“Why not?” I ask, one part obstinate and one part scrambling for solutions.
“Because my father always has redundancies,” Trips says.
“Then we remove those, too.”
RJ finally turns away from Trips. “Possible, but I’d need an in for his system.”
“Then we do that.”
Trips huffs out a breath. “Pretty much impossible. The man has his office on permanent lock-down. And with the cameras and microphones, he’ll know anywhere we go in the house. He doesn’t write down his passwords, he keeps them in his head and likes to brag about exactly how impossible they are to guess. Makes him feel smart.”
RJ’s regret weighs me down further. “And as much as I hate to say it, sugar, even if we steal everything he has on us, he can just go out and collect the evidence again. Who knows how many cameras there were in Chicago alone that caught what we were up to?”
I drop my chin to my chest, whatever I had that kept me going vanishing. “Shit.”
The meeting stalls out, the solutions I wanted not materializing. Only more problems. Problems on top of problems, issues on top of issues. And me, smothered beneath them all.
There has to be a way out of this. There has to be. I’m not going to run.
They can find the problems.
I’ll find the solution.
Chapter 10
Clara
The next day, I wake from a nightmare with a thundering heart and heavy limbs, still exhausted from the weekend, but my head slightly clearer.
Do I have a solution?
No. I have sweaty sheets and a wonderful tangle of limbs to escape from, but no answers. The icy sun, though, feels hopeful in a way yesterday’s gray blanket of cold didn’t.
My shower has my limbs moving again, albeit not with enough dexterity for a run, even though all of me wants the oblivion of miles spent running—away, through, toward, I don’t know which, but I need some combination of those directions. Only my body is wrecked.
Reflecting on the three bites of a roll I had yesterday, it doesn’t surprise me.
I promised I’d do better. I’ve failed so far. But there’s still today.
The kitchen is silent, my bed full of warm bodies still snoozing, all of them staying up long after I passed out, talking, trying to tease out what had happened, and what we were going to do about it.
Trips, however, had locked himself in his room after we gave up on brainstorming, and no one mentioned it. No one mentioned him.
Maybe if I were taking better care of myself, I’d feel something besides a heavy ache in my chest about that fact. A sense of loss but not anger. Anger, fully justified, that I can’t seem to access. Whatever burgeoning rage Trips had been teaching me to find seems to have sputtered out, leaving the same bone deep ache as the cold I almost died in.
Fire and ice.
Ice won.
Rice and vegetables look palatable, so I plop that in a bowl and toss it in the microwave, opting for nutrition over calories, even if I need both in equal measure right now. I’m shaky on my feet, the urge to fall asleep again slightly alarming considering how many hours I’ve been out.
A shuffle from the front of the house has me standing across from Trips, his cheek a purple that bleeds into red at the edges, a newfound respect for whatever martial arts training RJ has surging. Weird internal flex, but I’m done questioning anything for a day. Today, I’m just going to make it through.
No trauma. No disasters. Nothing to make today hellish and inescapable. I want one singular boring day. Just one. Food, fucking, and terrible movies. I have a plan. And this one won’t put anyone, including myself, in danger.
Trips drops his eyes as he comes into the room, yanking open the fridge as I make us a pot of coffee.
How often has he made me coffee? Bought me coffee?
