Fractured

Chapter 10 - Sorting through the information

Corey's POV

Just who exactly is this tiny, unassuming woman that has come into our lives? She refused our help until we knew everything there is to know about her. She knew that someone had accessed all of her information and now knows everything about her, but instead of begging for help working it all out and making sure she is safe, she wanted us to know her entire background before we decided to help her.

From the limited interaction I had had with her, I wouldn't have guessed that she knew how to make the kinds of modifications to the hardware and how to rewrite the software the way she has to turn this EFTPOS machine into a secure external storage device. Looking at her, I wouldn't have guessed that she could take on Raven the way she did either! I hope Marc kept that footage! He called it when he said we should make sure the cameras were recording in case Raven came home drunk last night.

I had wanted to go after her when she walked out the door to head down to the gym. Knowing that we had cameras on her and that she was the only one in the gym didn't help any. I had a strong desire to keep her safe, I wanted to protect her from whoever was after her.

We needed to get her to open up to us, not just hand us the details of her past and walk away, but to actually trust us enough to talk to us about it herself. Given the situation, I understood her reasons for not talking to us about it and to be completely honest, I didn't blame her for not wanting to be here while we go through the files. I know I wouldn't want to be in the same room as someone I hardly knew while they learnt my entire life story – or in her case, five someone's. I still didn't like that we were leaving her alone at the moment when we didn't even know what she was facing.

Marc and Raven were still itching to go after her and Axel had stepped out into the hallway to make a call. He and Raven were supposed to be doing a security job tomorrow for some high profile event. He was arranging for another team to cover the job so we could focus on working out the threat against Andy and how we were going to keep her safe. It was clear she was used to dealing with things on her own and would never ask for help, but we were going to help her anyway.

I connected my laptop to the TV wirelessly, silently thanking Raven for putting his fist through the old one in a drunken rage about six months ago. Our new TV was a smart TV and I was able to share content to it as I went. It meant I could scan over the information before sharing it with my brothers. I could eliminate any useless information so we wouldn't have to leave her alone longer than absolutely necessary.

I plugged the EFTPOS machine into my computer and waited for it to load, following the instructions Andy gave me to access the drive. I can't say I would have ever thought an EFTPOS machine could be a hard drive. She was a genius! Hiding valuable intel in plain sight like that. I would say this bird really is Academy material, but then again, she already is Academy!

Once I had the drive open I noticed she has everything sorted neatly into separate folders and there were folders for just about everything! Basic Information, Pre-academy, Identities, Time with Phil and Rose, New York, Missions, Skills, Attributes, Certifications and Qualifications but there was one that really caught my eye; a folder labelled things that will come back to bite me on the ass. The girl is straight forward, that's for sure!

I started with Basic Information. It was all of the standard stuff that is on every academy application – name, date of birth, physical description, allergies; turns out she is allergic to pain killers and pineapple. There were a couple of things that caught my attention - Name and date of birth were both listed as unknown, though she had a number of alias listed. The biggest shock though, was seeing her Academy status; she was a ghost bird.