Even as inexperienced as I am, I’m sure of it. But it’s like he doesn’t want to be. And it’s not about trust, because he was like that even before he knew I’m Catgirl.
He pulls out of the gated driveway and onto the road. “What happened to you?” he asks softly.
I swivel my gaze to him, and he lifts his chin toward my white knuckles on the handle. “The confined spaces. Something happened.” Without my asking, he cracks my window an inch, even though it’s raining.
My throat closes. I’ve never talked about it, not even with Mémé. I’m not even sure I can. But Jackson is my truth serum.
“Yeah,” I mumble. “Something happened.” I close my eyes against the memory of the panic. The walls closing in on me, my shoulders compressed, head unable to lift, darkness all around.
He says nothing, and the space between us stretches like an invitation, a pool of real I could jump into if I only dared.
Can I? Be real with someone who isn’t a family member?
No. My father’s death proved you can’t trust anyone but family. But my lips move anyway. “I got stuck in a tight space once. There was no one around to help, and it took me hours to get out.” I’m gripping the door handle so hard I might tear it off.
Jackson reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I’m sorry that happened to you. You’re safe now, baby. You have your own exit. I’ll pull over at a moment’s notice if you needed to bail. Okay?”
Something tightens in my solar plexus as the torment of that particular trauma tries to come out. I suck in deep breaths. No fucking way I’m going to start bawling in Jackson King’s car. Damn him for dragging this out of me.
“Hey.” He releases my hand and contorts his arm to push on my solar plexus, the way he did in the elevator. “You’re okay.” He starts to pull over, and I shake my head.
“No. Keep driving. It isn’t the car,” I choke.
“Tell me the rest,” he demands. His voice is hard, like he’s suddenly furious. At what, I can’t fathom.
I shake my head. “Drop it.”
“Not going to happen. Tell me, or I’ll pull over and help you, baby.”
I had no idea what help you meant, but I didn’t want this to be a big deal. “Something bad happened. Right before,” I blurt.
His hand tightens on the steering wheel.
“Not what you’re thinking.” I realize he might be going with some sex abuse or child molestation thing because his face turned absolutely murderous.
“Not sexual.” My throat works. “I saw a murder.”
Murder. The word has a jagged edge to it that charges the confined space of the vehicle with danger. The danger I’ve been in ever since that night. “I had to stay hidden. And then, afterward, I couldn’t find my way out. I guess shock confused me.”
Jackson curses. “How old were you?”
“Sixteen.” A year after I hacked SeCure and thought I was the smartest girl in the universe.
He eases the pressure off my sternum and slides his hand behind my head. “Thank you for telling me.”
I roll the window all the way down and let the rain pelt my face, hiding the rogue tear that slipped out. Actually, unbelievably, I feel lighter. Like speaking the words freed the lock on the darkness I trapped in my chest eight years ago. It lifts from me, still hanging in the car, still sobering and depressing but less intense. I imagine it getting sucked out the window, back to the ether. Whatever ether is.
“I’ve never told anyone,” I say finally, my voice slightly raspy from the withheld tears.
“Now you have.”
A deep sense of comfort settles over me like a blanket. For the first time in years-since my mom died-I don’t feel like I’m carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. Alone. Someone shares my secret, and the world hasn’t imploded.
Not yet, anyway.
Maybe I’ll pay for this later. I lean my head back against the headrest, cooled by the splattering of rain, soothed by the shush of Jackson’s wipers.
He pulls up in front of my house. “See you tomorrow.”
For one moment, I consider running again. I’ve done the right thing by giving Jackson the thumb drive, but if things are going to get hot, if the blackmailers are going to call the FBI, it would be better for me to leave town.
Except the thought of not seeing Jackson tomorrow is too much. I push open the door and step out. “Yeah. See you tomorrow.”
~.~
Jackson
I’m stunned by my need to protect Kylie. I want to slay every dragon that ever showed its teeth to her. To fix the wrong she suffered. And I must be crazy because, as soon as I get home, I research her, checking law enforcement and social work databases with her name and social security number. Not surprisingly, I find nothing.
The name and social she used on her employment application was probably falsified. A girl like her, a hacker of her caliber, would have the ability to create believable false identities. She could access any Department of Motor Vehicle, the Bureau of Vital Statistics. The power she could wield is stunning. And yet she never stole anything from my clients when she’d hacked SeCure. It was a game. She was just a kid.
Whatever her story, her life hasn’t been easy. No teen walks away from witnessing murder without some scars.
I should know.
Not satisfied, I vow to keep digging until I find out exactly what happened to my little hacker. But, for now, I have something far more pressing to research. On a power-washed laptop I keep solely for testing code, I open the thumb drive and study the malware Kylie was supposed to infect SeCure with.
It doesn’t make sense to me, so I start brainstorming what angle they’re going for.
And wish I’d let Kylie stay so we could look at it together.