Page 55 of Darcy
He got mixed up, take the 2nd on the left
[HzD]Fr0gg0
ngl I’m in the 1st left, but ur welcome if u want. No pressure
[HzD]Proph3t
Very mature, Slate.
[HzD]StoneRE1
Fuck off P
[HzD]D0dgeVip3r
stop confusing her. 1st on right.
[HzD]Fr0gg0
Let Dark pick.
[HzD]StoneRE1
2nd on the left mi amor. You won’t regret it *wink emoji*
[HzD]Proph3t
Go to sleep. We have a plane to catch in the morning.
I snort.I can’t help it. In my mind’s eye, I can picture them lying in bed messaging the group, all hoping I’ll wander into bed with them while Prophet grumbles about how they won’t shut up.
Just for that, none of them get me. This couch is easily big enough for little, old me, and it’s softer than a cloud. Besides, I have to work, and this is the first moment I’ve had to myself for days.
Tugging on my pyjamas, because I work best in comfort, I snuggle in with a blanket and pull my laptop towards me, only to freeze as I’m hit with a wave of nostalgia. This position reminds me of the dozens of evenings I’ve spent like this with my sister, Ivory, snoozing against me. The baby of our group has always suffered from night terrors, ever since she was a child. A lot of the time, she’d find me in the middle of a two a.m. gaming session, and I’d take a break from the screen to help her settle. As we grew older, she no longer needed milk and cookies, but would read beside me until she fell back to sleep.
Brushing away the pang of homesickness, I start by searching the network for the guy’s phones.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I groan.
They’reallconnected to the hotel Wi-Fi. Sighing, I quickly switch my phone’s SSID to match the Wi-Fi and send deauthentication frames along the network to force their phones to disconnect. When the devices automatically try to reconnect, they mistake my phone for the Wi-Fi and voila, I’m in. Three clicks later and my sweet, innocent little tracking app has been downloaded onto all four of their phones.
I don’t feel great about hacking my guys, but you never know when something like that will be useful. Hopefully, I won’t ever have to activate the app.
That done, I return to the real threat here, Gabrielle. Firing up the rootkit on her phone with one hand, I quickly start skimming through her files. I’ve had an app recording her keystrokes for the last few days, and as I rifle through her stuff, I set another handy program to filter her typing history to search for likely passwords.
God, I can’t help but admire someone whose virtual life is so neat. Everything has a folder, labelled and sorted alphabetically. All the files are dated. I almost feel bad that she made it so easy for me because it’s so beautifully organised.
Each member of the band has their own file, and Gabrielle has copies and backups of everything. Even the files kept by their juvie counsellors…
Ignoring that temptation—because the guys’ pasts are their own—I click on a file titled “Surveillance” and start watching a random snippet of video footage.
I watch with dawning horror as Arlo enters a hotel room and starts stripping off his clothes without a care for the camera. From the vantage point, they must have hidden it on a shelf where it was unlikely to be noticed.
Not only are they blackmailing my guys, they have them under the kind of surveillance you’d use on criminals.
Gut sinking, I click on Dodger’s name and find the most recent video. I watch with mounting horror as he brings a mug full of coffee to me, then braces himself over me to steal a kiss.
Nausea burns my throat, and I close the video, unwilling to see how much of our privacy they invaded. There are no words for the violation, and before I can think better of it, I check the file history.
