Hacked Into My Heart

Chapter 7 : (Barrett)

As Barrett walked down the road, he speculated on the happenings of the day. He had finally gotten a chance to talk with Uma, but she had managed to tell him nothing that he wanted to know. She had evaded his questions expertly and exsasperatingly. Before that, at school, Barrett had had an extra rough day. Usually, almost everyone at school resented him for getting good grades and being liked by all his teachers. Today, the school bully, Jake, had felt especially nasty. All day, he had teased, bullied, blackmailed and generally made life miserable for Barrett. Sometimes Uma tried to stand up for him, but there was nothing she could do, and today, she probably hadn't even noticed. Barrett sighed as he scraped his shoe against the rough sidewalk. Why was she being so moody and secretive? Did it have something to do with the strangers they had seen on their walk? First, there had been the pair walking down the road that Uma had sworn she'd seen before. Then, at the park, there had been the two, a guy and a girl, that Uma had kept staring at. She'd muttered something like, "jewelry girl", and "the dude"? Barrett shook his head. Girls were so complicated. Why was he even trying to figure them out?

The sky was getting dark by the time that Barrett reached his destination. He pulled down the hoodie of his black jacket as he trudged up the steps of the library, his favorite place in the whole city. Inside, the air was warm and smelled of musty pages, and carpet.

The librarian in front, looked up at Barrett and smiled. "Are you here to use the internet?" Barrett nodded and pulled off his jacket completely. The librarian adjusted her thick glasses and pushed a sign up sheet across the desk.

"Sign here, please." As Barrett wrote his name down, he noted, "I'm the first name on here for today." The librarian nodded.

"Our internet was down until about 30 minutes ago, you're the first one to use it since then."

Barrett wanted a laptop of his own more than anything, but his parents denied him one. "You'd just spend every living hour messing around on the confounded thing," his mom had retorted.

"You'll be getting no such gizmo from us!" So, Barrett had to use the library computers. They were not very updated, but at least they worked. As Barrett sat down behind one of them, he noticed a few people were still loitering around the library. As Barrett reconized two of them, his jaw dropped. The guy and girl from earlier! Why were they here? "Probably just a coincadence," Barrett muttered to still his quickly beating heart.

"There's nothing to worry about." Barrett turned back to the computer and logged on. As the computer started up, a strange whirring noise emitted from the speakers. Barrett frowned. "Is everything alright?" The librarian was looking sternly at Barrett, her glasses sliding down her nose again. "Yes, I think so," Barrett called.

"Good." She turned back to her work, and Barrett turned back to the computer. The account had loaded, but something was terribly wrong... Suddenly, Barrett felt as if he was being pulled. Pulled into the computer! "Help!" He yelled, terrified. The strange guy and girl turned and the girl gasped. The last thing Barrett saw was her wide, scared eyes.