Page 109 of Provocation
‘Enough!’ I shout, standing up and whirling on them. ‘You’re friends. Please don’t let this…’
‘Daisy,’ Shade sighs, ‘don’t be upset. We’re still friends when we fight.’
‘We’re more. We’re brothers when we fight,’ Blake says quietly, taking my hand. ‘We all care about each other. That’s not going to change no matter what we might say to each other, okay, Gorgeous?’
I nod jerkily.
‘Sit down,’ Blake says, taking me to the couch, and pulling me into his lap. ‘I’m sorry we’re fighting. We’re just?—’
‘Scared,’ Shade finishes, and Blake and Mav nod.
‘Let’s put on a movie and relax for a while,’ Mav suggests. ‘We’re all caught up with everything. Let’s just take a minute to chill.’
He opens Blake’s laptop, and I sink against Blake. A minute later, Shade sits down with us and, after giving Blake a friendly shove, takes my legs and puts them on his lap.
I relax, and it’s remarkably easy to do so here with them. Mav was right. I do enjoy being at the club. Once I pass through its doors, there are no windows to the outside. No one can see me. No one knows I'm here. Just them.
I haven't heard anything more from the stalker since the crumpled note that was thrown at me either. I know it's only a matter of time, but maybe he doesn't yet realize, since he can't see me in the cameras in the house anymore, that I'm not living there at the moment. When he does figure it out, will he try to find me? Will he come here looking for me?
Just then, a small message pops up in the middle of Blake’s laptop screen.
‘It’s done!’ Blake says excitedly. ‘The program that was rebuilding those files. It’s finally finished.’
I move so that he can have his knees back, and he takes the laptop. He goes to the desk and sits down to, I guess, see if his fix has worked.
Shade grabs a tablet and puts on the same movie, and the rest of us sit together to watch it without Blake while he works.
About an hour later, he suddenly sits upright. 'Holy shit.'
'What is it?' Shade asks, and Blake looks over his laptop at us.
'I think I might have found something. I was looking through the files that were reconstructed. To be honest, most of it’s just the KIP guys doing their usual shit. Except for this.'
He turns his laptop around, and we can see some grainy footage of what looks like a man in a hat skulking up the stairs to the top of the house.
‘Do you recognize him?’
We all squint at the screen. ‘He’s not a KIP guy, I don’t think,’ Shade says finally, ‘but it’s pretty grainy. It’s hard to tell’
'Can you follow him on the cameras?' I ask. ‘Where does he go?’
Blake shakes his head a little and turns the laptop back to face him. 'I'm not sure. Let me just—' He clicks a few things and then he turns it back around, and we see the same figure going into my room.
'When was this?' I mutter, watching him skulk around and then leave a note on the desk.
I watch myself come into the room on crutches a few minutes later, completely unaware that a stranger had been in my room, and I shudder.
'October,’ Mav mutters. 'Why is it so degraded?'
Blake shakes his head. 'The virus. There's nothing I can do about that. It's the best that we're gonna get. I can try to clean it up a little more, but I don't think we’ll be able to figure out who it is from this.'
Shade's eyes narrow. 'Well, it’s a male, that much we can tell. Blond hair. Look at the way he's walking. He's solid. Maybe six foot, or a little less.
Mav nods. 'And look,' he points at the image. 'He's not a big guy, but his shoulders are wide. You can tell he doesn’t lift. He has more of a runner’s build.'
The guys nod and I tilt my head at the screen, trying to figure out what they're seeing. To me, it just looks like a grainy guy.
'What about the clothes?'
