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“Th-They repaired it,” Carol sniffled. “But he’ll have to
learn to talk again.” She began to cry. “My poor baby.”

Jude reached out, absently patting her shoulder. He could feel
himself sinking, the horror drowning him the way it had when his father had
died.

“The police think it’s a warning,” Carol added. “That he did
something to anger the mob that—”

“The mob?!?” Jude yelped, pulling his hand away.

“Yes,” she said, wiping her face with a tissue. “They think
he got tangled up in some kind of deal that went bad. There were officers in
today, interviewing Elliot’s friends.”

Jude bolted from the room before she finished, making it to
a washroom down the hall.

“Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Oh fuck!” he groaned.

He leaned against the sink, breathing through his nose until
the nausea passed. After a minute, he turned on the cold water, splashing his
face. His mind kept replaying one unquestionable truth: he’d caused this.

By the time Jude made it back to the waiting room, Elliot’s
mother and sister were sitting at the side, crying, his father nearby. He shook
Jude’s hand before leading him back to the hospital room.

Jude stepped inside, eyes on the figure on the bed. Elliot
was intubated, the hiss of a respirator filling the room with sound. His eyes
were shut, innumerable wires and tubes emerging from various places on his
body. Eyes prickling, Jude reached out, his fingers brushing over Elliot’s arm.
 Elliot’s skin felt waxy, unreal, and the urge to vomit rose again.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Elliot.”

There was no response.

After a few minutes, Jude stumbled out of the ward, taking
the long way around so that he didn’t have to face Elliot’s family. Reaching
the main floor of the hospital, he headed out the exit doors, his eyes on the
grey afternoon sky. His footsteps crunched on the sidewalk. A thin layer of
snow covered the ground; more was falling.

Unexpectedly a voice appeared next to his shoulder.

“You should choose your friends more carefully,” Patel
growled.  

Jude jumped, but the man had him by the arm, the muzzle of a
gun jammed against his ribs. “Now let’s do this the nice way,” Patel snarled,
the gun pushing harder. “I’d rather not have to start checking into your
other
friends.”

“Fuck you!” Jude barked.

He walked stiffly, panic sharpening the details around him.
He could see that the shadows in the snow were blue, not grey, as the light
from the hospital cut sharp bands down from the windowsills. His breath came in
gulps, mind screaming in terror.

“You need to listen, Jude. I don’t want you doing anything
stupid,” Patel continued calmly. “Mr. Fischer would like to talk to you. He’s
waiting in the car over there.”

Jude glanced around the street, catching sight of Luca
waiting next to a black limousine, smirking. Jude turned his attention the
other direction, desperate for escape. The alley was too far, the hospital
parking lot too empty, not enough people on the sidewalk to make an effective
distraction. He felt as if a noose was closing around his neck, tightening
until he couldn’t breathe. He tugged slightly, and Patel’s fingers tightened
into a claw.

“Be smart, kid, and you might just live to talk about this.”

They reached the car and the back door opened. King sat
inside, his coat folded across his lap. The gun jabbed Jude in the ribs again
and he stumbled forward, half-climbing, half-crawling into the vehicle. Luca
came in behind him, Patel heading up to the front, joining the driver. Jude’s
eyes darted this way and that, fear slowing time down until it passed in
milliseconds. Luca slid in next to Jude, his arm slung over the back of the
seat as if they were good friends. Jude made a whimpering sound, terror a
physical force within him.

‘Oh God, Elliot! I’m so fucking sorry!’

“Luca,” King said. “Could you pass me the folder?”

Luca nodded, reaching for a briefcase on the floor and
pulling it onto his lap. He snapped open the buckles, retrieving a large manila
folder marked with a red tab. He offered it to King, but he shook his head.

“To Mr. Alden here,” King said, his ringed hand gesturing
loosely to Jude.

Luca swivelled, dropping the folder onto Jude’s lap. He
stared at it, unmoving.

“This is your next project,” King said tersely. There was no
option for refusal.

Jude lifted the cover with one finger, looking inside.
Seeing the contents, he felt gravity shift, vertigo threatening to topple him
where he sat. There were pictures of people – some taken with long-distance
lenses, others pulled from online sites – and on each page were their
addresses, and their names.

Claudia Hernandez

Dominic Abrina

Blaine Shands

William Perry

Chan-sook Choi

Lorelei Stokell

Jude’s eyes paused on the last name, blood rushing in his
ears. The accompanying photograph showed a petite, dark haired woman in a
sharply cut suit. She was posed next to her husband and two teenage sons, a
Corgi at her feet.

Francesca Williams

Jude recognized her.

Ms. Williams was the new Police Commissioner. She’d been on
the news only days earlier, speaking about the need to crack down on criminal
activities in the city, holding the Mayor to his pre-election offers of
support. Jude looked back to King, the screaming in his mind incoherent.
 Random flashes of memory kept intruding in the present:
his father
with his elbows on the dinner table… Elliot sitting next to Jude on the front
steps of the brownstone… Jude sitting in the Dean’s office, his mother sobbing…
He blinked, refocusing on the image of Fran Williams.

“W-what is this?”

“You’ve proven you can hack your way into even the most
protected computers,” King began. “And I want into these people’s lives.” He
smiled coldly. “I want access to all of their private files and documents. I
want every secret, every lie, every detail you can find on them.”

“Why?” The question was barely a whisper.

King’s expression flickered with dark humor.

“Oh Jude,” he chuckled. “In light of the recent
events
with
Mr. Baird
,
I’m not sure you really want me to answer that.”

Jude swallowed convulsively, Elliot’s body, covered in
tubes, in his mind’s eye.

“I… I…” Jude wanted to deny him, but he couldn’t make the
words come out.

King leaned forward, elbows on knees. This close and Jude
could see his face was pockmarked from acne, the olive skin speckled with
darker splotches.

“Luca tells me you are having second thoughts,” King
grumbled. “That you said ‘no’ the first time he invited you to start this
project. Is that true?”

Jude’s eyes darted to Luca. He was smirking. There was no
way out of this lie.

“Y-yes, sir,” Jude gasped. “I did.”

“You realize, Mr. Alden, you’ve seen things…
found things
,
no one else has. Now, I’m giving you a business opportunity. You’d better speak
up if you can’t do this.” King’s black eyes were bright and angry, ready to
attack.

“I… I can do it.”

Luca chuckled, his hand dropping down and slapping Jude,
just a little too hard, on his shoulder. Luca reached back into the briefcase,
dropping a wrinkled envelope onto Jude’s lap. There was a coffee ring on one
side. It was, he realized, the cash he’d refused to take in the Starbucks.

“Good choice, Mr. Alden,” King chuckled. “Because if you’d
said no, we would be having a
very
different kind of conversation right
about now.”

: : :
: : : : : : :

When Jude disappeared from her life again, Indigo was glad. It
gave her time to get her head together. To decide what the hell she wanted to
do with him.

Jude being gone gave her perspective.

For the first few days, she sulked and pouted, glad she
didn’t have to face him. He had had no right to search for her mother, her mind
argued. And even though she’d told him he
could,
didn’t mean that he
should
have done it. If Jude had actually showed up for coffee, she would have told
him so herself.

One week passed, and then a weekend, and Indigo’s annoyance
began to fade. Now she began to wonder
why
he wasn’t coming to see her.
She was indignant that one stupid argument with him was keeping him away. She
spent hours playing the conversation with Jude over and over in her mind. Her
reaction, Indigo decided, made perfect sense. It didn’t mean she hadn’t looked
at her mother’s address on the jump drive. She had. It just meant she’d been
surprised.

She would have said that to his face, given a chance.

She saw Marq at the university twice. He waved at her both
times, but she ignored him. Jude wasn’t with him. On Friday, she hung around
the Student Union, hoping to run into Jude. On Saturday, drunk and reckless,
she texted him.

Where’ve you been, J? Keep this up and I’ll be back to
saying maybe again.

Jude never texted back.

The next week began. With the semester coming to a close,
Indigo began spending all of her free hours in the campus computer lab,
finishing up her video project, hoping Jude would come by. But Jude seemed
determined to avoid her, driving Indigo’s impatience into infatuation. She
lingered near the Tech Department, hoping to run into him, then stopped by
O’Reilly’s twice, wondering if he might be there. He wasn’t.

It was like Jude had packed up his life and disappeared.

The next Wednesday, Indigo was sitting in the Student Union
having coffee by herself when Cal Woodrow unexpectedly appeared, pausing next
to her table, a pile of books in hand. The two of them made awkward small talk
as Indigo searched the crowd for Jude.

She did
not
want him to see her with Cal again.

“I ran into Cal today,” Indigo told Shireese later that
night. “It was a little weird, after what happened, but he was… nice.”

Shireese lifted an eyebrow, not commenting, her eyes on the
television

“Cal told me I have an old soul,” Indigo said, half to
herself.

Shireese made a choking sound.

“What?” Indigo asked.

“I don’t even want to hear,” Shireese snarled. “Keep your
life to yourself.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m sick to death of picking up the pieces for
you.”

Indigo was on her feet in seconds, her frustration with
Jude’s disappearance, with Cal, and with the fucked-up mess of her life pouring
out in anger at her friend.

“I can handle this!” she shouted. “Trust me!”

Shireese glared at her, but didn’t get off the couch.

“You can’t handle
shit!
Lookit what you’re doing with
Cal. Just ‘cause the paper for the invite’s prettier,” she snarled, “don’t mean
it’s a better choice.” Her face was pugnacious, anger in her dark eyes. “Go on!
Screw it all up again! But don’t you
dare
tell me about it!”

 “Fuck you!” Indigo bellowed.

Shireese turned back to the television, lifting the remote
and increasing the volume to an ear-splitting level as Indigo stormed around
the apartment, grabbing items and throwing them into her backpack. She had no
idea what she was going to do, but she couldn’t stay here any longer. She
pulled on her winter jacket, adding mittens and a hat, slamming the door behind
her as she left.

Out on the street, Indigo stood in the ankle-deep snow, her
breath rising around her like mist, bits of it freezing in her hair. With a
blast of foul language, she started walking toward the subway. She lifted the
phone from her pocket, fiddling with the university directory until she located
Marq Lopez. The listing didn’t give his apartment number, just the street
address. Indigo let out an angry huff, switching to text, and typing out a
message with numbed fingertips.

I’m walking to your apartment. Tell me which number it
is, or I’m going to start ringing each buzzer until you answer. Not fucking
kidding.

She was almost to the subway station when her pocket buzzed.

Jesus, Indigo! It’s FREEZING out! Where are you? I’ll
pick you up.

She let out a sobbing laugh, grinning down at the phone.
Suddenly everything felt better.

I’m almost at the subway station. Where are you?

There was a pause.

I’m coming to get you. Wait!

Indigo smirked, sending one last text.

Maybe.

Around her the snow was falling again, the whole city
swathed in white. She lifted her face to the sky, closing her eyes as it sifted
down onto her skin. For once, she wasn’t going to wait for the guy to come
after her; she was going to go and get what she wanted.

Jude had sworn he wasn’t going to see Indigo again, that he
couldn’t risk her getting involved. And while the decision might have been
painful, with Elliot slowly recovering in the hospital, he didn’t question that
choice… at least most of the time.

The last weeks had been impossibly busy. Jude spent his
mornings and afternoons at the Tech Center, his evenings hacking personal
accounts for King. But late at night, plagued by insomnia, he had to fight down
the urge to call her. Their moments together played out endlessly in his mind.
Marq mentioned that he’d seen Indigo in the hallway, a week earlier. Lissa told
Jude she’d seen Indigo by the Tech Center twice. Each moment was a reminder of
what he
couldn’t
have.

Jude hated it.

On Saturday, he’d gone down to The Vault with Marq and a few
other friends, drinking to forget. Indigo was everywhere in his mind, the lithe
young woman who served them drinks and flirted with Marq, a pale comparison to
her beauty. Near dawn, Marq and Abhishek had dragged Jude home, leaving him on
the floor of the bathroom.