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Noe

I was going to do soain in my lifeask for help

I’d learned early in life that the only person I could rely on, the only person ould never let me down or disappointin h each day and into the next I didn’t need anyone I’d been doing all right onso time I watched my own back and called all my own shots That was the way I liked it, the way I needed it to be But right noas scared Terrified really I was also sh to know that I was in way over my head

I needed help and there was only one person I felt coerous mess I’d waded into

It didn’t h, in that brief encounter, he had calledto be happy to see ree to get me out of the bind that had me so wound up that I couldn’t even move, but I had to ask I needed so on In thisme that someone was him

I was afraid to showAfraid of every dark corner and every shadow that lurked in the back alleys I called ho I never really thought was possible before now People were looking for me, and while I was notoriously hard to find, they seeh money to pay people to look in the places I norer overlooked and dismissed like most homeless and displaced people were The streets were never safe, but now, day in and day out, I was actively being hunted There was a price onfor a payday

The last time I’d been at this fancy townhouse co a lock picking set to jiuy blind He had co for me, and I didn’t like it when people I didn’t know tried to find uys like him I really didn’t like it when people had y about hi to find ain I didn’t want to be anywhere on his radar even though he was a huge, gigantic blip onbefore he dragged matic boss

I’d never had the opportunity tofor round did, and not because he was tied into sos with Race Hartht of the Point The two of thedom and it was no secret that Stark was their tech wizard He was the one who hest bidder, he’d been into some questionable practices behind his keyboard It was rumored that he was the one who had hacked the state’s police database and sent the na shots of each and every possible sex offender to all the parents in the Point Not the registered, supposedly rehabilitated pedophiles, but the ones who had gotten aith their criht yet

The watch list was long and terrifying The list h schools and was talked about for weeks on the news People were torn between fury at the invasion of privacy, since the naed to people never convicted, and relief that the bad guys had naain It was always trial by fire in the Point and nobody was really innocent until proven guilty They were always guilty, and ht There was little the police could do without solid proof and witnesses Stark didn’t operate that way No one seemed too concerned when the people on that list started dropping like flies Vigilante justice was nothing new in the Point In fact, it was often the only kind of justice this place saw Sure, some of the people with their name on Stark’s hit list left town and disappeared on their own, but it was coe that most of them were run out of town by Nassir, and those who didn’t want to go disappeared another way Aunder the ht

My favorite Stark story floating around was the one where he’d grounded an entire fleet of aircraft when his airline lost his luggage and proved less than helpful when it ca it He jacked their entire systes showed up in pristine condition Of course, no one could ever prove it was hiurative watercooler for hackers—were flooded with speculation Everyone was iuys who made the Darknetwelldark

When he was a teenager, he supposedly hacked the un-hackable Department of Defense, just to prove he could I heard he ended up in a federal prison for a year or so for that little act of defiance, but no one could actually verify it because he’d disappeared and any records that ht have proved it ceased to exist Years later, when he caal acts were less outrageous, but no less persistent

He hacked his college’s sexual assault complaint database and released the naht to justice Everyone who had been named over the years, but had been excused or had their stories swept under the rug by both the school and law enforceital billboards and scrolled across the bottom of the news ticker bar Their cri detail for the entire Point to see It was another digital hit list, and once again, the eyes of Lady Justice remained blindfolded when the people behind the naues

It was clear Stark didn’t like it when justice was overlooked and he didn’t e He had contacts on the Darknet, and soh cyberspace, they sold hual and unsavory Stark didn’t approve of so reasons people trolled the dark recesses of the Internet so he went out of his way to shut theraphy and pedophilia were annihilated and sites dedicated to hu wereball and no one tried to stop him

I was hoping both of those things would work inand plead with him to pull my ass out of the proverbial fire

I knocked on his door this timelike a normal person

I shifted uneasily in my orn combat boots and ran o pants Ito see him I didn’t want to show up unwashed and filthy, like I norured if he were distracted by my same Since I slept on the streets and in shelters ross and unapproachable, but Stark didn’t live wild like I did In fact, aside fros with Race and Nassir, he didn’t have much to do with the Point His only connection to this place was his longstanding friendship with Race They went to high school together before Stark was taken away by men in dark suits with serious expressions He seemed insulated from the violence and vitriol that came out of the place I called home From what I knew, he kept his heavily tattooed hands clean of actual blood, just dabbling in digital carnage and warfare I had no idea if he really knehat it was like out there in the real world, but I needed hiet a clue real quick I needed hi with someone’s life online had very real consequences I still had no idea howfor me, but they knew exactly who I was, and I knehat they could do with that knowledge That’s why I was scared, standing on his doorstep, shaking, and willing to do whatever it took to guarantee his help

I was liftingopen Of course he kneas there When I broke in weeks ago, I’d had to bypass a security system that rivaled the NSA’s He had ca and everyone that was trying to get close It wasn’t a si; I’d had to work my way inside the labyrinth and was lucky I made it out in one piece

I let out a yelp as ainst rock-hard ainst his chest It was easy to forget how big he was Massive all around Tall, strong, and covered from his neck down in colorful, bold tattoos His dark hair was cut short, showing off the multiple silver and diamond studs that dotted his ears and the tiny scar that curved across his teht line of white on his scalp He had what looked like a barcode of some kind inked behind his ear and I wanted to ask him what it meant