Page 107 of Hidden

First year student. Athletics scholarship. Gymnastics.

Sadie fits every single parameter. She fits it better than anyone else on the team. She has no parents, her brother is away, no one will notice her quickly apart from the girls on the team, but… she’s definitely the next girl.

I stand up. The rig runs around me, the decryption ticking toward completion, the location map sitting on the screen with six data points clustered around the athletics center, and I stand in the middle of my room and run the calculation I've been avoiding.

They know about me and Sadie. They've been watching me, watching her and somewhere in that observation they found a target that fits their profile.

The decision I made to stay away from her, to keep her safe was the right call. It was also too late. They were already watching her before I stepped back.

I pick up my phone. Not the burner, but my own phone, the one connected to the passive alert on her university portal, the one with the feed from her laptop.

I open it. Thank God, she's in her dorm. The feed shows her at her desk, reading something, with her coffee beside her.

She doesn't know. She has no idea that six times in the last two weeks someone sat in the stands of the athletics center and watched her practice and ran her against a list of criteria to make sure she has the same as the other girls.

I close the feed. Then I open it again.

The rig beeps behind me, it’s the decryption, another layer has been cleared. I should go back to the screen, I should keep working, keep building the network map, and find the upper tier contacts and identify who gave the order to put her in the window.

I look at the feed. She turns a page, picks up her coffee, then she puts it down. She’s completely unaware.

I've kept my distance to protect her, but they were already there before I stepped back, which means the distance isn't the protection I thought it was. That means something else needs to change.

I pull up the campus security layout, the residence building exterior cameras, and the athletics center access logs.

If they're watching her, I need to know exactly when, exactly where, and exactly how close they've gotten.

And then I need to make sure they can't get any closer.

I sit back down, and get to work.

***

I’m sitting on the edge of her bed before she even knows I’m here. The room is dark except for the soft glow of the laptop screen. Sadie’s still asleep, she has one arm tucked under the pillow, and the thin tank top is twisted around her waist. My eyes track the slow rise and fall of her breathing. Every instinct screams at me to leave, to stay away, and to put distance between us so the people hunting me can’t use her.

But it’s already too late, I’m already in too deep with her.

They watched her practice six times. They ran her against the same list as the others. She’s in the window, and I’m the one who put her there by watching her too closely.

I need to keep her safe. I need to protect her. Maybe being closer to her is the best way to keep her safe.

She turns, her legs hitting my lower back, she opens her eyes, and her lips curl into a small smile. She crawls forward on her knees until she’s right in front of me.

“Is everything okay?” she whispers, her voice soft and sleep-rough.

I cup the side of her face with one gloved hand, my thumb brushing her cheek.

“I want to keep you safe, baby,” I tell her, the distorted voice is low and rough. “There’s something coming, something you don’t understand yet. I can’t let them touch you, you’re everything to me. Do you understand that?”

She searches the mask like she can see through it. Then she climbs onto my lap, straddling me, her fingers sliding into my short hair at the back of my neck, it’s the only part of me she can reach beneath the mask. The light touch sends heat straight down my spine.

“I want to know who you are,” she says, barely above a whisper.

“I can’t tell you, baby.” My hands rest on her hips, holding her like she might disappear. “Not yet, not if it keeps you safe. You’re the only thing that matters to me, everything else can burn.”

She lifts the bottom edge of the mask just enough to expose my mouth. Her fingertip traces my lower lip, soft and curious. Then she pulls her tank top over her head and drops it to the floor. She’s bare in front of me, her nipples tight from the cool air, and her eyes are dark with want.

She kisses me which turns hungry fast. She shifts off my lap, drops to her knees between my legs, and unzips me with steady hands. She looks up at me and smiles, there is nothing there which will say I’m Miles, and right now this is what I want, her on her knees for me.