Chapter 4
Scarletta
The screen blinks.
Then goes black.
No. No no no no?—
What did I just do?
My heart slams forward, a reminder that I'm an idiot. A complete fucking idiot. Because that's what happens when you click random links from anonymous strangers who somehow have your phone number, and your bank account information, and your name?—
This is a phishing scheme.
Obviously.
It's always a phishing scheme. Or malware. Or—what are they called? Trojan horses? Are those still a thing? Do people still use that terminology or did I just age myself by referencing a term from third grade?
God, I'm so stupid.
So monumentally, catastrophically stupid.
The kind of stupid that gets featured on true crime podcasts where the host uses that particular tone of sympathetic condescension while describing the victim's poor choices."Scarletta Mae Desmond, 26, clicked a suspicious link at 11:59 PM on Christmas Eve Eve. Her dismembered body was discovered three days later in a storage unit in Newark."
My laptop is still black.
Completely dark.
I stare at the void of the screen, my own pale reflection visible in the glossy surface. Wide eyes. Messy hair pulled into a bun that's mostly fallen apart. The string lights behind me casting an amber glow that makes me look jaundiced.
I look like someone who makes terrible decisions.
Because I am someone who makes terrible decisions.
This is why I don't have friends. This is why Derek left. This is why my mother stopped calling. Because I'm fundamentally broken in ways that make me unsuited for actual human interaction. I should just stay in my blanket fort forever, writing about people who are braver than me, smarter than me, better at?—
The screen blinks.
It's not black anymore.
There's... something loading. A progress bar. White text on a dark background that looks nothing like my normal desktop.
Initializing secure download...
TOR Browser Installation Package
Timer:
00:58
Another countdown.
Another impossible choice with no time to think.
Am I really this stupid? Am I actually going to?—
A notification dings.
