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“Oh please, don’t apologize. It was great! I gave a mini-press
conference. I was very professional. They asked me about the Spiders and I
described the attack. No big deal.” She paused and Eva could hear her take a
deep breath.
“Except, I need to know that you’re really okay.
I know you checked in with me earlier, but tell me the truth. How are you
holding up?”

Eva debated what to tell her.
Screw it,
she decided.
If
I can’t talk to my best friend, who can I talk to?
“I don’t know, Lucy. He
said he brought me here because it was the safest place, but can I trust him?
It all happened so fast.”

“Girl, he’s a Sentry. Protection is what he does,” Lucy said,
surety in her voice. “And also, I saw the way he looked at you. He’s got it
bad. And
isn’t
Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome why you dragged
us back here in the first place?”

“You’re delusional. The only thing he’s got bad right now is an
attitude.” Eva snorted. “For a moment, after we ate lunch, I thought he was
going to kiss me, and then, boom.
Nothing.
He ran.”
She sighed.

Lucy was silent.

“Lucy?
You there?”
Eva was afraid to ask
what her friend was thinking.

“I think that you need to be careful. This isn’t some guy from
college, like Brad. He’s not just a random hookup. He’s a Sentry,” Lucy finally
said.

Eva thought about that.
“Yeah.
Well, I
think it’s been serious for four years now, for me. I thought it was just a
high school crush, but here I am.
Still moping over him.”

“He’s, like, two hundred years old,” Lucy said, voice going light
again. “What’s that like?”

Eva laughed. “I hardly notice. He acts just as annoying as any
other guy, young
or
old.”

Lucy giggled. “Why am I not surprised? Well, at least you can ask
him what it was like before there were skyscrapers. That might be fun.”

“And indoor plumbing,” Eva added, snickering.

“And cars.”

“And toilet paper.”

Lucy shrieked.
“
Ew
!”

Eva laughed. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Make sure he has toilet paper, oh my God, can you imagine how
horrible that would be?” Lucy asked,
then
the line
went dead.

Eva shook her head, grinning as she slipped her phone back into
her pocket. Her fingers tangled in the broken chain that held Greyson’s ring,
so she drew it out, inspecting the break.
Hmm, I might be able to repair
that,
she thought, walking to the stairs. She headed down, veering away
from the bedroom and towards the bathroom. After rummaging through his drawers,
she found a pair of tweezers.

For a two-hundred year old man, he certainly doesn’t have much
stuff,
she thought
as she worked on the necklace. The bedroom he’d showed her contained a giant
mattress on a beautiful wooden frame with sturdy head and foot boards, a few
dressers, and a wall of windows that looked out over the valley. He hadn’t said
so, but she knew it was his room. The bed smelled like him. She squeezed the
broken link back together and smiled, then slipped the chain over her head. She
hadn’t felt right without it around her neck.

Probably because I’ve worn it for
four years and never taken it off until today.
She put away the tweezers and
wandered into his bedroom. The storm seemed to be dissipating, from what she
could see. She sat down on his bed and watched the clouds drift away.
I hope
he doesn’t forget to bring my computer.
She needed to get to work on that
website for Stronghold. The thought of Greyson’s brother Bruno angry with her
for missing a deadline made her shiver.

Chapter Six

“Yeah, what?”
Greyson asked, jamming the
cellphone between his ear and shoulder. The willow cutting he’d given Eva years
ago had grown into a fair-sized tree, he noted absently, staring across her
living room.

“I traced the hacker,” Solomon said, sounding grim.

Greyson froze, hands in a box of Eva’s shirts. “Who is it?”

“Your girlfriend.”

“Impossible. I’ve felt her emotions. She’s innocent.” Greyson
fought to keep his voice level. “And she’s not my girlfriend.”

“Then someone’s using her to gain access,” Solomon said tersely. “I
think the original bug is in her computer. As soon as she plugs it into the
internet, it replicates itself and heads for our net. She doesn’t even have to
do anything except turn it on. I think
it’s
set up to
connect automatically.”

“Shit.”

“Yes, indeed,” his brother agreed.

Greyson heard voices in the background.

“Damn. Hang on,” Solomon said.

Greyson ground his teeth and grabbed a few shirts and a blouse at
random from Eva’s box. He added a few pairs of jeans to the pile, then shoved
the mess into a backpack he’d found by her door. When Solomon came back on the
line, Greyson was just about to force himself to open up a box clearly marked
“panties.”

“Okay, I can talk now.”

“Where are you? Are you still at Bruno’s place?” Greyson asked his
brother, tearing the tape from the box like he was ripping a bandage off a
wound. Colorful fabric lay in a disordered pile inside and he had to take a
deep breath to control the surge of arousal rushing through him. The thought of
Eva in her underthings sent his libido skyrocketing.

“Yeah, I am. I didn’t want him to overhear this,” Solomon said
quietly. “He’s still talking to the President.” He laughed. “I think he’s ready
to tear his hair out.”

Greyson could imagine. Telling the world that there were aliens
that wanted to eat the planet was bound to be a delicate conversation. “Tell me
what you found in the tech.
And how it can get access to
Stronghold.
I thought you set up a fail-proof firewall between our stuff
and the internet.”

Solomon grunted. “I found traces of foreign code in our stuff. I
cleaned it up, but you know how weird it is. The hardware and software are all
co-dependent.
Integrated.
Honestly? I didn’t think any
mortal
could
hack our system. It’s
completely alien when compared to human computing.”

“Yeah, well, obviously we were wrong,” Greyson said, adding
panties and a few bras to the backpack. He wanted to linger over Eva’s
lingerie.
Except that would make you the ultimate creepy old man, so don’t
do it,
he told himself sternly.

“I sensed some foreign patterns and smoothed them out. It was very
subtle.”

“Did it affect the Stronghold net?” Greyson asked, referring to
the sub-molecular network that allowed their viewers and
all
their other
tech to function. It was the basis of their power as
Sentries: an organic-quantum connection based on subatomic particles.

“I didn’t find anything at the core. Just traces in the upper
levels.” Solomon paused. Greyson could almost feel his worry through the phone.
“They’d hacked our viewers.”

Greyson zipped the backpack more violently than he’d intended. “Hell.
That’s not good.”

“No, it certainly isn’t good.” His brother’s voice was tight. “I
didn’t erase all of the bad code, by the way. I want to use it to track the
hacker back to the source.”

Greyson shook his head. “Bruno is going to lose it.”

“Yes.” Solomon sighed. “I’ll tell him as soon as he’s done politicking.”

“Don’t tell him that it’s coming from Eva’s computer,” Greyson
urged.

“I have to, brother. You know that.”

Greyson thought about it. “She got the job through her stepfather.
Maybe he’s the source of the infiltration.”

Solomon cursed. “Why didn’t I think of that? And if that’s the
case, we can definitely set a trap for him.”

“No. No way,” Greyson immediately said.

“It’s the only way,” Solomon argued. “We need to get this fixed.
We have bigger problems, you know that.”

“This is connected to the Spiders, Solomon. The only reason they’re
swarming here is because someone fucked around with our tech.”

“That’s exactly my point and all the more reason we need to set a
trap.” Solomon didn’t sound happy. “We need to stop this, and sooner rather
than later.”

Greyson tamped down his anger. He needed to think clearly and the
protective urge he felt towards Eva threatened to overwhelm his reason. “She’s
innocent.
And really young.
We can’t put her in the
middle of this.”

“We can, and we will, especially if it means the preservation of
Earth.” Bruno’s voice was suddenly on the line.

Greyson blew out a harsh breath. “Bruno. I thought you were
talking with the President.”

“I was, but I finished up soon enough for me to catch the tail end
of your conversation.” He sighed. “You know your duty, Greyson. If we need to
sacrifice one person to save countless others…”

“She’s innocent, Bruno. But you didn’t hear that part, did you?”

“I figured as much,” Bruno said, shocking him.

“Then you know that using her to flush out the real traitor is
wrong.” Greyson clenched his fists. “If it was your woman, you wouldn’t even
consider doing it.”

A pause.
“So, you’ve finally decided to
claim her?”

Greyson growled and hung up. No way was he playing that game with
his brothers. He stood up with the backpack and deliberately walked past the
box holding Eva’s computer on his way out the door.

****

Eva looked up from the sofa when the front door opened.
“Greyson.
I was getting worried you’d abandoned me,” she
teased, trying to put aside her frustration with him, but then her smile
dropped from her face. He looked like hell: wet hair, t-shirt plastered to his
chest, and a thunderous expression.
And even like this, he’s still the
hottest man I’ve even seen,
she thought, annoyed with
herself
.
You’ve got to get over this crush. He was the unattainable guy four years
ago and that was fine, but now you’re grown up and he’s the man who kidnapped
you against your will. And he’s
still
unattainable.

He strode over, eyes glittering with some complicated emotion she
couldn’t begin to decipher. “I got your clothes,” he said, dropping her
backpack on the floor next to the sofa. The cloth of the bag was as damp as he
was.

She reached down and rummaged through it, exasperated with his
clothing selection. Why did men never think to match colors? Ugh. When she didn’t
find her computer, she frowned. “You didn’t bring my laptop,” she said, confused.
“I need to get to work. I have a deadline. I told you that.”

“I didn’t want to chance it getting wet,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re lying.” She wasn’t sure how
she knew this, but her gut told her she was right.

He looked away. “You won’t need it.” He pushed his fingers through
his dripping hair.

“Greyson, you might think my job is a joke, but I take it
seriously. And I owe John for everything he’s done for me and Mom.” She dropped
the bag and kicked it away from her. “You can’t just decide things for me like
this.”

He lifted the bottom of his t-shirt and scrubbed at the water on
his face, and then leaned against the cold stone mantle. “How well do you know
John?” he asked, ignoring her complaint.

Eva tore her eyes away from his muscled abdomen, blinking at the
weird question. “You’re kidding right?”

“No, I am not.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Mom met him a few years ago. They hit it
off. They got married.” She shrugged. “He’s not an asshole, which was a relief
after the other boyfriends she collected. I was happy for her. And he’s been
good to me.”

He rubbed his jaw, not responding.

Eva had no idea what he was thinking. She fidgeted, suddenly
uncomfortable. “Maybe you should go change. You look like a wet dog.” She
wanted to lick the water off of his arms.
At
this rate, I’m never going to get over him.

He gave her a strange look,
then
sighed. “My
brother Solomon has traced the hacker who infiltrated our tech.” He crossed his
arms over his chest.

“Your Stronghold tech?
Oh, um, that’s good, right?” Eva stared
at him. He looked angry.
With her?
She didn’t even
know they’d been having hacker problems. No one did. The Sentries didn’t speak
to the public about any of their business. “What does that mean?”

“Our tech, specifically the viewers and the Stronghold net, was
given to us by the
Others
. It’s a combination of
organic and subatomic power. It’s why they changed our DNA all those years ago,
so we could more easily work with it.” He uncrossed his arms and moved closer,
looming over her. “We access the Stronghold net with our energy. We can heal,
as you know. We can also build new hardware that interfaces with Stronghold,
like my ring.” He nodded to the chain around her neck.