Conner's Game (Sample Only)

16 - Honeygirl's Tired

Bailey

I schlep inside without looking back. Dad is home. Ironically he's asleep in his easy-chair in front of a football game on TV. Shaking my head, I turn the sound down and cover him with a blanket. He's snoring, his head tilted back, mouth open a bit.

He has insomnia, so I let him sleep when he can. I try to be a quiet as possible as I walk upstairs to take a quick shower. It's hair-washing night, so it takes me a while, and when I'm finally done tying my hair into its soft curlers, night has fallen.

This has been a bad day. And bad days deserve ice cream. Ice cream is good for you if you smother a banana with it. It's proven science. Bananas are fruit, and ice cream is a dairy product—two food groups in one. If I add some nuts, then I get my protein.

I'm a genius.

Taking out my phone, I deliberately ignore the text messages from the Bad Boys of Colorado State University and answer all the messages and chats from my friends in Durham.

My high school friends are drifting away from me, off to colleges and universities near and far. They're probably making all sorts of new friends and going to college parties where they don't get tripped walking down the stairs or have punch spilled on them by mean girls. It's natural to drift apart, but I thought I was going to be the same, having fun growing up.

I stand up and grab a bigger spoon. This is an emergency.

I also grab my old-new MacBook and flip open the browser. I hesitate only a moment before searching for Caluna. It can't hurt, right?

I select the University's webpage, silently applauding that as a university, it will have more course offerings.

My MacBook blinks. I don't think I would have noticed it, but my eyes had been drawn to the photo on the homepage. It's a red brick building with a white cupola on top. The photographer caught a flock of pigeons midflight taking off from the top of the cupola. One of the bird's wings vanishes then reappears in the blink of an eye.

My fingers pause, hovered over the screen tab labeled 'Academics.' What was that flash? My mind, which I admit sometimes works too quickly, immediately screams at me; virus.

Taking a deep breath, I open a new tab and search for a different university. I go to the homepage, and the screen blinks again.

I'm being hacked. My blood runs ice cold and the shiver that wracks my body ruins my ice cream for me.

Carefully, I ease the laptop shut, not bothering to sign out or close any tabs, first. I go grab my backpack with the new-new MacBook, and open that one, too.

It's the same, the same flicker, the same quick flash indicating that information is being stolen and downloaded... somewhere.

I check my running programs and see one that doesn't belong, but when I try to delete it, nothing happens.

I'm not that good with computers, but my friend from Durham, Jared, is. I pull out my phone to shoot him a quick text, but almost immediately change my mind. What if my phone is hacked?

Bile churns. Conner and Braxton gave me these MacBooks. The laptops are always in my backpack or my house. No one could have done it at school, so it makes sense that my new friends are the ones who downloaded the software on my computer.

So, either they're hacking into my computer, or someone else broke into the house. For a moment, I don't know which idea bothers me more, but then I realize that it's just Dad and me here, and an image flashes through my mind. My car, tagged and ruined on the same day I got it back. Then, that wolf...