road, you won’t like what you find.” I didn’t care. I was done running. “I’ll take my chances.” Riley sighed. “Fine. But if this backfires, we both go down.” “Then let’s make sure it doesn’t.” She started typing again, pulling up more files. Then—the screen flickered. And shut down. Riley froze. “No. No, no, no—” She tried to restart it. Nothing. The servers around us hummed loudly. Then—silence. The entire system shut down. The room went dark. Then, through the speakers, a voice. Low. Distorted. “You should’ve stayed out of this, Nathan.” Every hair on my body stood on end. Riley’s face went pale. “He’s here.” My heartbeat slammed in my chest. Footsteps. The door behind us creaked open. A shadow moved. Riley grabbed my wrist. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Run.”
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The glow from Riley’s monitors paints the room in cold blue light, flickering across her face as she types furiously, her fingers moving faster than my eyes can follow. I watch from the edge of the room, arms crossed, pulse still racing from the last hour. The warehouse feels smaller, the air thick with old electricity and unsaid words.She hasn’t spoken since the system rebooted itself, since the warning message crackled through the speakers like a whisper from the grave.You should’ve stayed out of this, Nathan.The voice still lingers in my head, an unwelcome echo. I don’t scare easily, but something about it feels too personal. Like someone reaching through the dark, just to remind me I was already in the grave—I just hadn’t realized it yet.Riley exhales sharply, frustration laced through the sound. "Whatever’s on this drive, they really don’t want us to see it," she mutters, tapping a few more keys. A progress bar crawls across the screen at a painfully slow rate.I force myself
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I leaned over Riley’s shoulder, my pulse hammering as she worked on the corrupted files. The glow from her monitor painted our faces in blue and green, flickering like a heartbeat. I could see the tension in her jaw, the way her fingers moved faster than normal. She was worried."Anything?" I asked, my voice tight.She exhaled sharply. "Some of it’s fried, but..." Her fingers flew over the keyboard, and suddenly, a fragment of text appeared.A name.Julian Cross.A cold, sharp feeling stabbed through my chest.No. That’s impossible.I took a step back, my throat dry. "Where—where did that name come from?"Riley shot me a look, the kind that saw right through me. "It was buried in the metadata of one of the files. You know him, don’t you?"I did.Julian wasn’t just a name. He was my best friend. My brother in all but blood. And if his name was here, tied to this mess, something was very, very wrong.I forced myself to breathe, but my thoughts spun like a storm. Julian had been off the
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Riley is too quiet.Not her usual kind of silence—the one where she’s working, focused, fingers flying over the keyboard. This is different.This is the kind of silence that makes my skin crawl. That makes my pulse stutter before my brain even catches up.I step closer. "What is it?"She doesn’t answer. Just stares at the screen like it holds something impossible. Like the words on it changed everything."Riley," I snap. "Talk to me."She flinches. Slowly, she turns to face me, and the look in her eyes hits me like a gut punch.Fear.Not the kind where something feels off.The kind that’s personal.The kind that has my name written all over it.My stomach knots. "What the hell did you find?"She hesitates, then takes a deep breath and spins the laptop toward me.At first, I don’t understand what I’m looking at. A security log. A list of names.And then I see mine.Nathan Vale.My heartbeat slams against my ribs.Next to my name: A timestamp. A location. A red warning.PRESENT AT CLASS
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I had seen death before. Felt its breath on my neck. But nothing compared to the cold terror that ran down my spine as Riley’s screen flickered, glitched, and then displayed a single message in bold, chilling letters:“You should have stayed hidden, Nathan.”My chest tightened.Riley froze, her fingers hovering uselessly over the keyboard. The hum of her computer, usually steady, now felt like a warning. The color drained from her face."Shit," she whispered. "They found us."A second later, the power cut out. Darkness swallowed the room, except for the faint red glow of the emergency battery. I reached for my gun. Every muscle in my body locked up, wired tight.Then—Glass shattered.A high-pitched whine filled my ears as a bullet tore through Riley’s monitor, sending sparks and shards flying. We hit the ground, my arm wrapping around her instinctively as more shots thundered through the air. The sharp scent of
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