Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
"What time did you get back home last night?"
"I don't know." I swing my legs over the side of the bed.
"Are you still not going to tell me what's going on?"
"It's nothing." I shrug it off. I’m not bringing my shit home with me, or at least I’m trying not to. I’m keeping a low profile until I figure out how to deal with everything.
"It's not nothing if you ventured all the way out to the city to do whatever it was you needed to do."
"I don't want anything tracing me here."
"You've never been worried about that before. You cover your tracks." He’s so confident in me. I used to preen at that, but I’m not feeling so confident in myself these days.
"I'm being extra safe." I stand, stretching and yawning at the same time.
"Someone looking for you?"
"Someone is constantly looking for me." I should check in with Bruce, but I know I’ll be getting an ass-chewing.
"Their name is Ronan." I jerk around to face him. Dad is in his normal camo cargo pants and boots with a brown shirt on, looking every inch a drill sergeant. Even down to the short gray hair. Who runs in boots?
"How do you know that name?"
"He connects to Tova?" I try to remember when I might have mentioned "Ronan" to my dad while discussing Tova. My dad knows of Tova. I've talked about her to him, and when I saw the relief he'd get at knowing I had a friend, I kept talking about her, so he knows that name.
"They're connected, but how do you know that?"
"I don't; that's why I asked."
"Then how do you know the name?"
"You said it in your sleep."
"No, I didn't!" I hiss, heat rushing to my face.
"You didn't only say it once either." Oh my God. This is not happening. My dad has creepy good hearing, so if I were talking in my sleep, he'd hear it. I swear he'd hear a field mouse fart. "I'm going to take it from the blush that he's not a threat." Dad cocks his head. "To your safety at least." Then he smirks.
"What the hell, Dad!" He folds his arms over his chest, his smirk turning to a full-on smile. He should be pushing about who Ronan is and wanting to kick his ass. Right? That’s what dads do when their daughters show interest in a man. I think. Then again, we’re not normal. Most people would probably find how open we are with each other weird.
“I suppose it’s time we have the birds and the bees talk.” He did not just say that. Kill me now.
“Oh my God.” I grab the pillow off my bed and throw it at him. He easily bats it away.
“Get dressed. We’re burning daylight.”
“There isn’t daylight yet!” I shout to his retreating form.
“You can run more than your mouth this morning.”
“That’s all I’m good at running,” I mutter, polishing off the rest of my drink before I change and pack my backpack.
When I enter the kitchen, Dad hands me a protein bar. “What about a Snickers?”
“Eat that, and then you can have a Snickers.” He nods to my bag.
“I’m going to check the sensors and balance. If I’m going out, I might as well do both.”
He shakes his head at me. “I know you’re not lying, but you’re also not telling me the whole truth.”
“A girl has to have her secrets, Dad.” I bat my eyelashes.
“Maybe you’ll get some sun on that skin.”
“The sun is terrible for your skin, and it’s your fault I’m pale and have red hair. You remember those days? When your hair had some color.”
“Yeah, it was red before you came along and turned it gray."
“We could dye it.” That might be entertaining.
“Eat and do your run.”
“Fine,” I huff, only delaying the inevitable. When I’m done with the bar, I grab a water bottle and drop it into my bag. My dad taps his cheek when I head for the door. I kiss it but roll my eyes in the process, making him smile.
I do my normal job checking all the sensors before I head toward my hill. I really do need to check in with Bruce. I don’t want to get into real trouble if he has to come searching for me.
I also don’t put it past Cyberius to try and frame me to get me to come out of hiding. When I make it to my hill, I unpack my bag and send an alert to Bruce. I’ve been on his radar since that whole banking incident.
You exploit one little loophole and wipe out some debts to a big banking company and distribute the money to extremely ill people, and then the FBI is on your ass, but you don’t get any props for stopping the Zens virus, which was a pretty freaking cool virus. It could read your online forms and log your keystrokes, stealing information. It cleared out almost 75 million from its victims before it could be stopped. While the person behind it is the scum of the damn Earth for stealing from a lot of elderly people, the software itself was fascinating.