Page 96 of Toy No More

We pull away again quickly.

“Don’t let him smell you on me,” he mutters, averting his gaze. I notice his cheeks are flushed, making me want to touch them that much more. “By the time you get back there with the cleaning stuff, we should be gone,” he says and leaves. Something tells me he does it without even looking at me so that he’s not tempted to hesitate and ask more questions.

Apollo was right. When I return to the office, it is empty.

I leave the door cracked open so I can hear if someone’s coming—and to avoid suspicion—before dropping the bucket of water, the mop, and other equipment to the side.

The camera. You’re being watched, I remind myself, and try my best to act like someone who doesn’t know about the camera recording them.

The splatters of blood had gone seemingly everywhere, which works to my benefit. I start mopping up the worst, swiftly but carefully, so that I look the part of a good, meticulous little soldier who’s simply wiping off the remains of the carnage in all the hidden places. Like at the bottom of the table, where the back of the computer is. That’s where I could plug in the USB.

It should be alarming to me how I’ve gotten used to the scent of blood. It still makes my stomach twist, but I can overlook it. Another reason to get this done; to get away from this life. I don’t want it to change and mold me for the worst any more.

While making sure not to peek at the camera like my subconsciousness constantly urges me to, I manage to remove most of the grossness out of the carpet. I will need another bucket of fresh water to finish, but I don’t know how much time I have.

I need to act now.

Wiping the blood from the table with a wet rag, I cautiously glance to where the computer sits on the floor. It’s all dusty from the back, so surely this might look like I’m just dusting that off, right? If I get underneath the table far enough, the camera shouldn’t see me pulling the USB out of my pocket and plugging it in.

Hearing the dinging sound coming from the screen, I tense up.

I have to confirm it for them to gain access.Shit.

But getting around to the screens will be much harder to do without seeming suspicious. As I try to calm my pounding heart with controlled breaths, I stand up and straighten my back.Don’t look at the camera. Don’t.

Accident. I need an accident.

Determined to do this before my heart explodes, I bend down again, pretending I’m wiping off another smudge I noticed, before I catch my shoulder on the edge of the table on my way back up, making it rattle and nudging it with a painful ‘ow’. Everything on the table moves. Some trinkets topple and fall.

That’s it.The perfect, inconspicuous excuse for me to mess around the front.

Acting like I’m simply trying to rectify my mistake, I hop to the other side, looming over the keyboard and carefully glancing at one of the screens while putting Jasper’s decorations and papers back where they were.

There’s a pop-up window asking me what to do with the device.

Resisting the urge to glance up at the camera above, I gulp and brush my hand over the mouse, hopefully quickly and inconspicuously enough to not be seen. Another window appears, one without any letters, only a progressing download bar.

While flexing my trembling hands, I put everything on the desk together and walk around. I can’t linger too long. Even what I just did might cause suspicion.

No, calm down. There is no way Jasper can go through hours and hours of footage in this room alone. It would take him all day.

He won’t notice. There’s nothingtonotice.

I finish wiping all the strains I see, with the rag now completely stained and the water in the bucket resembling more a bucket a butcher would bleed a pig into. As I lean down to pull the USB out, I’m praying I gave it enough time to implant the virus. Checking up on it would risk too much, and the progress was going pretty fast, so it should be fine.

That’s what I keep telling myself as I go back down. And as I stop in the bathroom later to wash and clean the blood from underneath my fingernails.

Like the true magnitude of everything finally hits me, my head goes all light and I have to clutch the sink for a moment to preventing myself from fainting, throwing up, or maybe both at the same time. Closing my eyes, I take deep breaths, fighting off the images of pouring blood inside my mind. The blood, the guts spilling out of that guy, and a scene of Jasper catching me planting that USB, doing the same to me.

“You’re fine,” I whisper. “You did it.”

I force myself to remember the agent’s words. With the background information and the little things they have on Jasper, this will be the last drop for them to finally be able to act. A big raid, a SWAT team, and an ending to this nightmare.Soon. As long as they get what they need out of that computer.

I’ve done my part. Now all I have left to do is pray it’s going to work.

Chapter 26

Apollo

---