And then my heart stops. All I can see is the black and white feed, blurry and scratchy, but I don’t have to have a clear picture to see what it is.
Oliver sits, arms bound behind him with ropes, his head hung low, hair falling in his face, completely lifeless.
“Oliver!” I scream into the darkness of my lab.
I hear a detective yell to trace the call, but I notice the hourglass is draining.
I don’t think, I just do. If the police want to arrest me, they can do it after I get Oliver back, safe and sound where he belongs.
I jump into the source for the feed, remotely casting the video to my computer. I click the hourglass.
A black screen pops up, once again with red text, letter by letter spelling out the words.
End of line.
The numbers that form below are coordinates, and just as I am contemplating telling them my discovery, the red text flashes.
Come alone or he dies.
I suck in a heavy breath.
“Chickadee,” I collect myself as best I can.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I need you to go to my office right now. Do not look at anyone, do not speak out loud. Tell them you’re going to the bathroom and you’ll be back.”
She pauses for a moment, and I think she’s going to refute me, but she doesn’t.
“I’ll be back, guys, this is scaring the piss out of me. Literally.”
“Right, yeah, okay, uh…” Ericson mutters as Chickadee moves, and I hear the door slam.
I hear her heavy breath as she races through my building, watching her on my computer through the cameras.
“You better have a good explanation for this, Sloane Alexander. Because if you don’t, I’m going to beat your ass into the afterlife.”
I can’t help but smirk at her humor, even in the darkest of moments.
“Noted. And yes, I have a good explanation, but you’re not going to like it.”
She huffs out a sigh. “What am I looking for?”
“Log into my computer. User:M4st3r_Gl1tch. Password: ghost.”
She does as I ask.
“Okay, I need you to wipe the drive.”
“What?”
I sigh, nodding. “You heard me.”
“Can’t you do that from your computer wherever you are?”
“No. Notthisdrive. The one is the fail safe. It’s the back-up back-up.”
“Sloane… why am I deleting your hard drive?” She tenses.
