She hit send before she could delete it. Watched the message disappear into the encrypted void and felt her stomach drop, the way it always did when she let someone past a wall she’d spent years building.
Seconds passed. Five. Ten.
The reply came.
Titan: I’m sorry. That’s a nightmare. Are you safe?
Not “what happened?” or “who took him?” or any of the dozen prying questions a normal person would ask. Just: Are you safe?
Lovelace: I’m safe. Just useless. I can’t find a single trace of him.
Titan: You’re not useless. You’re the smartest person in any room. You can find him.
She read the words twice. Three times. They settled into the place where the panic lived, and she instantly felt steadier.
Titan: I’m here if you need to talk. Or if you need a distraction. Or if you just need to know someone is on your side, Love. I’m not going anywhere.
Her eyes burned. She blinked hard to push back the tears. She must really be exhausted if she was crying over this.
Lovelace: Thank you. That helps more than you know.
Titan: Good. Now go find him. I’ll be here when you come back.
She stared at that last line for a long time. It was the kind of thing anyone might say. Except no one had ever said it to her and made her believe it the way she believed him.
“Who is that?”
She flinched. She’d forgotten Celeste was still perched on the desk. “Nobody.”
“Nobody has you making that face? That’s not a nobody face. That’s a somebody face. That’s aspecificsomebody face. Is it him? Mystery man? Titan?”
“It’s a private conversation.”
Celeste set down her coffee and narrowed her eyes. “Daph. Who is he?”
She pulled the laptop closer, angling the screen away. A pointless gesture since Celeste had already read enough.
“It’s complicated,” she said.
“Complicated how? Complicated like he’s married? Complicated like he’s in prison? Complicated like he’s an AI chatbot you’ve accidentally fallen for?”
“Complicated like I don’t know his real name.”
Celeste went still. Actually still. A rare event. “You. Don’t. Know. His name.”
She winced. When Celeste said it like that, it sounded bad. And, okay, yes, it was bad. She’d tried to find Titan once, months ago, but his operational security suggested formal training, not hobbyist paranoia. She’d stopped looking after that. Some doors you don’t force open.
“Oh my God, Daph. How long has this been going on?”
“Almost a year.”
“A year?” Celeste slid off the desk. “Daphne Jewel Wilde. You have been carrying on a secret relationship with a man whose name you don’t know for almost ayear, and all you told me was that there was ‘someone interesting’ online?”
“It’s not a relationship. It’s—” She searched for the word and came up empty.
What was it? Friendship felt insufficient. Romance felt presumptuous. Connection was too vague.
“He understands me,” she said finally. “In a way that people who’ve known me my entire life don’t. He thinks the way I think. He sees the things I see. And he’s never once made me feel like I’m?—”
