𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆

~Static~

-"I distance myself from people for a reason."-

______________________________

She took a deep breath, getting ready to use her vocal cords again. It would take way too long to write this down.

She cleared her throat and opened her mouth.

"W-While I was...held captive...Alexei told me about this girl," she started. Her voice was barely above a whisper at the start but gradually grew into her normal soft tone.

They grew curious but wondered what this girl had to do with anything.

"He said that this girl was abused her whole life in a poor home where her parents abused her. She had triplet younger brothers who she had to take care of on top of working 3 jobs, going to school, and getting tortured by her drunk of a father and drug addict mother," she explained.

"Then he told me that one day her parents sold her off to a sex trafficker when she was 16," she told them. A pit formed in their stomach's as the room grew warmer.

"She got away but her parents went after her. She stabbed them in self-defense but she was overwhelmed with guilt and she slit her own throat," she frowned.

The air grew cold and chilling, and the straightforwardness was a hit in their faces.

"When I was being traded, Midnight somehow knew I knew about this girl and told me to tell you all about her," she breathed, still reeling from the recent events.

Luca tensed at the mention of her name as the long-dismissed memories took over his eyes.

"How's that possible?" Ida thought out loud.

How did she know?

But before anyone could do anything, a static noise filled the room and the screens around the room turned bright red.

It illuminated their faces, casting a red glow on their skin and curious gaze.

"What's going on?" Ida whispered to Starr. Starr shrugged having no idea how anyone could breach their firewall or how her expert technology could glitch.

Everyone watched the scene unfold and what happened next, made a lump form in their throats.

A deep, bodiless, and altered voice spoke with disjointed phrases in a glitchy manner.

"Sh-She's...Not-Not who you think She-Sh is..." the automated and disembodied voice spoke out while the red screen flickered black, then white.

The static got louder and louder until the room fell completely silent, leaving the muteness to ring in their ears.

"Tate-Tate H-Harlow...isn't d-dead," the voice chuckled. Then the screens went pitch black.

"What just happened?" Antonio muttered, still in a daze just like everyone else. This was by far one of the most disturbing things they had witnessed.

Everyone turned to Starr and she looked just as bewildered as them. With a gesture of her head and her fingers counting backward from 3, they all slowly backed away from the server with their guns drawn in all directions.

Once they all checked every nook and corner of the room and determined that no one was there, no bombs, and no bugs had been placed, they all put their guns away with a heavy breath of relief.

Ida decided to break the moment of their shocked silence.

"Wasn't Tate Harlow the first person to betray us?" Ida whispered still wary of their surroundings. Starr pursed her lips and hesitantly sat down and started typing on her computer, testing out a theory.