~ 46 ~
THEO
The house felt totally different knowing we were leaving it. Not empty, really. Just… finished.
For once, there were no screens. No code. No numbers scrolling by, for me to analyze. Nothing but the well-insulated silence I’d grown to love so much, for the better part of two weeks.
And that wasn’t all I’d grown to love.
I turned to find Peyton, bent at the waist, pulling on her boots. She caught me staring, and flashed me a smile. I smiled back and she slapped her own ass, playfully.
She was so damn perfect it felt like a pressure in my chest.
“You said you wanted to tell us something?”
Colson grunted the statement with no gravity whatsoever, as he zipped up the last of our bags. Behind him, Ripley muttered some complaint about the cold, as he reluctantly slipped into his jacket.
“Yeah,” I fumbled awkwardly. “It’s about Roman. Finding us, the way he did.”
I looked away, because I couldn’t look directly at them. Something burned, in the pit of my stomach.
“What about—”
“That was on me.”
None of them said a word. I just heard boots, scuffing against the floor. The sound of more zippers being pulled tight.
“On you how?”
I turned back to face them, because it was the right thing to do. Anything else would’ve been cowardly.
“I compromised the masking.”
None of them reacted. Except for Ripley, who rolled his eyes.
“Wanna say that in English?”
“The satellite routing, that keeps us safe,” I started again. “The one that’s secure as long as we keep within certain parameters.”
“Yeah? So?”
God, why was I so bad at this? They wanted the simple answer. The one they could all understand.
“I called my father,” I blurted.
The zippers stopped. Ripley and Peyton stood straight again.
“You did?”
I nodded, solemnly.
“When?”
“A few days ago. I needed to make sure he was… still…”
I didn’t have to finish. They knew what I meant.
“He is, by the way,” I exhaled. “Still with us, I mean. But I screwed up the encryption pattern and the masking failed. It was only for a span of fifteen or twenty seconds, but that’s all it really took.” I shook my head in disappointment. “And that’s how Roman found us.”
