Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
I nod, expected. Still, I tack a blank sheet of printer paper to the corkboard and scrawl MYSTERY MAN in Sharpie. Underneath I sketch a crude silhouette with cap and HOLO-BURST logo.
“This is our phantom,” I say. “Until we give him a name.”
We work two straight hours—cross-matching corporate e-mails with burner domains, scraping old sponsorship tweets, running Arby’s final 48-hour GPS trail through public cell-tower logs. Data piles like snowdrifts; all the while Juno’s knee keeps brushing mine and each contact buzzes through the mask like caffeine.
By nine p.m. my stomach howls. She freezes mid-scroll. “Hoover, was that you or did a moose crawl through the ceiling?”
I chuckle, modulated voice glitching. “Even the Great Depression had soup lines.”
“Chinese?” she suggests. “General Tso’s solves conspiracies.”
“Order.”
“Sesame tofu, crab Rangoon, and—” she pauses, smirk curving—“do they sell straws sturdy enough for you to drink through that face?”
I huff. “I’ll adapt.”
Fifteen minutes later the delivery guy stares at the Hoover mask, shrugs, and counts his tip twice. We spread cartons across a folding table. Juno hands me chopsticks, eyebrow cocked.
“Show me this ‘adapt’ thing.”
“Observe, civilian.” I wedge the chopsticks under the mask, lever the bottom lip outward just enough to pass a noodle inside. It’s messy, undignified, and she loses it—full-body laughter, head tipped back, ponytail swishing.
“Mission accomplished,” I mutter. “Comic relief acquired.”
She wipes tears. “Okay, points for perseverance.”
We eat as the cardboard crinkles and the soy sauce pools. Conversation slides from true-crime podcasts to the grisly merits of practical effects in The Thing. She teases my monotone; I tease her overusing the word ‘iconic.’
Halfway through, a drop of sweet-and-sour sauce slides off her fork onto her wrist. She squeaks, reaches for a napkin. Instinct overrides sense—I catch her hand first, thumb brushing the sticky blob away. Her skin is warm, pulse fluttering under my touch.
Silence expands. She looks up, pupils wide. Somewhere behind the latex I feel my face heat. The mask emboldens me—a boundary, a character. My thumb slides to her palm and lingers.
“Messy,” I murmur—the vocoder lacing the word in shadow.
Her breath hitches. “Cost of good Chinese.”
I keep her hand captive, savoring the throb of connection. “Price I’ll gladly pay.”
The sentence turns raspier than intended—equal parts promise and warning. Juno swallows, gaze dipping to the plastic grin of Hoover’s mouth inches from her knuckles.
“What do you look like under there?” she whispers.
Dangerous question. The answer is yours. Instead I turn her palm over, tracing the life-line with a gloved finger. “I look like a man focused on results.”
She shivers, and it’s not from the cold. “Is that why you boss me around?”
“Yes,” I say, more gravel. “Someone has to slow you down.”
Her lips part. “And if I don’t want to slow down?”
My pulse spikes. I release her hand only to slide two fingers beneath her chin, tilting her face up. The mask’s rigid lips hover an inch from hers. “Then I keep pace.”
She exhales a shaky laugh—half arousal, half disbelief. “You talk big for a guy hiding behind a dead president.”
“Dead presidents have secrets,” I whisper. “But they still hold power.”
Her eyes search the black eyeholes. “Show me yours.”
I freeze—temptation a live wire. One pull and this entire ruse shreds. I could lift the mask an inch, let her see my mouth, prove I’m flesh and not phantom. But the cost—trust broken, plan imploded—flashes like hazard lights.
Instead I dip my head till plastic lips graze the corner of her mouth, a feather-light nudge. She gasps, hands fisting in my hoodie. Latex squeaks; the kiss isn’t a kiss, but the spark it detonates is real.
I straighten—only a beat, but long enough for her eyes to glaze. “Eat,” I order softly. “Then we hunt.”
She blinks, cheeks blazing, tries for a smirk and fails. “Bossy.”
“Efficient.” I sit, pretending to focus on lo mein, though my heartbeat rattles the modulator.
We finish dinner in charged quiet. Every rustle of chopsticks feels like foreplay. She keeps sneaking glances at the mask. I keep replaying the near-kiss until the plastic smells vaguely of her strawberry lip balm.
At last she clears her throat. “Ready to dive back in?”
“Let’s torch a corporation,” I agree, voice steady only because the mask holds it in place.
We return to the monitors—HOLO-BURST brass plastered on the left, Mystery Man blank sheet dead center. But the war room hums differently now, as if charged by the static still crackling between us.
She scrolls as I code. Outside, river fog curls against dirty windows, hiding us from anyone who might look in. Inside, Herbert Hoover’s rubber face watches Juno Kate with hungry eyes she can’t see, and Arrow Finn—the man she trusts, the friend who loves her—realizes he might be one heartbeat away from becoming the very phantom she’s longing for.
13
Juno
I wake to Morse-code knocking and the rich, roasted smell of salvation.
Coffee. Arrow. Thursday.
Except my brain is still tangled in last night’s almost-kiss with a rubber Hoover mouth, so it takes me a full five seconds to remember that Arrow Finn—real, warm, boy-next-door Arrow—always shows up with caffeine on weekday mornings. Ritual. Comfort. Totally platonic.