Chapter One
The firewall breach attempt came from a server in Belarus, which was cute. Harper’s fingers flew across the keyboard, her glasses reflecting the cascade of green code streaming across her triple-monitor setup.Nice try, comrade. She deployed her honeypot script and watched the intruder stumble into her trap like a drunk tourist walking into a revolving door.
Three seconds later, her countermeasures had not only blocked the attack but sent back a lovely little package that would turn the hacker’s computer into an expensive paperweight.
“And that’s why you don’t mess with my network,” she murmured, allowing herself a small smile of satisfaction.
The smile faded when she finally looked up from her screens and noticed the pale light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows of TalkToMe’s security operations center. The kind of light that only appeared at?—
“Dawn?” She yanked off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Are you kidding me?”
There was no answer. Clusters of vacant cubicles filled the room outside her small office, the workstations dark and silent. The seating areas intermingled with the cubicles were all empty. No one was gathered around the foosball table or the vintage pinball machines. The only sounds were the soft hum of servers from the data center next door and the distant cry of seagulls outside. Monster Island was waking up, and she’d never gone to sleep.
Again.
She slumped back in her ergonomic chair—the one she’d special-ordered because standard office furniture made her feel like a child sitting at the adult table—and stared at the ceiling. She’d been on Monster Island for exactly three weeks now. Twenty-one days since she’d packed up her entire life (two suitcases, one laptop bag, and a vintage Nintendo Switch) and taken the ferry from the mainland to this bizarre island where monsters lived openly alongside humans. Twenty-one days since Derek Moonstone, billionaire werewolf and owner of TalkToMe, had personally recruited her to overhaul his company’s cybersecurity infrastructure.
Twenty-one nights where she’d promised herself she would go out, explore the island, make friends, have a life.
Twenty-one nights where she’d ended up right here, in this chair, staring at code until her eyes burned.
She sighed and pushed herself up, wandering out into the main workspace and over to the windows that lined one end of the floor. The TalkToMe headquarters occupied one of the high rises in the business district of Behemoth City, but from her vantage point on the fifth floor, she could see down the hill to the harbor where fishing boats bobbed gently on the morning swells. Thestreet that hugged the shoreline was lined with quirky shops and cafes that catered to both the monster and human populations.
A group of pixies fluttered past her window, their iridescent wings catching the early light. One of them waved. She waved back, then felt immediately foolish.
This is what happens when you don’t sleep,she told herself.You start waving at pixies.
She turned back to her desk and checked her security dashboard one more time. The new threat detection system she’d been building for the past week was finally running smoothly, its algorithms humming along and monitoring network traffic for anomalies. All green lights. No more breach attempts from Belarus or anywhere else.
For now.
Her stomach growled. When had she last eaten? There’d been a protein bar around midnight, she thought. Maybe some stale pretzels from the break room around three. The half-empty can of energy drink on her desk had gone flat hours ago.
You’re a mess, Harper Bailey.
The thought carried the echo of every foster parent, every school counselor, every well-meaning social worker who’d ever tried to fix her. The brilliant orphan with the antisocial tendencies. The prodigy who’d rather commune with computers than classmates. The girl who’d aged out of the system with a scholarship to MIT and absolutely no idea how to connect with other human beings.
Or non-human beings, for that matter.
Monster Island was supposed to be different. When Derek had made his pitch—a competitive salary, cutting-edge technology, and a community that celebrated differences—she had let herself imagine a fresh start. A place where being weird was practically a job requirement. A place where she might finally feel like she belonged.
Instead, she’d created her own little isolation chamber right here in the sec ops center, complete with noise-canceling headphones, and a mini-fridge stocked with enough caffeine to kill a small horse.
Pathetic.
She gathered her shower bag from her desk drawer. TalkToMe had excellent employee facilities, including a state-of-the-art gym and spa on the ground floor. She’d used the shower in the gym more than she’d used the shower in her apartment, always in the middle of the night when she could be guaranteed privacy. The thought of making small talk with coworkers while half-naked made her break out in hives.
“Security sweep complete,” she announced to the empty room, grabbing her spare change of clothes from under her desk. Keeping a backup wardrobe at the office had started as emergency preparedness. Now it was just enabling her workaholism. “Harper Bailey, signing off. Going to interact with water and soap like a normal human person.”
The elevator ride down was mercifully solitary. At this hour, the building was populated only by security guards and the occasional vampire employee who preferred the night shift. She passed a drowsy-looking orc at the front desk, nodded politely, and made her way to the spa level.
The women’s locker room was empty, thank God. She chose a shower stall in the far corner, hung her towel on the hook outside, and let the hot water work its magic on her knotted shoulders. The tension she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying began to melt away.
This is nice,she admitted to herself.Maybe I should do this more often. During actual business hours. With other people around.
The thought made her snort. Baby steps. First, master the art of showering at work without having a panic attack. Then maybe work up to saying “good morning” to colleagues. Eventually, actual conversations. Perhaps by the time she was forty, she’d have learned how to have friends.
Steam billowed around her as she worked lavender shampoo through her pink hair. The dye job had been an impulse decision when she’d accepted the job at TalkToMe—a physical manifestation of the new life she was going to lead. Bold. Colorful. Visible. So far, it had mostly resulted in confused looks and one memorable incident where a young ogre had asked if she was poisonous.
