Bea’s pink-rimmed eyes move from my lips to my eyes. “A noise. It hurt my head. That’s when… I pulled them off and threw them.”
Then she starts crying again.
“What thefuck?” Ace asks. “How could this happen?”
Tyler grimaces. “I have an idea. But I need to look into it.”
“Is she going to be okay?” Webb asks. “Is there anything we can do?”
As I look at the woman held tightly in my arms, protectiveness swells inside me until there’s no room left for anything else.
How must she be feeling?
Scared, of course. Confused, just as we are. And without her implants… She can speak. Read lips. But she can’t hear. And that has to be terrifying, especially given what just happened.
Drawing her attention again, I ask, “Do you want your implants?”
Fear flashes in her eyes. “No. I can’t?—”
“Okay. No implants, then. Not now.”
“I’m going to take a look at them,” Tyler says. “If someone had access…”
Any other time, I’d want to stay and discuss it.
But now?
Lifting Bea in my arms again, I rise from the couch and head to the front door. When her surprised eyes meet mine, I tell her carefully, “I’m taking you to my place. Okay?”
At first, she just stares at me. Her chin wobbles. Then she nods. “Okay.”
CHAPTER 10
BEA
I still can’t wrapmy mind around what happened.
The implants I’ve relied on for years, decades even, betrayed me.
The voice I heard wasn’t actually there.
It came fromsomewhere, of course. But not my apartment.
It didn’t come from anywhere on the Blade and Arrow property, Tyler confirmed after a lengthy check of the security system. No sign of an intruder. No suspicious movement outside the perimeter fence; a hiker ignoring the private property signs or a jogger too caught up in his run to realize he’d gone off course.
All the cameras picked up were some innocent rabbits and squirrels scavenging for food. And since I’m pretty certain a bunny wasn’t responsible for the malicious voice in my head, that leaves only one other possibility.
Someone hacked into my implants.
I don’t know how. But it’s the only explanation that makes sense.
When it first happened, the thought never occurred to me. I was too panicked. Too shocked. Too fearful of the words I couldn’t escape.
And then that sound, like nothing I’ve heard before—a horrible cacophony that made my head feel like it was about to explode.
I can’t even explain what it was like. Indy asked, but I couldn’t find the right words. All I could think of were violent scenes from movies, where the hapless victim would hear something so terrible that blood would flow from their ears.
Thatsound made me rip the implants and throw them across the room. An action that, hours later, I still can’t believe.
