None of this makes any sense.

The FBI is tiptoeing around this innocent-looking little girl when she looks more likely to hack into the Disney servers to get some free Princess shit.

“Hey, why don’t you tell me what happened. I’m sure you didn’t do anything wrong.”

She’d gone back to staring at the tips of her shoes but at my words, her eyes swing to mine. I almost shift backward in my seat at the sudden cunning gleam in her eyes. This is not some innocent little kid.

“Are you sure about that? I’m no angel.”

It’s the first time she speaks and the soft whisper of her voice sends a little shiver down my spine. Then she leans forward and once our eyes meet again, she smiles.

“Well, I'm an angel online but only after dark.”

My heart stops in my chest and as we stare at each other, our eyes play out a hundred conversations that we can’t speak aloud. There’s no mistaking the emphasis she put on the word dark. Except for a few slip-ups when I was a teenager, I’ve been careful about covering my activities online and there’s only one person who has been around long enough and is skilled enough to figure out my real identity. If she knows about my online alter ego, DarkAngel, then there's only one person she could be.

C7pher.

As soon as the thought occurs, it’s disregarded as impossible. Maybe she just happened to choose a strange way of phrasing things.

As if she can sense the shift in my thinking she says, “You always said if I needed you, just call.”

In those few moments, my entire world realigns and everything I thought was real becomes a dream. After all, how can you rely on anything if the person you’ve trusted the most isn’t who you thought they were?

I stand so fast the metal chair screeches against the floor. Just before I reach the door, she calls out.

“Luke!”

My hand stills on the doorknob. There’s nothing we can say with an entire roomful of agents watching. The conversation that needs to take place between us cannot happen here. Because no matter how pissed I am, I can never forget that this is the one person who can destroy me.

“Just a minute, Sarah. I need to explain to Agent Walker that there’s been a misunderstanding.”

I deliberately raise my voice and turn toward the mirrored wall. A few minutes later, Agent Walker comes in.

“What’s going on, Luke?”

I point at Sarah. “I didn’t realize who you had in here. She’s not a terrorist. She’s a white hat. Top Fortune 500 companies hire her to test their systems. She tries to break in the same way any other hacker would, then provides them with an assessment of their vulnerabilities.”

Walker glances between the two of us suspiciously. “So, you do know her? Why didn’t you say so?”

“I, uh, didn’t recognize the name at first.”

Sarah stands then and glances at me. “Luke and I have fallen out of touch recently.”

“You were on a job when they grabbed you, right?”

She nods. “But it’s all supposed to be confidential so I wasn’t sure if it was safe to talk. But yeah, I was hired by a private company to test their security. I had no idea that was a government server until it was too late.”

Agent Walker doesn’t look completely satisfied but at least he doesn’t look quite as hostile.

“Sarah is skilled enough that if she was trying to hack into something unauthorized, she wouldn’t have done it without rerouting through some foreign ISP first. Can you show us the emails from the company that hired you? That should give the FBI something to go on in tracking these guys down.”

“Of course.”

“And we can go back to my place and catch up.”

They both stare at me.

“W-What? Your place?” Sarah swallows and then glances over at Agent Walker. “Right. I am pretty tired.”

“Now, wait a minute—“

I hold up a hand. “You would have had me under surveillance when I left anyway. Now you can watch us both together. Look, you know she’s not behind this. It was obviously a setup and she’s going to cooperate fully. At least let us get some sleep.”

I can tell he doesn’t like having the decision taken out of his hands but doesn’t have a good reason to stop us. And I have no doubt that the look in my eyes is pretty scary right now. Because I have a mission of my own tonight.

To interrogate the beautiful little liar who has been trolling me for the past decade.

†

The ride back home is even more awkward than the ride in. A different set of big scary guys drives us back to the bakery. Even though they drive off, I have no illusions about privacy. They’ll be nearby watching our every move.

Through the glass, I can see my mom talking to a customer. She and Tank are going to want an explanation and I have no idea what to tell them. And despite how adamant I was about this plan, I’m wondering if it’s really a great idea to bring this chick I obviously know nothing about back to my place.

But then I remember who she is and more importantly what she knows. If she’d wanted to hurt me, she could have done it by now a million times over.

“I never thanked you for cleaning up behind me.”

At the puzzled look on her face I add, “The Pentagon.”

Then, for the first time, she smiles. “That was a hot mess. You were smart enough to proxy through a few servers before you attempted to hit their network but not smart enough to delete the logs. It’s a good thing you bragged about what you did otherwise I wouldn’t have had time to get them all!”

As hard as it is to believe that this hauntingly beautiful girl is C7pher, with just a few sentences, I know without a doubt it’s true.

 “Why did you? I always wanted to ask why you would have put yourself at risk for a kid too cocky to realize how much he didn’t know yet.”

She turns and looks over her shoulder at the bakery behind us, the carefully detached expression she’s been wearing melting into obvious longing.

“It was the way you talked about your mom. It was obvious how much you loved her. Through your stories, I got a glimpse of the one thing I’ve never had. A family. And your family became mine. Truthfully, I think you saved me long before I saved you.”

I wish I could hold on to the anger. Anger would be so much easier than this. Her words touch me in a way I wasn’t expecting, moving me to sympathy and then to shame. All the things I take for granted are things she’s never had.

“Thank you for covering for me back there.” She digs her hands in her pockets. The motion makes it even more obvious how thin she is. Too thin.

“You’re welcome, Sarah.”

She chuckles. “It’s Seven. No one calls me Sarah unless I owe them taxes.”

Seven. Somehow as soon as she says it, it makes sense. Her name fits her.

She runs her hands up and down her arms as if warding off a chill. “I guess I should get going then. You should get inside. I’m sure your mom is worried.”

I’ve complained about my mom’s overprotective nature so many times over the years. But now every complaint seems so petty and ungrateful. All those times I complained to her and she has no one. How shallow I must have seemed.

“Come inside. Let’s get something to eat. The goon squad dragged me away before I got any dinner.”

She hesitates. “You don’t have to do that. I know you were just saying that to get out of there.”

My stomach chooses that moment to rumble loudly. “I was bluffing my ass off for sure but not about that. Come on. Besides, I meant what I said about us talking.”

She looks cornered, like an animal in a trap that isn’t sure whether to show its neck or snap your hand off if you get too close. But I need to know her deal. And if she walks away from here tonight, she’ll disappear, FBI surveillance be damned.