Page 113 of Taken Enemy
We cross the room together. I pull back the chair at my desk, jutting my chin so she knows to take a seat. I only drop her hand when she agrees.
She looks lost in the huge leather chair, like she’s wandered far from any path she’s ever known. Her gaze is locked on the monitors’ steel frame, on the leash still wrapped tight around the bottom bar.
“I left it there,” I say. “Because I need to remember.”
She raises two fingers to the hollow of her throat. “I’ll never forget,” she says coolly.
My cheeks burn. I deserve that.
I can apologize. I can try to explain. I’ll never forget either. These past two weeks are seared into my brain. I’ve never hurt like I did while she was gone—not my first night in juvie, not when Shannon died, not any of the times I’ve lost Megan.
I try to use my words.
“Shannon,” I say, as if that’s a reasonable place to start. “My mother.” The word sounds foreign on my tongue. “For her, the entire world was one giant con game. And everything was chaos. Megan and I were always one night raid away from a new home, a new school, a new man we had to call uncle. Shannon was the queen of grifters, but she was never, ever accountable to anyone for anything.”
Kate is listening, which is more than I deserve.
“When I went to juvie for her, when I took the fall, I promised myself things would be different after I got out. I would always—always—keep everything under control. My business, my emotions, my body, all of it locked down. And I did. For years. Decades, even. But when I saw you cutting… When I realized how easily I could lose you…” I take a shuddering breath. “I lost that control.”
I can’t read Kate’s face. I’ve said too much. I haven’t said nearly enough.
“I need to keep the leash,” I finally say. “It reminds me that my actions affect others. Every one of my decisions has consequences. I was wrong. I was so, so wrong.”
Everything I’m saying is true. I mean every word. But they’re not enough. They can’t prove I’ve learned my lesson.
Frustrated, I pull up the security screen on my computer. I’ve already completed the profile for her household credentials; all it needs is one scan of her palm and another of her iris. I’ve had the black box waiting since noon, against the impossible hope she would ever come home.
She eyes the laser-marked screen with something halfway between curiosity and mistrust. “What is that?”
“A biometric scanner.”
“A—” she starts to repeat. But then she asks, “What do I do?”
I show her how to set her palm against the screen. Her fingertips too, all ten of them, changing angles to collect her vital data. Last of all, she sets her cheek against the case, letting the lasers map her eye.
Once the data is collected, I enter a few commands into the security center. “There,” I say. “You have full access to the household system. All doors. The gate. The property across the street.”
“Thank you,” she says, uncharacteristically subdued.
“There’s something else,” I say.
There’s a titanium box under the desk, delivered just one hour ago. I watch Kate’s face as I pass it to her. She opens it carefully, like it’s a tin can filled with snakes. I watch her recognize the logo on her new ruggedized laptop.
“Jaysus,” she whispers. “I’ve never…” She pets the machine with one fingertip, the way some women would touch diamonds.
I gesture for her to open the machine. The screen is solid black, its only sign of life a cursor that blinks steadily—on, off, on, off. Trying to draw a full breath against the bonfire charring my lungs, I type:
superuser KaitlinMinolaLynch
Her lips part, the only sign that she’s surprised.
The computer responds:
type system password for superuser KaitlinMinolaLynch and press return
I follow the instruction.
untamed
