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ALLIE
After we pulled up to Kai’s run-down house in the center of the Redwood slums, I texted Jace so he knew where I was and handed Kai his helmet. We walked into his house through a nearly broken, unlocked door, then down a set of creaky stairs to a basement. Filled with cobwebs, spiders, and cockroaches, his house didn’t even look livable.
He typed a code into what seemed to be a high-tech lock, clicking the metal door open and gesturing for me to walk in. Hesitantly, I stepped into the room and stared in awe at all the computers, monitors, and screens. Well, I’d spoken too soon.
This place looked like a damn underground shelter for the richest of the rich.
Kai typed another code into his security system, then placed his jacket and the helmet down on a table, flicking on the lights and making the room come alive. Monitors turned on, lights flashed, computers pulled up programs that I couldn’t quite understand.
“Make yourself at home,” Kai said, sliding onto a seat in front of the main computer. “We need to release the video as soon as possible, before Nicole’s father finds her at Jamal’s place.”
I sat beside him and looked over his shoulder, watching him type a string of letters, numbers, and words I didn’t quite understand into a program, the screens around us changing colors and pulling up websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and even the Redwood news stations.
“Nicole is safe though?” I asked, brows drawn together in worry.
“For now,” Kai said, grimacing. “Landon is with Imani and João with Jace. Don’t worry.”
“Why’d you come to get me?” I asked because Kai seemed somewhat protective of me. He always had been. I wanted to know why. I never quite understood it. I never did anything to him or really helped him in any way.
Kai froze for a second, then continued typing, as if his body hadn’t reacted that way. “Jace would kill me if we left you at your internship when this all went down.”
“Jace wouldn’t kill you,” I said, crossing my arms and staring at the side of his face. “You know how to use a gun. You’ve been in way more street fights than he has. There’s something else. Why can’t you tell me?”
He paused for a moment and looked over. “Why can’t I be nice?”
“Being nice would’ve been texting me and telling me to leave my internship, not picking me up from it in the frigid snow when all you have is a motorcycle,” I said to him, arching a brow.
Things weren’t adding up in the slightest. First, Kai had told me that he owed my father a favor, then he put a gun to Carter’s back when he was harassing me in Redwood’s halls, then Jace told me that he had one of my father’s guns, and now, this?
The Poison boys weren’t nice for no reason at all.
They always had something up their sleeves.
Swiping a hand across his face, Kai sucked in a sharp breath and focused on his computer screen. “Wait,” he said, fingers moving even faster. He paused for a moment and looked up at the screens with worry on his face. Then, he pressed the Enter key and sent the video out to the world from anonymous accounts that I’d bet couldn’t be traced back to him.
My phone buzzed almost immediately, social media lighting up with videos, retweets, and chaos about the police force, the video being shared almost a thousand times within the first few minutes. Kai knew how to make stuff go viral, and I assumed he knew how to make stuff disappear too.
After a few moments, Kai sat back in his chair and spun, so he was facing me. “How’s your internship?” he asked me.
“That didn’t answer my question,” I said.
“It will.” He stood and nodded to another locked room. “Come with me.”
Hopping up, I followed him into a room filled with all types of guns from ceiling to floor, wall to wall. He locked the door behind us and leaned over a table in the center of the room. “How’s your internship?” he asked me again.
“It’s good,” I said, staring wide-eyed at all the guns and walking around the room in amazement.
For someone who lived in the shitty part of town, he sure had a lot of money to buy all these and stash them here.
“What department are you in?” he asked me.
“None yet. I have to choose by tomorrow. Why?”
Kai paused, as if he was debating on whether or not he wanted to tell me the real reason why he was asking and truthfully answer all my questions that I had for him. Eventually, he sighed. “Because this is just the start of the chaos in Redwood. The rich will try to silence the poor, like they’ve done for fucking decades. They’ll kill them with no repercussions, and I want to give us a fighting fucking chance.”
“And you’re suggesting …”
“Work with me,” Kai said, fingers paling on the table. “You’re the smartest person to come out of Redwood in years, and Mr. Abara’s company is making tech that is only seen in cyberpunk fiction, tech that will change the world of war and of life forever.”
