The Ghost and The Hacker (Dark Fire Book 3) (2 page)

"Sare-Bear!"

Through a maze of people, I can see my best friend, Lucy Henry, wave at me like a crazed bird.  Her bright red top and canary yellow puffy jacket just further the bird image.  She might as well be squawking.

"Lucy!"  I run toward her, catching her in a hug and spinning around a few times.  The weight of my luggage keeps us spinning for an extra turn.

When our spinning finally ends, I note that most people have ignored our outburst completely.  The rest toss us bored looks or roll their eyes.  Apparently, people do run-hugs all the time in LaGuardia.

"I have the absolute best news!"  Lucy takes my hands in hers, forcing me to drop my luggage.

I pull my hands back, fully intent on keeping my luggage close.  I heard enough warnings from Dad about keeping my bags on my person at all times when traveling. I wasn't about to take a chance when I was thirty feet from the doors leading to the streets of Queens.

"You're getting married and I'm the Maid of Honor?"

"Ha. Ha. Ha."  Lucy rolls her eyes at the joke we've had going since she almost got married senior year.  We've been friends since she butted into my life freshman year, so I can get away with poking fun at her.  Leaning down, she grabs my rolling bag and starts toward the door.  "I've got a taxi with the meter running.  Let's walk and talk."

I hike my giant duffel up my shoulder and resettle my backpack over my back, then run after her.  We're settled in the cab, my luggage in the trunk, before I have another chance to ask her about her good news.

"Ready for this?  So Dark Fire started here in the city before they exploded and they're going to do about a dozen I Heart NYC shows over the next few weeks as a special thank you to the folks here.  And I just
happened
to hear through the grapevine about one of their super-secret locations!  We're gonna see Dark Fire!  Live!  Tomorrow night, baby!"

"Holy shit!  Really?  God, I love it here already!"  We laugh and joke until the taxi pulls up in front of a derelict building.

"Will I get tetanus from touching the doorknob, Lucy?"  I quirk a brow.

"No.  More likely you'll get it from the stairs.  There are a few random pokey things on the way up."  And with that, she holds the door open for me, allowing me to pass into what will become my very first apartment in New York City.

I am vibrating with excitement despite the smell of urine, bag of trash, and horrifying domestic argument we pass on the way up to our door.  The location isn't optimal and the building is abysmal, but it's New York City...  Anything can happen.  And after nothing but failures up till now, I'm banking on the positive.

The proof of that positive was that I am already set to start my new job on Monday and Lucy is taking me to see Dark Fire on Saturday night.  My face is starting to hurt from all the smiling I'm doing.

When we reach the door, Lucy digs through her purse until she comes up with a nondescript set of keys, which she promptly passes to me.

"These are yours," she whispers as if conveying a holy relic or something.  "Would you care to do the honors?"

Holding my breath, I put the key in the lock and turn it, hearing the
shiiick
of the first deadbolt coming open.  I flip the next one in quick succession.  When I move to the knob, Lucy makes a little motion, indicating that I needed to fiddle with the lock slightly, so I do, before turning the handle and closing my eyes.

When the door is open, I likewise open my eyes.

It is a tiny, nearly empty dump.  And I love it.

Lucy closes and locks the door behind us, careful to pull the security chain, and makes a wide circle with her hand indicating the apartment.

"I've painted every room and I got some dishes from a resale shop a few days ago for the kitchen.  I also ordered your new mattress for you like you asked, which should be here this afternoon.  And I got you this..."  Pulling something fabric from the seat of the sofa, she whips it so she's holding it open like a banner.

It 's a t-shirt with I Heart NYC in big black and red letters.

"Lucy, if I were a lesbian, I would marry you!"  I hug her.

"I tried that junior year, remember?  Couldn't do it.  Women are insane.  But hey, you'd be my first choice for homosexual life partner, too," she giggles.

After unpacking, laughing way too damn much, some pizza, and the delivery of my new mattress, Lucy walks me around the block to point out the sights.

"Best coffee in five blocks, and it's less than a buck, with free refills if you sit," she explains, pointing to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant.  "Do not go in there," she says, pointing to a store.  "Really good Pad Thai," she says, pointing to yet another place, moving on.

Finally, when we've walked a half dozen blocks from the apartment and I am thoroughly lost, she points to a neat-looking club just off the sidewalk.

"And that's where we're going tomorrow night.  We'll want to get there early and make sure we can get good seats."

My whole body is vibrating, I'm excited but the momentum of the day has started to wane and I can feel my energy level dropping.

"I'm pretty beat, Lucy.  I need some sleep."

"Oh!  Of course!  I'm so excited that you're finally here, Sarah.  And I'm glad you finally got out of Lakemont."

We begin walking back in the direction of our apartment- I think.  Lucy continues, "You know it was the right thing, don't you?  You're not feeling guilty or regretful that you finally said goodbye, right?"

"I hadn't really thought about it, to be honest," I admit.  "I mean, the move here, the new job...  It all happened so fast."

"Probably the only way you ever would have taken the opportunity.  I know you.  You were so entrenched, you were letting life pass you by.  Think of all those experiences you missed because you were stuck behind your computer."

"Yeah, but I never had a bad experience and ended up regretting it."  I tilt my head at her as a joke.  There are a lot of experiences in Lucy's life that she's admitted she isn't proud of.  Yet, inside I sigh.  It's true that I often missed experiences, but the one experience I wish I'd gotten, I was denied the chance at.  That ship sailed away eight years ago.

"How's your mom taking it all?"

I shrug and kick a cigarette butt on the sidewalk.  "She'll live.  She was sad, but she knows I needed this.  I think maybe she's a little relieved.  With Dad gone, I'm like a little carbon copy reminder all the time.  Now, she can move on a little, maybe."

"In other words, she cried when you told her, but helped you pack."  Lucy always could read my subtext so well.

I grin.  "Yup."

"Well, no more tears, Sarah-bear.  You're in New York City.  Everyone comes here for a new beginning.  And you can get one, too."

I smile and fist-bump her as we come upon our new apartment's front door.  I ignore the urine, trash, and yelling once more, not letting anything get to me.  But in the dark un-quiet of the city, with the constant traffic and people outside of my window and the new mattress below me, my mind goes back to experiences and ships.  I think of all the experiences I missed, waiting for that ship that silently sailed off into the sunset, never to be seen again.

Zach

"Alright, we've got about twenty more minutes before we go onstage.  Any questions about the rotation?"  Cy's voice snaps me back to the present.

"You said we're still taking requests?" Justin says, raising his hand like a third grader.

"I said we might, if Dean gives us the okay."  Cy pushes his hand over his head, messing up the gelled red-brown spikes, and tosses his head to indicate where Dean, the manager of The Tap, is perched on a stool near the edge of the stage.

While Cy and Justin talk about requests they prefer, Griffin pulls me aside slightly and whispers conspiratorially into my ear.  "Dude, I've got a weird feeling about tonight.  Justin's being all weird and shit about Andy and now I'm getting this strange sense of deja vu, because, well, we
have
been here before.  And I can't shake this feeling like something weird is going to happen tonight." He pauses and runs a hand down his face and then through his short-cropped dark brown hair.  "Hit me or something.  I can't shake this off."

"Is that rhetorical or do you really want me to hit you?"  I pull my fist back, waiting.

"Asshole.  It was a joke.  I just meant that I need some help getting back in the zone."

"Okay...  Umm, I think Nicki's out there tonight."  I shrug, looking out through a gap in the curtains and then back to Griffin to see if it helped.  "That's all I got."

"Would you shut up?  Jesus!  Justin's five fuckin' feet away," he hisses at me.  I smile, knowing full well I'm being an asshole.  Oh well.  If he's going to crush on Justin's cousin, he should have the balls to come right out and tell Justin.  And Justin's cousin.  And not me.  And especially not to me while we're drunk at four AM with two chicks making out with one another for our viewing pleasure.

Of course, in return, I admitted that I'm a wanted man.  Falling in love for me is right out.

Sex is fine.  But I really wasn't interested in Griffin's revolving-door relationship style.  And I had my initial year of fun after the band went big, outrunning ex-marine boyfriends who came home to find their girlfriends in bed with a rockstar.

Once the money made it possible, I made sure my fun to came with a price tag that guaranteed discretion.  Hell, who am I kidding...  Discretion
and
the safety of knowing there was no risk of them getting attached.  Rockstars could afford high priced call girls, but I only did it when I needed to let off some steam.  I really didn't want to be known as
that
guy.  And I
really
didn't want the guys to know I was only bothering with sex once in a blue moon.

Now, don't get me wrong; I open doors and I pull out chairs.  But any girl who gets that kind of treatment is not a girl I plan to fuck.  That way, there are never any sweet feelings to confuse a girl about where she fits in my life.  Either I fuck her, money changes hands, and that's all there is, or I'm a gentleman.  Dark Fire's marketing department likes to play me up as the nice guy, the one who doesn't fall all over anything with tits.  Which is true.

After that first year, I was a fucking boy scout when it came to our fans.  But it was all an illusion.

Which was the story of my life.

Great.  Now Griffin's BS about having a weird night is settling onto me.

The roaring crowd snaps me back once more.

Even at a much lower volume because of the small crowd, it still does something to me.  I might stand behind a keyboard and sing back-up vocals, but the crowd fills me with life.  It's as if being on stage somehow simultaneously makes me anonymous and safe, and exposed and in danger.  It's always such a rush.

The four of us move to the stairs leading off the side of the stage and bound up.  As we each break free of the curtain, we begin waiving.  The crowd is going nuts.  Tonight, we are a complete surprise to a crowd used to seeing local small-venue groups.  I take a moment to scan the crowd and I find Nicki sitting at one of the small tables near the front of the stage.  At her elbow was Justin's umm...  Girlfriend? 

Yeah, I'm  still not clear on that.

If your cousin dies right after knocking up some random chick, and she shows up at his door and you answer, that does
not
make you the new responsible party in my book.  I'm not going to be an asshole about it- He really did seem to like her.  I'm just sayin'.

Around them, other tables are filled with girls, seemingly from ages fifteen to fifty.  There is room to stand, but not much and those at the tables are pinned to their seats by the sheer number of people in the audience.

If I had to guess, our show tonight is not quite the surprise we were hoping for.

There is a flip of red, like a ponytail, which catches my eye and I try to seek it out.  I'm not entirely sure what it is that's drawing me, but something makes me look for the owner of that ponytail.

Cy plows into me from behind, unaware that I'd stopped to look around.  He was looking out at the audience and waving when I catch him into a weird high-five/fist bump thing to cover the stumble.  He gives me an odd look, probably wondering what I was staring at, but I just shake my head.

Justin leaps up to the mic to swing it around a few times before blasting into the speakers.

"Thank you New York City!"

The room erupts.

In response to their devotion, he declares, "We love you, too."

There are screams of
I want your babies
and
Marry me
from the audience, but Justin ignores them, choosing instead to send a look down at Andy, then quickly back up to the audience.

"So, what do you say we get started?  What to play, what to play...  Oh, decisions, decisions..."  Griffin hits the drums in the rhythm we were all waiting for and Justin and Cy begin to play.  In the background, I get some harmony in with the keyboard and then Justin and I come in with the lyrics for
Decisions At Dawn
.

There is something elemental about the perfection of music.  How everything comes together.  It's what has always drawn me to music, especially when the rest of the world doesn't make sense.

We pound through three more songs in rapid succession until Justin comes back to grab a bottle of water and I noticed Dean signaling behind the curtain.  I nod at Justin, who moves back to the front of the stage.

"So, I guess we get to take some requests from you, Big Apple.  Whaddya want?"

There are so many voices all at once, it's intense, but after a few uncoordinated attempts, the crowd gets it together and start chanting
Lourdes Gets Me There
.  Griffin starts us off and we roll into the song.  After that, the crowd petitions for
The Night of Dreams
, which involve my mic being switched to the main so I can take over vocals, while Justin works solely on bass.

Justin starts in with the opening notes and I start singing.  The lights change slightly to accommodate the deeper tone of the song and by the end of it, I can hear crying in the audience.  The last strains of the song end on a nostalgic note. 

Suddenly, the lights flicker on for a moment to notify everyone of last call.  I am temporarily blinded, as is everyone else, and I'm just starting to get my bearings back, waiting to have Justin to get the main mic from me, the room silently waiting for the next song.

From the audience, I hear a single voice, loud and clear and speaking directly to me.

"You have to be fucking kidding me, you lying son of a bitch!"

Looking out at the crowd, I finally catch sight of that red ponytail.  It's moving closer to the stage, along with its owner, a woman.

She looks like she's going to kill me.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

Sarah.

It doesn't even matter that I am half blind and she's calling me a lying son of a bitch.  My dream girl is climbing the stage right in front of me.  Without thinking, I lower my hand to help her up.

I expect her to slap me.  Or maybe punch me.  What I don't expect is for her to let me pull her right into my arms and kiss her until we're both stupid from it.

Will Martin guides us into the prep room backstage and shuts the door behind us.  I'm sitting on the couch with Sarah over my lap, euphoric.  Her hands go up under my shirt and I mimic her, sending my hands to trace the skin at the edge of her bra.

Am I dreaming?  I open my lids, looking deep into her chocolate brown eyes while breathing hard.  Her fingers tighten against my pecs as she stares back.

"You're a lying asshole.  You know that?"  Her hips tilt against mine, sliding against my aching length.  We've been kissing for maybe a minute and already I'm hard.  Oh fuck it.  I was hard the second I saw her in that crowd, prowling toward me like she was going to tear me apart.

As I nod in agreement - I
am
a lying asshole - my hand goes down her pants, flipping the button on her fly to make space.

"You never came back for me," she moans when I graze her clit.

"I wanted to."  My fingers glide across her soft folds, feeling the slickness quickly coating them.  This is what we know.  It might have been eight years ago, but I still know her body.  She's fuller, lither, a little more grown-up in some ways, but still my Sarah.

And if I'm right, I can still get her off with my fingers in under a minute.

She was always so responsive.  And if she's going to let me go there, I am going to
go there.

Her pants make moving my hand harder, stretched tight like they are as she straddles my legs. I push her legs to one side and she falls over my lap exactly as I wanted.  With my mouth on hers again, I stroke my fingers over her, my fingertips practically vibrating, I move them so fast.  Her back begins to arch and release, though her mouth never breaks away from mine.

Her fingers dig into my skin, one hand at the back of my head, the other on my shoulder.  I eat the little pleading sounds she makes with my mouth, sucking them down with my tongue, wrapping her in me.

Her whole body stiffens suddenly and I shoot two fingers into her tight channel, knowing it's what she needs to make her orgasm go on longer, stronger.  She twists and bucks while I fuck her with my fingers, recalling each movement from all those years ago, crystal clear in my mind.

We're teenagers again in the backseat of my truck, steaming up the windows as we park in the dirt lot by the lake.  I can almost hear the spring peepers in my head as her body calms.  I keep my hand in place, just how she always liked.  She used to tell me she wanted to keep our connection for as long as possible.  There were times after sex that I finally had to pull out or risk an issue with the condom coming loose; she wanted me to stay in her for so long.

Looking down into her eyes, I see her smile dazedly up at me.  Her fingers lift slowly from the muscles of my shoulder.  Release from the pulled hair of my scalp.  She melts into my lap, burrowing down with her ass against my cock.

"I finally found you," she whispers, tracing her fingers over my face.

"You found me."

"I looked for you for years.  I gave up five months ago."

I can't believe the luck of it.  Not that it makes what I have to say any easier.

"Sarah, you can never tell anyone that you found me."

Her eyes flash wide and her lips part into a little 'o'.

"What? 
Why
?  I don't understand.  You didn't do anything wrong.  You never came back for me, but you didn't do anything illegal."

"That's not the point.  I can still be arrested.  I know the police were looking for me."

"They never had any evidence.  You were just a person of interest."

I lift a brow.  "Is that what your dad told you?"

She tilts her head.  "Yes.  Was there something he
didn't
tell me?"

I close my eyes and drop my head, shaking it a little in frustration.  "Sarah, there was a warrant out for my arrest."  I sit back so that she can see my face and know that I'm telling the truth.  "Your dad asked you to turn me over, didn't he."

She narrows her eyes in memory, then frowns.  "Yes.  He did."

"Did you give me up?"

Sliding off my lap, she stands and moves to the couch on the opposite wall, buttoning her pants as she goes, but she doesn't sit.  Her fingers pick at an imaginary string in the upholstery.

"I don't think so," she hedges.

"What do you mean, you don't think so?"  From behind the door, I hear the guys doing our new cover.  It sounds okay, but I'm not about to leave Sarah in here to go out there and try to improve it.

"I mean, my dad asked if I knew where you might be.  I told him you didn't have anywhere to go.  That maybe you would leave me a note or something at our spot."

I try not to get angry.  "Why would you do that?"

I realize my anger has slipped through when her posture becomes defensive and she whips back, "What the hell was I supposed to do, huh?  I thought I could help you.  I
knew
you didn't do it.  I figured if they found you, they could clear up the whole thing and you could come
home
!"