Broken Memories [I Did it for You - Book 2]

24

Seven was exhausted. He'd been staring, typing as numerous lines of code flashed across the screen, searing his golden eyes that had turned red with bloodshot. He lifted his fingers from the keyboard, shaking from how fast they'd been moving across the keys that had grown hot to the touch from his fingers clicking them nonstop as he rubbed his tired eyelids.

Ever since the hacking team failed to get in contact with him or even transmit their current location, Seven had been working nonstop as he tried with all his might to find them. He found the exact point where the team had last been in contact with him and checked the satellite images to try and spot them, but all the trees and overgrowth made it impossible to see anything. Of course, he could guess where they could be based on their last documented location, but Seven knew it was more complicated than that. Whether they'd broken down, crashed, or were ambushed, every possibility meant that the team could be anywhere by now.

Since then, the RFA hacker spent all those long hours trying to connect to their tracker and hack into it to see their location and what their current status was, but once it turned evening the next day, having worked over twenty-four hours without food or sleep, Seven couldn't do it anymore. He was beyond exhausted and every limb in his body felt numb and stiff. He was surprised he hadn't suffered from a blood clot at any point, and he wasn't sure if he was glad or devastated.

Standing from the gaming chair and almost toppling over in the process, Seven staggered across the room, his whole body aching in protest as he approached his bedroom door and swung it open.

Knowing that there was nothing else he could do to find the hacking team and realising that the only thing he could do now was to wait and hope that they'd eventually show up and report back to him, Seven decided that it was best to distract himself. And as he climbed down the stairs and walked slowly and stiffly like a rusted robot down the hallway, he knew just what to distract himself with.

It had been over a day since he'd last seen Scarlett. He hadn't been able to check on her to see how she was doing especially during the terrifying waiting game they were now trapped in. He couldn't even begin to imagine the terror she was feeling from how likely it was that Mint Eye had indeed ambushed the hacking team out in the three-hundred-mile radius, especially when it hadn't been very long since she became free from their grasp, the horrifying experiences still fresh in her mind.

As he walked, Seven began to think, not for the first time, how they had let her go so easily. Had that Mint Eye saviour been so sure that Scarlett would achieve her goal of murdering Emjay and injecting Yoosung with the elixir? Did she think that from being successful, Scarlett would have been arrested or shot on the spot? Is that why the sinister woman no longer cared for the girl or her whereabouts? Or did she think that the amount of alcohol and DMT from the elixir was enough to eventually give her an overdose?

Seven had rummaged through all those questions thousands of times since Scarlett's arrival and he still hadn't settled on a final answer. However, the fact that Scarlett herself didn't even know or had forgotten sent an icy chill down his spine. It made him think yet again that he had missed something, something that has been staring right at him from the very beginning.

What if Scarlett's arrival was just part of a whole bigger picture? A dark, sinister picture?

Seven shivered before shaking his head. He had to stop making himself paranoid. Overthinking wouldn't get him anywhere. And besides, he was going to see Scarlett make sure she was okay and hoped that she was in a talkative mood. He needed a distraction and fast before his mind took him elsewhere.

However, as Seven knocked on Scarlett's bedroom door and was given permission to enter, he hadn't prepared himself for just how talkative Scarlett was.

"CAN YOU BELIEVE HER?!" was the first thing that exploded into Seven's eardrums, causing him to back away from the opened door in shock. At first, the hacker had been fearful that he had lowered back down to square one with Scarlett being too afraid of him again, but he soon realised that it wasn't fear that erupted from her. It was anger.