I can protect Em, be here for her.
I can kill Braxen.
I can’t think of a way to do both.
“Caylon. Hey, Caylon.”
“Useless.”
I turn around, checking on Em, that the shouts didn’t wake her, but she’s still fast asleep. Two voices come from the garage, arguing, but I’m not worried about them. Their vicious whispering is so low I can barely catch a word.
To kill Braxen, I need to get into his home. Bypass his security system. Find the discs that contain Em’s images. Destroy it. Kill him. Get back out.
The latter is the least important, given that the penultimate task will instantly add me to so many hit-lists, my best shot will be to confess to the police and hope everyone’s died by the time I get out of jail.
You could make it look like an accident.
I sit up straighter, head cocked to the side. Considering.
A car accident would be tough to pull off, but it has the twin bonuses of being common and giving me the opportunity to ram a thousand-pound piece of metal over Braxen’s rapist paedophile skull.
Logistics escape me right now, but coming out of Stefan’s club is a possibility. Not because that offers the best vantage point but because Trent or Zach could tip me off if they’re working. I wouldn’t even have to tell them why. The moment the wheels crunched over Braxen’s head they’d cover to save themselves.
“Worthless. Useless.”
I stand up, check on Em again, and slip out of the door, taking care not to let the door latch behind me. I stride along the driveway, check the footpath to see it’s clear, then run a dozen sprints to the corner and back to work off my adrenalized energy.
The physical movement is better than sitting inside but it doesn’t relieve most of my tension. I need to run for hours, to punch something, to scream off the side of a cliff. It’s been months since I played a game, but I miss rugby. Miss the physical graft of training, the ache of collision from a good tackle, the knee grazing dives.
I jog on the spot, faster and faster until the pavement feels like it’s bruising the soles of my feet. I do jumping jacks, then stand, glowering at the neighbours.
There’s a recipe online for a pipe bomb that would easily take out Braxen’s house. I could lob it over the gate and keep my fingers crossed none of his maids were working close by but if they were, what’s a few extra souls on my scorecard down in hell?
The idea calms me. I’m being too hasty. There’ll be a way to do both, I just need to sift through the information for longer, let the ideas coalesce.
For tonight, there’ll be no pipe bomb building. We don’t have enough groceries in to make muffins, let alone cook up something stronger. I put Braxen’s death on a loop in the background before I go inside, check Em’s still sleeping, and settle back with the shattered remains of her phone, my shakes dissipating until they’re gone.
Once I bypass the screen, sending the display to my phone instead, it’s an easy enough job to track the various apps installed on the relatively unscathed motherboard.
I soon isolate the offending program. The software opens a loop that allows the phone to broadcast all captured data—from the camera and mic—to a distant unit. The loop closes once a photograph is sent.
The check-ins Em described are part and parcel of how the program works. Even if she didn’t send an immediate image back, Braxen could still see and hear everything going on around her.
He could see her in the bathroom, phone poised to take a selfie. See as I broke in, tore the phone from her hands, tossed it onto the floor and shut the door. Sealing us in.
Not an army of spies after all. Just the one she kept in her pocket all day, every day.
There are other pieces of malware on the device. Tracking software to broadcast where the phone is located at any time, except when it’s strewn in pieces across my workbench.
I detach everything and return the phone to the glove box. It won’t get me anything more.
By the time Em stirs, I have the coffee machine working on a cup made to her exacting specifications. I sit behind her on the bed, hugging her close to me, neither of us talking as she sips it. Her shaking has subsided, but it’s not gone and nothing I’ve found so far will do anything to ease her worries.
“Tomorrow, I’ll get my gear from home and start looking for a way to get past his security system.”
“Will that work?”
“If it doesn’t, Trent and Zach can keep an eye out at the club and let us know when he’s there, then I can break into his home. It’s messier but it’ll get the job done.”
