Wrong Place, Right Time(68)

Soon enough, there’s a sound coming from the doorway. Then Lucky is there standing next to my desk, looking down at me as he holds his hands out. “Can I help you up?”

I grab his hands and use them to leverage myself onto my feet. I brush my pants off and straighten myself up as best I can. I waste a little more time smoothing my hair back into its ponytail. It’s probably hopeless, but I need these few extra seconds to calm myself down. It isn’t Lucky’s fault that this happened, but I am very tempted to take my anger out on him anyway.

“So, that was unexpected.” He gives me a half grin.

“It most certainly was.” I don’t share his sense of humor over it.

He gestures at my computer. “Are you finished here?”

I grab the seat and pull it over, sitting down on it. “Almost.” Work will calm me down and take my mind off the craziness I just suffered. Turning the monitor on, I verify that the upload of the virus is complete. “Yes. All finished.” I eject the thumb drive from the computer and pull it from the tower. Standing, I move the chair back into the spot where it was when I first arrived. “Are you finished?” I’m really proud of myself. Inside, I feel like I want to tear some doll heads off or Hulk-out on this guy, but outside I’m as cool as a cucumber. Lucky would never know from looking at my calm expression that I want to maim him.

“The only thing we have left is the actual server. How about if we go do that one together?”

I nod. “I’m just going to make a quick phone call and I’ll join you.”

Lucky nods and walks off. I step into the hallway and call Dev. He answers on the first ring.

“Are you okay?” The sounds of traffic are in the background. He’s still on his way to rescue me, I think.

I sigh heavily, so relieved to hear his voice on the other end of the line. It somehow magically makes all the crap I just went through seem like not such a big deal anymore. “I’m fine. The police showed up and hauled two kids out of here. I can’t believe I panicked like that over teenagers. You don’t need to come out here. Really, we’re fine. I overreacted.”

“Hey, don’t say that. You had every right to freak out. And you handled it perfectly.”

“Perfectly? I don’t think so. I called you, and I’m pretty sure I should’ve called the cops.”

“I’m your trainer, in charge of your personal security. I’m glad you called me. But next time, yeah. Maybe call the cops first.”

We both chuckle.

“What are you doing now?” he asks.

“Just finishing up with the server.” I peek around the corner, but Lucky is out of sight. “I probably need to go help Lucky out.”

“Okay. I’ll let you go. Thanks.”

“For what? Making you panic?”

“No,” he says, his voice going softer. “For calling me when you were scared.”

I snort. “Scared? Who was scared?”

He laughs. “That’s my girl.”

I hang up feeling like my brain is filled with helium. I could float, I’m so high with a combination of post-panic adrenaline, boy-crush hormones, and the idea that when things got too hot to handle, I still did almost everything right. I didn’t panic too much, and I walked away without a scratch. I am the honey badger, and I don’t take no shit from nobody.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

On my way to join Lucky, I take my cell phone, which still has that one unanswered text to my sister floating on the screen, and send May another message telling her it was a false alarm and to ignore it. Lie.

I enter a large storage closet that houses all of the office supplies and the server for the Blue Marine administrative offices. Lucky is there and he’s just finished hooking his laptop up to the computer.

“Ready?” he asks.

I nod. “Yep.”

He goes to work, following the instructions I gave him before we got here. I watch over his shoulder to make sure he doesn’t miss any steps, correcting him and pointing things out when he makes minor errors.

“I’m so glad you’re here with me,” he says, waiting for a command to run its course.

I don’t know what to say to that. He’s glad that I was here when intruders came? He’s glad that my life was at stake? Is he crazy?

“When stuff like that happens, you just have to fly by the seat of your pants. You’re obviously a quick thinker and good on your feet.”

I’m trying not to warm at his compliment, but it’s difficult. Who doesn’t like to be called a quick thinker?

“Well, I sent a text to my sister, and I called Dev before I called nine-one-one, so I don’t know how cool I actually was.”