Guess what, I was bored again. And yes, that had officially become Smurf's problem.

The curse about having a super active brain and a mild case of ADHD (okay, maybe not so mild), was that you quickly got bored of the same thing. Now, when you were hiding and your options of doing things were considerably more limited, guess what, you fucking lost your mind in boredom. So, I had resorted to helping Smurf with her school homework.

Ceynius:
You made a
calculative error in
your dissertation,
Smurf

I grinned and then watched the dots appear as I pulled up her paper and highlighted her mistake. What would she have done without me?

ZoWithThat:
For fuck's sake,
stop messing with
my things!!!

I chuckled and shook my head. Even days later, she was still trying to find a way out of my black hole, and I had to give it to her, she tried hard. I had been with girls who worked less in bed than she did on her laptop, yet she wasn't even gunning for a climax. And she was still more motivated than them. And passionate.

My eyes slowly drifted to a folder on her laptop that I hadn't dared to open after the first time I was going through her things out of boredom—and now before you start, exactly what do you expect of a person who hacks for a living? I liked knowing things, liked going through other people's personal files, and at first, she had been just another hacker challenging my game. But then, something happened.

I actually started to like her.

Rubbing my face, I shook it with a weird, flubbery sound leaving my mouth.

I didn't normally do this sort of thing, but I think maybe my boredom had allowed me to get close enough to her to actually develop a connection other than just an virtual one. There was a high chance she still hated me for keeping her laptop trapped, but I had to admit I was beginning to like this girl. And more so to it, I was beginning to respect her.

She had done peace protests, had filed several letters to Congress about legalizing weed, had done more protests for equal rights of both gender and color, and had volunteered at an animal shelter when she was sixteen up until her eighteenth birthday where she enrolled at the Alexandrettia on her own merit. Her parents wanted her to be a doctor and I saw her transcripts from where she had applied to several other Ivy League schools, but in the end she had chosen the Alexandrettia to pursue her dream of becoming an IT expert and software developer. Encryption was her thing.

And whilst going through all these files, somewhere along the way, my stupid brain went 'aww' then 'fuck' then 'holy shit' and then 'double fuck'. And just around the time it decided it liked her, that's when I stumbled upon that folder.

– The folder I wished I'd never seen.

Running my hands through my hair, I exhaled hard and then groaned.

I had been scrolling through her pictures... innocent pictures of her at the shelter... holding kitties, then pictures of her at Low Point, drinking and doing peace signs with her hands... and then the photos came. Plural, I assumed, although I never made it past the first one.

In bed, wearing a lacy black gothic lingerie set, she had been almost naked and most definitely fucking hot as she'd been lying there with a blunt in her hand, smoking weed with her tongue lolling goofily at the camera on her computer. Was that a Saturday to her? Man, I hoped so.

I had stared with my jaw on the floor for about five whole seconds before Jesus slapped me ass-wise and made me close the whole folder down and lock it away.

I was a child of God. I was a child of God. I was a child of—

Fucking Jesus, I would've sacrificed myself to look at what was underneath that gothic bralette.

Pushing a breath out, I turned my eyes back to the screen and saw her reply to my previous comment. Stop messing with my things.

I had stopped alright, and while that was usually a good thing, that was a bad thing in this case. Because if I stopped looking into her files, that meant I suddenly had grown a conscious... and if I had grown a conscious... then goddamn it if my heart didn't start to control my actions.

And that stupid thing had gotten me in trouble before. Exactly the reason why I told Elana to keep it with her, so that I at least knew the right person had it – the one it was supposed to be reserved for, solely and alone. Period.

But then that Blue-haired smurf girl just had to flash me her underwear, didn't she.

Man, I wish I wasn't such a guy.

– Or that she wasn't such a pretty girl. I was only human, after all.

Lost in thought, my eyes jerked up when all of a sudden my computer blared with a warning. Why, hello? Entertainment, is that you?

My forehead then slowly creased as I saw it wasn't in fact a warning from my computer, but from Zoe's. At first I thought she might actually have found a way through—but now saw that it was the exact opposite.

Someone was hacking into her computer. Someone good. They were trying to gain access to her laptop, but because of my program, it was on complete lockdown from the outside world. Still, this person was persistent, running all sorts of tests on the firewalls, testing the fields...

My hands moved across my keyboard and typed a code that would give me the person's IP. After a short moment, it came back, but to my frustration, I didn't recognize it. It meant someone random was trying to hack her computer... but why?

I took a beat to think. So far, I had several theories. One, perhaps the smurf was trying to find an alternate way into her laptop by going through another laptop to see if she could bypass my program that way... but that would mean she would have to be at two places at once, which, after a quick glance through her webcam, I saw that she wasn't. She was in front of her laptop, eating funions while typing away on her laptop, oblivious to the hacker currently trying to penetrate her computer. Well... the second one.

My brows furrowed even further. That meant the only other theory it could be was that someone was actually hacking her and I just didn't believe in coincidences. If someone was hacking her laptop, then it was because someone knew something was going on with her... maybe her inability to hack because of my program had caused a rise in suspicion with someone else. Maybe she had concerned cyber friends?

I cracked my neck and concentrated. Okay. There was only one course of action; find out which idiot was trying to hack my Smurf's laptop and burn them to the ground.

Whoaaaa, hold up. Your smurf?

Balls.

Shaking my head, I started my program to identify and track the IP, getting a location on the hacker. The seconds ticked by, my laptop crunched the numbers...

With a ping, the result came up – and then made my jaw go down again.

It was her address. The Barbie—I mean, Mia's. The girl Eli was staying with. Was it possible... that he had somehow... found a way?

I took a deep breath. Then another one. Then a third one because my OCD didn't like just two.

I had to be certain. Fuck, after the weeks I had had, I couldn't afford to lose it over excitement that I might actually have found a way to communicate with Eli. It could be just like those shitheads to somehow find a way to fool me... although if they had found Mia, then they would've found him, too. It didn't make sense, but I still had to be sure. Maybe they wanted two for the price of one.

I therefore granted the hacker access, and after a second of thinking, set up a virtual perimeter around him. Then, thinking again, my fingers paused.

If it was him, then there was only one surefire way of finding out.

I coded a riddle and fired it his way. Then smirked when I realized I was a fucking fairytale character; Answer me this riddle and thou shall be granted passage, young traveler.

I seriously needed to find a hobby.

I waited while he worked, hoping his time in Pussyville with Mia hadn't taken him off his game. It wasn't an easy riddle, but if he put his mind to it, he should recognize the numbers... if it was really him.

And if it wasn't him... someone's ego was about to get significantly smaller.

Fifteen seconds later, the reply popped up on my screen.

"I have receive the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus, the eyes of my understanding being enlightened."

I let out the deepest sigh and drew a cross over my heart as I felt the weight sink off my chest.

It was him. Thank Jesus, it was him.

– I was no longer alone.

~~~

Mondays. You think you fucking hated them, Garfield? Then I wasn't sure what to say about mine.

Everything had been going great. After weeks on the street without any word, I had finally established contact with Eli. He had gotten my message at the Alexandrettia, so once I told him about what had happened, my kidnapping, my living under the radar-circumstances, running into Mia, everything was as it should be again.

Well, almost. I still couldn't come see Elana due to the people following me—or at least trying to. I had to keep away from Eli to keep him safe, and that meant no visiting Elana. She was safe for now, and as was Eli. It was simply too risky. I continued to stay in solitary on the street. At least my invention seemed to be holding stable.

The problem now was, none of us had any idea how to move forward—actually correction; we knew what our options were, but the second option was as miserable as the first. These people would never stop hunting Eli, and I could create as many fake new identities as I wanted, but facial recognition was a thing I couldn't beat. The only thing I could do was delay the results from coming back, like back in the alley that night... but we couldn't live our lives running. Eli couldn't.

And as much as I wanted Elana back in my arms, I wasn't going to grab her and abandon him. He was as much family as she was.

So the whole following weekend, I had spent mulling over our options, trying to find ways to beat the system, beat the odds, but the only thing I ended up beating up was myself. The only solution I could find was to get the people after Eli off his back for good. But how did you take down a company ruled by the government?

Things had been looking bad, but then everything became much worse. I couldn't believe it when I had seen the message pop up on my screen that Monday morning.

ZoOnThat:
Caleb...?

My name. She knew my name. That could only mean one fucking thing.

Ceynius:
How the hell did
you learn my name?

But I already knew. It was like a bad omen. The only way she could've possibly found out was if somebody told her. And the only reason anyone would tell her...

ZoOnThat:
Eli's been taken.

And just like that, everything went to shit.

Suck on my dick, Garfield.

~~~

Hours later, after processing the news and doing all the research I could, I was finally at a place where my mind was clear again. I found the media clips of Eli being dragged away by the so-called 'police', but nothing to indicate or help me find him in any way. The very thing I had done everything to prevent all these weeks had happened. It all seemed like such a waste now, but there was nothing to do but move on. We had to get Eli back, and that was all that mattered.

So, we had done what needed to be done.

Avengers fucking Assemble.

I was anxious as I ascended the stairs from the subway, purelling away the Ebola on my hands with quick movements. Pulling off my hoodie for the first time in what felt like weeks, I stepped into the sun and then took a gander around the busy street, searching for an alarmingly blue shade of hair. Unless she had changed it. Man, I hoped not. I sort of liked the blue; I'd even worn my blue hoodie to match.

Suddenly, my eyes caught it; a shade of smurf-blue working its way through the crowd from my left. At first it was all I could see, the crowded street swallowing up her petite figure, but then... she appeared.

Biting my tongue and giving myself a mental slap was all I could do to not drop my jaw. She was tinier than I expected. Really tiny. Doll-sized. She was also wearing black from head to toe; black leather jacket, black cropped top and thin black fishnet leggings under a black skirt, with flat black boots with a thick sole to give her an extra inch or two. Even her eyes and fingernails were painted black as she maneuvered her way through the crowd. She'd spotted me, too. She looked me up and down just like I did her. Maybe that's how she knew it was me she was here to pick up.

Or, maybe it was the mountain of stupid that came out of my lips the very next moment.

"Holy shit, you're hotter than the bottom of my laptop."

The second she was within ear range, I couldn't help myself any longer. My mouth opened and it just blurted out hopelessly, but I had no regrets. I couldn't fucking stop staring. It was like a weird law of nature; Everything was cuter in miniature size, and Smurf surely was minia-fucking-cutia-ture.

Her big hazelnut eyes widened at my words. Then, pouting angrily, she crossed her arms and gave me a glare. God, she was so freaking cute, even when she was giving me the killer.

"What do you mean I'm hot? You've seen all my damn pictures," She barked. God help me, her first words to me was about her nudes. Was this what love felt like?

"Yeah, but your hair was covering most of your face in them. Very emo, by the way." I complimented. I'd never really been into the whole emo-thing, but she was kinda changing my mind...

She rolled her eyes, then shifted her weight onto one bony hip, but fuck me up it looked sexy. "Whatever. I'm parked down the street. Are you coming?"

In my pants? "Yes."

She spun around on her boot and begun marching back the way she came from. I couldn't help but wait a second, biting silently into my knuckles as I watched her sashay away to her car. I had only just met this girl, but I knew one thing for fucking certain.

– This one was going to swallow my future babies.

• • •

And we have touchdown, ladies and gentlemen.