Page 7 of Find Me
He waved her out of the room. “Agreed. After you.”
With equipment in hand, they left the warehouse and headed for his truck. While they got in and hit the road, she couldn’t help but feel comfortable with Hawke. He had an aura about him that made her feel safe. Likely the Navy SEAL in him.
The city seemed to pulse with life, the streets busy as people left their workweek behind for a fun night out.
When they made it into the Lower East Side, Hawke parked at the curb, far enough from Julia’s townhouse, but close enough to watch her leave, then he cut the ignition.
The silence became thick, and without even thinking about it, she suddenly blurted out, “Tell me something about you. Something from before all this.”
“Before what?” Hawke asked, his dark eyes flicking toward her.
“Before Phoenix. Before Navy SEALs. Before... all of it,” she clarified, her gaze holding his.
The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. “All right,” he conceded, his voice low and gentle. “I used to be quite the football player in high school.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Hawke confirmed. “But then I joined the Navy SEALs and everything just... changed.”
“Changed how?” Penny prompted.
Hawke exhaled slowly, his gaze drifting back toward the house. “The challenges I faced were unlike anything I’d ever experienced,” he began, his voice laced with both pride and pain. “We trained relentlessly, both physically and mentally. And the missions we carried out… it stays with you. After I lost my leg—”
The only reason she knew was because she had seen him wearing shorts. Elise had mentioned that he had undergone intensive physical therapy, which didn’t surprise Penny at all. He seemed like someone who was always focused on hard work and pushing himself.
“I thought I’d be miserable, but honestly, I realized I wanted something more, something beyond the constant adrenaline and danger. A sense of normalcy, I suppose.”
“Can’t blame you for not missing the danger in the field,” she said, understanding all too well the longing for stability in a world of chaos.
“Took some time to get used to the quiet,” Hawke conceded, his smile returning as he glanced back at her. “What about you? Tell me something about how you grew up.”
“I grew up with an absentee father and a terrible mother who eventually disowned me when I was eleven,” she said, hearing the coldness in her voice. “My grandmother raised me after that.”
Awareness suddenly hit in his gaze. “You don’t see your mom anymore?”
“No,” she said with a firm shake of her head. “It’s better that way.”
Anger twinged his voice. “Did she hurt you?”
“No, she never hurt me,” she said. Then paused and reconsidered. “Not physically anyway.”
She leaned back in her seat, a brief silence enveloping them as Hawke studied her with quiet curiosity. “But all that time in my room and the computer I bought for myself led to hacking, so I can only thank her; it could have been a lot worse.”
Hawke frowned. “You shouldn’t thank someone for giving the bare minimum.”
She winced at the pity in his gaze, and quickly changed the subject. “Being a hacker isn’t all glamour and excitement. People assume it’s like something out of a movie—chasing down criminals and living life on the edge.”
“Isn’t it?” Hawke asked, the tension still heavy in his features.
“Sometimes, of course,” she admitted, looking away to the house for a moment, seeing all the main floor lights were on. “But more often than not, it’s hours spent poring over documents, waiting for something—anything—to reveal itself.”
“Sounds like you’ve got some stories to tell,” Hawke prompted, shifting in his seat to face her more fully.
“More than a few,” Penny conceded. “People can be horrible to each other.”
A beat. Then, “People can also be good.”
“I only know two good people,” she said. “Being a hacker forced me to confront the worst parts of human nature—betrayal, greed, violence.”
