Page 3 of Anathema
While waiting for Eli to respond, I reclined back in the black leather office chair and rested the heels of my combat boots on top of the desk, crossing my ankles. Lacing my fingers together, I got comfortable and placed them behind my head, closing my eyes and falling into “Let the Bad Times Roll” by The Offspring as it played over my Bluetooth earbuds.
“You know, you can be nicer to me since I’m always doing you favors this late at night.”Eli’s voice cut in over the music.
As if this was inconvenient for him, he was always awake at odd hours. I swear he was nocturnal most of the time.
“This is me being nice to you, Eli. You don’t want to see what happens when I’m mean.” I casually responded as I sucked on my front teeth, still waiting on him to give me what I wanted.
I’ve known Eli for the past five years. When I worked for Charlotte, he was my go-to for any additional help I needed on a job. He was an expert hacker who lived his life on the dark web. He keptmy secrets, and I kept his. That is, only the secrets I allowed him to know.
I never over-disclosed what I formally did for Charlotte—the gritty details. I didn’t trust him enough with that sort of information.
We had a working, professional relationship. Eli always wanted more, fucking begged for it, but I would never give it to him. Simply put, he just wasn’t my type; he was too desperate and needy. I needed a man that could keep up with me. One that could handle all the bullshit I threw at him and still come right back.
“Remind me again why you need this right now. Aren’t you still trying to lie low from the whole Charlotte incident? What if the CIA catches you?”
There he goes again, trying to drag this whole ordeal out with questions to which he already knew the answers. I bet he already had what I wanted ready to go; he just needed to hit the ‘send’ key. Fucking prick.
“Ask ignorant questions and get ignorant answers, Eli. Send me my fucking code. Now.” I ordered, opening my eyes, sitting straight up in the office chair, and turning to face my laptop. It was late, I was tired and done with dealing with his bullshit.
“Fine, yes, yes, sending it now. God, you can be such a bitch sometimes.” He huffed, and the code I had been waiting for finally came through our messaging app on my laptop.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Eli. I’m always a bitch.” I mocked before hanging up on him and turning my music uplouder.
I couldn’t help the feral grin that played across my lips as I injected the code into one of Eli’s newly developed hacking programs, Euphoria. He said it would allow me to gain access to most—if not all—security systems within a ten-mile radius, and I had planned on using it tonight to hack into the CIA as afuck youpresent.Let the fun begin.
Falling back into the chair, I watched the progress bar make its way slowly across the screen.
Fifty percent…
Seventy-five percent…
Fuck this was taking forever.
Ninety percent…
Ninety-five percent…
A loud bang startled me, and I snapped my head around to see what had caused the noise. The door had been kicked open and smashed against the wall, the doorknob busting a hole in the drywall.
“Fuck.” I cursed when I saw who was standing in the doorway with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face.
“Alexis… we’ve talked about this.” He crooned, stepping into the apartment.
Fuck, fuck, ffuucckkk.
I didn’t respond. Instead, I slammed my laptop closed at ninety-nine percent and shoved it into my backpack as I pulled the strap over my shoulder, kicking the office chair at him before bolting out the sliding glass door and down the fire escape.
My heart was racing, practically beating out of my chest. As I got down to the third floor, I could hear his boots landing on the platform above me—of course, he was right on my tail.
Fuck he was fast.
I had descended to the first floor before dropping onto the large dumpster to soften my fall and rolling off it. I landed hard on my back while cradling my backpack to avoid damaging my laptop.
Lying there for a second, I groaned from the hard landing. I’m pretty sure there was broken glass and gravel embedded in my back. I sucked in a ragged breath, opening my eyes to see that he was about to do just the same. I rolled onto my stomach, pushing myself up and sprinting through the back alley between the two apartment complexes.
I was just about to make it to the end of the alley before I lost my footing. Something heavy snagged my ankle, and I fell forward, slamming my chest into the pavement, the loose gravel digging into my palms. My backpack flew forward out of my arms as I tried to stop my face from kissing the ground, and my laptop slid out of the unzipped pocket, smashing as it glided further away from where I had landed.
“Mother f—” I shouted, seeing the broken bits of the laptop before me and rolling over to see what had tripped me. “You broke my laptop, you son of a bitch.” I hissed as he pulled me towards him and caged me underneath his hard body. He hovered over me, his hands pressing into my arms, keeping my upper body still. I squirmed in his grasp, attempting to free myself.
