Warcross (Warcross #1)(47)

Finally, I arrive at what little I have of Ren’s information. Most of it is of no consequence—plans for setting up equipment for the opening-night party; mail from fans. There’s one Memory of him, recorded at a party from last year, where he’s kissing a girl backstage as someone onstage is announcing his name. I clear my throat and turn my eyes away. Thankfully, the Memory shifts to Ren heading to his instruments in the center of the stage.

Everything else in Ren’s files is encrypted, including a few emails I’d managed to retrieve from his trash. I swipe through each one. No matter what I run on them, each one looks like a cube of gibberish floating in my view, locked tight behind a shield.

That’s when I finally run across something that makes me pause.

It’s a deleted email hidden behind his menagerie of shields, hovering in my view as a locked cube. I turn it in midair. When I do, I notice a tiny, recurring marker at the edge of each side of the cube.

“Well, well,” I whisper, sitting up taller. Any feelings of guilt I’d had now fly right out of my head. “What’s this?”

The marker is a red dot, barely noticeable, part of the message’s encryption. And right beside it, in the tiniest letters, is the inscription WC0.

So Ren was the silhouette in the Wardraft. Based on the red dot, this message was sent to him from inside the Dark World.

I sit back on my bed and furrow my brow. This means that not only was Ren the one I’d been tracking at the Wardraft, not only was he inside the Dark World recently, but he is talking to others there.

And no one goes into the Dark World unless they’re doing something illegal.





14



The first time I’d set foot in the Dark World was during my first bounty hunt.

I was sixteen, and on my own. The boss of a local New York street gang had put out a $2,500 bounty on one of his members, and I’d seen it as a brief mention in some online forum.

I’d read about other young people like me trying their luck in the competitive bounty hunter world. They seemed to have no special skill that I didn’t have, and it looked like a way—if you were good—to make a comfortable income. The best bounty hunters could rake in six figures a year.

I had another reason to go after this bounty. My father owed $2,000 in gambling debt. After he died, I’d made a promise to myself to not fall into working for anyone in the criminal world—but in order to do that, I had to free myself from this debt. Otherwise, the people Dad owed the money to would come looking for me the instant I turned eighteen.

So I did as much research as I could about how to get into the Dark World. I honestly thought that by following a few online guides, I would somehow be able to waltz into this den of crime unscathed.

The Dark World operates by no rule except one: Stay anonymous. Your safety is only as good as your disguise. I learned this the hard way after I made my way into the world, found my target, and tracked him down in real life. Only then did I realize that I’d accidentally exposed a part of my identity while in the Dark World. In no time, my personal information—age, history, location—was broadcast to the entire Dark World, and my equipment was compromised.

I got the money, paid off my father’s gambling debt. But over the next few months, I completely gutted my laptop and phone, stayed off-line and out of sight, kept the lowest profile I could. Even then, I’d get weird phone calls in the middle of the night, strange letters delivered in the mail. The occasional threat left on my physical doorstep. Eventually, I had to move.

I never worked for a gang again. It would be months more before I gathered the courage to return online.

That’s the thing about the Dark World: You can prepare for it all you want, but the only way to truly understand it is to head in.

? ? ? ? ?

“MISS CHEN,” HIDEO says as our call connects. “Good to hear from you.”

It’s the next morning, before training begins again in earnest, and Hideo’s virtual image is in my room, leaning forward in his office chair and resting his elbows on his desk. The single streak of silver in his hair catches some of the light filtering in from his windows. Beside him, Kenn is standing close to the desk with his hands in his pockets in a way that tells me I’d interrupted a conversation they were having. He glances at me over his shoulder. Two bodyguards stand at attention behind them.

“Calling so soon with an update?” Kenn remarks. He glances back at Hideo. “Maybe you really did find your perfect bounty hunter.”

I try to feel professional in my bare feet and shredded black jeans. “You must’ve been busy since the opening ceremony party,” I say to Hideo. My eyes dart briefly to Kenn. “Am I interrupting some business?”

“You are the business,” Kenn replies. “We were just talking about you.”

“Oh.” I clear my throat. “Good things, I hope.”

Kenn grins. “I’d say so.” He pushes away from Hideo’s desk without explaining his words further. “I’ll leave you both to it, then. Have fun.”

Hideo exchanges a glance with Kenn. “We’ll pick up again in a bit.”

Kenn steps out of sight. Hideo watches him go, then gestures briefly at the door with one hand. Without a word, his two bodyguards bow their heads and head out of the room, leaving Hideo alone.

When they’re gone, he turns back to me. “I hope life has been pleasant since you took all the attention at the Wardraft.”