“You cannot what?”
“That whole thing with Phil doxxing me. I mean, how did he even know I was here? It’s not like I told very many people where I was going. The only ones who knew, really, were my boss and my parents.”
She took a sip of her water. “Wait.” She handed him the glass and darted back out to get her phone and brought it back into the bedroom.
Something came to her.
Something she thought she’d seen before, while she first started going through everything.
“What did you discover?”
“I’m not sure, but I think I may know…” She started scanning the messages.
Not the yucky ones, which only seemed to grow in numbers, but the ones from her family.
“Surely, I didn’t see that before.”
“A clue, possibly?”
She raised her eyebrow at him, not wanting to laugh at how silly that sounded coming out of him.
“I have an idea.” She scanned the messages from her parents.
There it was.
Her stomach started to flip-flop again.
“My parents told him where I was.” She held up her phone. Right there, in an email, her mother explained how Phil had come by their house, asking about Jenny, because she hadn’t been answering his calls. He said he’d been worried about her, and her parents slipped and told him she was working with the aliens on the ship.
She read it, then handed it to Karuk, who read it as well.
His face got that stoic look again.
“Do you think they intended to?” he finally asked.
“Honestly, they probably didn’t realize it was an issue. They knew we weren’t dating, but I hadn’t told them about Phil’s stalking. I didn’t want to worry them. So they had no reason not to tell him where I’d gone.”
“Their mistake has put you in danger.”
She shook her head. “Not intentionally. Still, there has to be something that can be done to fix it. And soon.”
Because the notifications kept coming.
Texts and emails and DMs.
All of them filled with hate, and vitriol that could get her attacked, or worse. Here on The Bridge, or even on the space station, she would be safe, if only because of the security.
But there was only so much she could do from The Bridge.
It made her sick, but she knew what she was going to have to do.
“I’m going to have to go back, and start shutting everything down.”
“You’re not going alone.
“I hoped you would say that.”
13
