Jack
I glance at my own smartwatch as notifications of thwarted attacks on our computers come through my texts. Distraction indeed. But they underestimated my setup. Sidney isn’t getting texts or I would be alerted.
“Are you going to explain your evil plan now?” Harper leans into Luke. “You distracted us, but something tells me you aren’t done.”
“Not my plan.” Sidney shrugs. “I’m just a willing chess piece. They’ve been watching you. They knew you’d rally to protect your little pet.”
Luke’s eyes narrow on her. “Who’s the chess master then?”
Sidney smirks. “I’m not at liberty to say.” She glances at her smartwatch. “And I’m done here. It’s been fascinating as always, boys.”
Standing, she brushes off her clothes like she’d get something on her from Harper’s furniture.
“I could still call the police.” Harper straightens.
Sidney gives her a deprecating smile. “My uncle is the chief of police. Why do you think they sent me instead of some stupid boy again?”
Again? The first or second or both times?
She stretches and reaches into her pocket. She holds up the camera we had Nat plant. “Sloppy work. You don’t think I monitor access to my bedroom to the party? Or that I didn’t change the code, but left yours active?”
She shakes her head at Luke as she tosses it onto the table. “Maybe you can use this to video your pet.”
This can’t be Zach masterminding this, can it? They drew us all out of our houses for what? To stop us from following Zach’s crew? To attack our computers when they are on and accessible because we have them linked?
“Bye, boys.” Sidney goes to the door and lets herself out.
“I hate her,” Harper whispers.
“Don’t worry, we’ve got something she’s not expecting, but right now, we need to cover our own asses.” I look around. “Who left their computers up and unlocked?”
“I shut mine down when I came over here.” Nico glances at the others. “Sidney was in the guest bedroom.”
“Your laptop?” I meet Luke’s gaze.
“Fuck.” He straightens and presses a kiss to Harper’s cheek before heading upstairs.
“Mine’s locked,” Eli says.
Caden runs his hand through his dark hair. “I left as soon as I woke up, but I didn’t disconnect.”
“Your dad is home?” I stand and look at Harper. “I’m going to use your computer.”
She nods. “Of course.”
I climb up the stairs while the others talk quietly. Before I enter Harper’s room, Luke comes out of the guest bedroom.
“Gone.” He shakes his head. “She didn’t have anything on her.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a one-person job.” I shake my head. Fuck, I need to lock down Caden’s computer and lock out and brick Luke’s laptop.
I grab Harper’s laptop and look at the feeds. Eli’s is off. Mine is off. Luke’s and Nico’s are off. Caden’s is live and there’s a light on in his room.
I bring the laptop downstairs with me and set it on the dining room table. Using my backdoor to get into everyone else’s computers, I lock Luke’s laptop down and hit the “kill” switch to erase everything.
The cloud storage we use pulls everyone’s data to it periodically so we don’t lose shit.
The sound of a car pulling into the driveway makes all of us stop and look at the door. I glance at Caden’s room and see a shadow. Before I left my house, I hit the record in case someone went into Harper’s room.
