Into Darkness

Chapter 19

Ryler:

Luckily for me Nikki is in the shower when I get back so I have a few minutes to pull myself together before she can see what a mess I am. The pain in my chest is nearly unbearable. I know Colt and I aren't together but that doesn't make what just happened hurt any less. I'm losing him. He's slipping away from me. I could see it happening right in front of my eyes. One minute he was warm and caring and the next that invisible wall went up and he went back to being cold and distant. Dark.

I let a few tears fall loose before I take a deep breath and force myself back together. I refuse to let myself fall apart now. A moment later I hear the water shut off in the shower and a couple minutes later Nikki emerges dressed in sweats and t-shirt with her wet hair thrown up in a messy bun.

"Hey" she says when she sees me, pleasantly surprised that I'm back. "How was work?"

"It was fine" I say and I try to make my voice sound light but it falls a little short. Before she can ask what's wrong though I decide to deflect her attention away from me. "What are you working on?" I ask since I see her computer powered up and there is a program running.

She looks sheepish for a moment before saying, "Oh . . . that" and adds a nervous giggle at the end.

"Nikki . . ." I say with a nervous edge to my voice. "What is it?" I know it must be something illegal and the fact that she has been doing a lot more hacking recently for my benefit makes me feel guilty.

She sighs, "You know I love our dear friends down at the FBI but they have been moving too slow for my liking. I decided to run a face recognition software that will match up your face with any pictures of you on the internet from any social networking sites or any articles."

I nod as I try to make sense of why she's doing this but computer hacking isn't my thing so I end up asking, "Why?"

Thankfully Nikki is patient with my lack of knowledge for this area and explains. "I figured if there any hits than we might have a lead on how exactly he found you in the first place. It's been driving me crazy not knowing and if we can figure that out then maybe that could somehow help us find a way of tracking him down or at least give us some type of lead. I figured it would be better than nothing" she sighs tiredly and I wonder for how many hours the past few weeks she has been tirelessly working at this to try and help keep me safe.

"That sounds like a great idea Nikki" I say fully supporting her because I know she needs this. She needs to feel like she's helping me and this is the only way she knows how. "Just how illegal is this though" I ask with a slight laugh.

She laughs back, "Not too illegal" she says but I don't believe her. "Besides if the FBI figures out I'm using their face recognition software Agent Hawthorne should be able to bail me out."

My jaw drops in shock and I let out a gasp but my face falls into a smile and I shove her playfully. "I can't believe you would steal from the FBI!" I say still laughing.

She laughs with me, "Not steal. Borrow."

"Hackers" I huff under my breath but I know she heard me. She playfully shoves me back and for the first time in a long time Nikki and I let ourselves really laugh with one another. We don't let the fact that both of our lives are in danger get in the way of this moment and it's wonderful.

Once our laughter dies down I ask, "How long will this take?"

Nikki catches her breath from laughing before saying, "I'm not sure. It could take a few hours before there are any results."

I nod as I try to come up with something else for us to do to kill time until then because I know just sitting here will eventually drive us both insane. I also need a distraction from what happened with Colt because if I continue to sit here I will replay our conversation over and over again and it will kill me every time. I can't allow myself to think about the distance in his voice or the cold look in his eyes any longer. I refuse to.