espionage [h.s.]

FIFTY NINE

A.N. thank you all for being patient while waiting for this chapter and updates for this story in general. i'm quite busy right now with uni and that'll only get worse as deadline season approaches, so i hope you don't mind that these updates are so spaced out atm. but the more i write/update this story, the sooner it's gonna be over, so maybe it's a good thing??? lol anyways i hope u enjoy this chapter!

ROCHELLE

To say I've been in a state of panic would be quite the understatement of the fucking century. Since I left Viktor's flat earlier, I don't think I've sat down for longer than ten seconds, tops. My mind is moving at such a formidable pace that my body is also unable to stay still, my feet constantly wanting to be on the move, circling around and around as I continuously pace up and down the entirety of my own tiny flat. I left Viktor with the task of finding out more, finding out why exactly my name doesn't exist in any record, how that even happened, what it means. But he said he'd need to gain access to a few more databases, hack into some more stuff that I didn't quite understand, and that it'd probably take a few days, so I had to wait. Unfortunately, waiting has never been my strong suit.

I'm definitely spiralling. My mind is moving at a hundred miles a minute, attempting to come up with answers to questions that I know I'll never be able to come up with on my own, so all I'm really doing is driving myself insane. But another thing that's never been a strong suit of mine, is staying calm. Externally, I've learned over the years how to make myself appear calm, you kind of have to with a job like mine. But internally, I'm often on the verge of complete neurosis. My cold-hearted bitch façade has seemed to slip significantly since I left the EEI.

After my fiftieth lap of the flat, I find myself back in the living room and my eyes are immediately drawn to the burner phone on the table, the one I've been using and replacing every few days in order to call Connie. I reach for it now, tapping the number into it without really knowing what I'm going to say, but just knowing that I need to speak to someone. As the phone rings against my ear, I continue to pace up and down the room, biting my bottom lip anxiously as I wait for her to pick up. When I finally hear that familiar click of the call connecting, everything seems to flood out of me at once.

"Fuck, Connie, hi. I don't really know why I'm calling you but I basically just need to rant to someone because I think I might be losing my mind. You know that old friend I have, the Russian hacker guy that I was meeting up with? Well I met up with him and he basically told me something that has thrown me for a fucking loop, and I don't know what to do. I thought that trying to figure out this stuff on my own would be better, that it'd be easier, but turns out it's really fucking hard and I...I just don't know what I'm doing, basically. Why am I even doing this? It's not like it's going to change anything, is it? I mean, what's done is done. I already betrayed everyone's trust, so even if I do make some groundbreaking discovery about what's going on, who will even believe me? Fucking no one, probably. So why am I even doing this? I need you to remind me why I'm doing this, Connie."