It was a news station, but the feed was jerky and kept cutting to different news anchors.
“Man found dead,” one female anchor said before the screen glitched again to a male anchor.
“Man shot.” And on and on it went. An endless roll of news anchors all saying some variation of the same thing.
“Man found dead after?—”
“Man dead.”
“Police found a man dead.”
Man dead, man dead,man dead?—
“TECHA! TV Off!” Sebastian was screaming to be heard over the volume of the TV, but the AI didn’t respond. Seb’s face went white, and I saw him mutter the word‘fuck’before he located the remote and was able to turn the TV off manually.
“What the heck was that?” I gasped, my heart still racing from the freaking jump scare we both had suffered.
Sebastian was staring at me, his eyes wide and his face so pale his lips didn’t have any color anymore.
“Christ…Fuck!”he hissed, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut as he clearly tried to get a grip on himself.
Frowning, I crossed the room so I could comfort him. I reached out to touch his arm, remembering how much that had soothed him earlier, but he jerked away from me, stumbling backward as if my touch burned him.
“No, no. I can’t do this. I thought I could, but I fucking can’t. It’s not right. He’s going to fuckingkill me.”
“Sebastian, wh-what? You’re giving me whiplash here,” I admitted, feeling like this was Dylan all over again.
How stupid was I to think someone might actually be into me? How many times was I going to fall for this?
Though looking at how shaken Sebastian was, and noticing his eyes seemed to almost be filled with tears, I softened slightly.
“I… I have to go. I’m sorry,” he stammered before rushing past me and out the front door. Again, the door locked behind him, sealing me in.
Something woke me up again, but it wasn’t the AI this time. I frowned, reaching around blindly in the dark to find my glasses, when they suddenly seemed to slide themselves onto my nose.
“What—”
I yelped as my eyes adjusted to the dark room, only to discover exactly what had woken me up.
The freakingForgottenwas sitting on the edge of my king-size bed, and had clearly been the one to slide my glasses on my face.
So much for him not being able to get to me on the Neurovance campus.
I opened my mouth to scream, but before I knew it, he was straddling me, and his gloved hand slammed over my mouth.
“Quiet. Don’t you dare fucking scream.”
Wide-eyed and terrified, I sucked in a breath through my nose and nodded against his hand. I lay completely still beneath the weight of him, so afraid I wasn’t sure I could move if I wanted to.
“I amnotfucking happy with you, Milo,” the man growled through the voice modifier in his mask.
I squeaked, squirming in terror against the firm pressure of his glove, but he just pressed me more firmly into the pillows.
“Could you possibly imaginewhy?”
I shook my head slightly, and he leaned forward. His black mask prevented me from feeling the warmth of his breath as he growled over me like some sort of mechanical animal.
“I gave youonejob, Milo. One, simple fucking job. How is it that you’ve managed to be here for less than twelve hours, and I’ve already needed to interrupt myveryimportant work to keep Sebastian fucking Stevens from shoving his tongue down your damn throat?”
