She nodded and he stepped past her and fully entered the room. He approached the chair, his head already spinning with possibilities.
He stopped by the chair, which barely looked used. He’d recognized its silhouette from a distance: a Johnson super chair, specifically designed for amazing ergonomics for hackers. Well, the marketing materials said they were for cybersecurity specialists, but everyone knew what they really meant.
If the Jack had been willing to shell out that much for a chair, maybe the rest of the equipment was as high quality.
Circling the room, he studied the rest of the equipment, whistling in appreciation. Despite the layers of dust, it all looked to be in good shape. Except... something was missing. “No keyboard?”
Taryn looked surprised. “Do you need one?”
“I... I don’t know.” Ash rubbed the back of his neck, lingering over the scar tissue. If he didn’t have a port and there wasn’t a keyboard...
He dropped his hands in defeat. “I appreciate you showing me this, but I don’t think I can use it.” His stomach sank. He’d been one of the best. Before his capture, he could’ve made this equipment sing. Now he couldn’t even use the best setup he’d seen in years.
Taryn’s voice was gentle. “You don’t need a keyboard. It runs off a port.”
How could he explain how impossible that was? “I know,” he said. “But I don’t have one.”
“You did.” She reached up to tap the spot on his neck.
Her touch was gentle but it still burned. He hated the reminder that he wasn’t the man he used to be. “Not anymore,” he growled.
If he’d expected to scare her off... He’d forgotten who he was dealing with.
Instead of backing off, she pressed harder. “It’s still in there, right?”
He jerked his head away and stepped away from her, already missing the warmth of her touch. “Yes.” What was she up to?
“If you trust me, I can help.”
Help? “How?”
“I can open the port.”
He gaped at her. She made it sound so simple.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about it. When he’d first been captured, every minute of every day, Ash had planned and plotted how to access his port. His fingers had scraped over the scab and picked at the edges. The only thing that had stopped him was knowing Hope would be the one to pay if Tremaine Security discovered he’d opened it. And that was still true today.
Still... it wouldn’t hurt to know what she was thinking. “How?”
She rolled her eyes. “With a scalpel.”
He might have blanched. Or made a sound. “What?”
“I have significant experience...” He had the sense she was censoring her words. “Cutting open wounds.”
If she was trying to reassure him, it wasn’t working. “Do you have official training?”
She laughed. “If I had training, do you think I’d be tending bar instead of working in a clinic somewhere?”
“You couldn’t pay me to work in a clinic,” he muttered. Bodies and blood. Ugh. He shuddered.
“Oh my god. Stop being a baby. Do you want my help, yes or no?” Hands on her hips, she stared at him.
In five years, she was the only person who’d ever offered to help him access his port.
God, what would he have done if someone had made the offer back then? He couldn’t have had both his sister and the port.
But damn, in those first years, he’d missed surfing the networks like a lost limb. Even knowing the corporation would have punished her if he’d dropped offline, Ash wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have sacrificed Hope for access if he’d had the opportunity.
