Page 42 of Knight

"He chose me because I was desperate, you mean." The admission tastes bitter. "Because I'd believe anything if it meant finding Michael."

"No." The word emerges sharp and certain. "Victor doesn't waste time on simple manipulation. He could have used anyone's desperation to get a phone into my apartment. But he choseyou. Spent weeks building your trust. Learning your patterns. Making himself essential to your search."

The painkillers begin to do their work, dulling the sharp edges of discomfort. But they do nothing for the knot of fear in my stomach. "So what do we do?"

"We wait." Objects shift in the darkness as Knight moves something on his desk. "I need to figure out what was on that phone besides the virus."

"But you can't access it now. Everything's off."

"Exactly. Which means whatever he wanted me to find, I missed it. The virus was just theatrics. Something obvious to keep my focus where he wanted it, instead of on his real end game."

I try to track his movements, but the emergency strips cast more shadows than light. "You really think there was something else?"

"Victor doesn't create simple plans." Papers rustle somewhere to my right. "Every move has multiple purposes. The virus forcing a shutdown was too obvious."

"Maybe he just wanted to prove he could get to you."

His laugh holds no humor. "He did that the second you walked through my door with working access codes." The sound of more drawers opening. "No, this is something else. The question is, what did he want me looking at when the power went out?"

"The countdown?"

"Or what the countdown was counting down to." Something heavy hits his desk. "Think. What exactly happened right before I cut power?"

I try to remember through the fog of fear and painkillers. "There were alarms. Heat warnings. The virus was spreading ..."

"What else?"

"You were tracking something. Some kind of pattern?"

"The code." His voice sharpens. "It wasn't just Victor's style. There were other signatures mixed in. Like someone else had helped design it."

"Another hacker?"

"A student." He goes quiet for a moment. "Someone learning his methods. But their work was different. Less elegant. More direct."

"Why does that matter?"

"Because Victor Nash doesn't share his techniques with just anyone." Papers crumple. "He isn’t out there taking on students. He comes to you. Hetestsyou. Which means whoever helped him build that virus is important to his plan."

My shirt clings to my skin, and the bandages on my wrists feel damp.

"Those bandages need changing." His voice startles me out of my thoughts. "The gauze won't hold in this heat."

"It's fine."

"It's really not." Something rustles. "And I need my workspace to not smell like infection when this is over. Hold still."

More things move around. "I can do it myself."

"In the dark? With shaking hands?" I don’t know how he manages to make his laugh sound sarcastic, but he does. "Just shut up and let me work. Consider it enlightened self-interest. I don't want to deal with sepsis on top of everything else."

His hands are surprisingly gentle as he unwinds the bandages. Each touch is clinical. But even that small contact feels too intimate in the darkness.

"Do you think he's watching us somehow?"

"I think Victor Nash doesn't do anything without knowing exactly how it will play out."

He applies something cool to the cuts. It stings a little, but I hold still.

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