Last Girl Ghosted(46)

Inside the room, I set up my laptop, charge my phone, put my overnight bag in the closet. Flipping on the switch that lights the gas fireplace, I stare into the flames for a moment.

I put Dear Birdie and Wren Greenwood into their respective boxes.

I log into Tor, also known as The Onion Router, a way to log on to the dark web. A place where you go online when you don’t want to be followed.

Because there are two different internets. The one we all know and can’t live without. The shiny, frenetic mess of every person you’ve ever met, and all the information you need, and every single thing you want to buy. There are the bright, candy colors of social media sites, and coupon clearing houses, and places to store your million photos—and edit, and print, and make a mug! It’s a confessional. A world news hub. A cookbook. A radio. A television. Your portal to the universe where every question that has ever been asked, has also been answered with varying degrees of accuracy.

And then there’s the strange, ugly, netherworld of the dark web. That’s where I’ll find the person who can help me find you.



twenty-one


I follow Robin through the dark. She runs like a rabbit, impossibly agile and swift. Wait, I want to call after her. But I have no voice; terror and exertion have taken it. I have a stitch in my side; my throat is sandpaper. There are footfalls behind me, someone crashing through the forest—bigger, even clumsier than I, groaning. I stumble, fall and skin one knee, scramble to my feet again and keep running.

Up here.

There she is in the tree house. Her face is a tiny moon in the dark sky of the window.

Quick, before he sees you.

I scramble up, silent and fast. It’s minutes before he goes hulking past, roaring in pain and anger. A monster. A bear. The boogeyman. My father. He heaves and pitches, my name a wail in the night. But he never looks up, lurches away.

His voice grows fainter until the forest swallows it. Silence. Just my ragged breath. Robin sits on her haunches in the corner, legs stick skinny, hair a tangled nest.

We created a nature table in the tree house—especially beautiful leaves, interestingly shaped rocks, a bird’s nest and some broken blue eggs, an owl pellet, a snail shell, a big black feather, a piece of wood charred by lightning, a tiny skull probably belonging to a mouse.

This is a crow feather maybe, says Robin, pointing to the shining bent thing. She’s trying to distract me. She’s not afraid of him like I am.

“That seems right,” I say, my voice shaking, my breath still shallow. “I’ve seen lots of crows lately.”

They’re smart. Did you know that? They remember people, hold grudges. They’re thieves—especially of shiny things. They eat anything. They’re survivors like us.

She hands me the feather. It glows blue-black in the moonlight.

You’ll be okay, she whispers.

We lie on our backs and watch the starry night through the slats in the roof, hearts beating. Somewhere an owl hoots, mournful and wise.

I wake, drooling on my keyboard, with a blistering headache and a terrible longing. I can feel and smell those woods, that tree house.

How can you be homesick for a place you hated?

My computer is pinging. I log in and the screen comes to life.

Think of the dark web as a kind of night market, a place where you might buy any type of illegal paraphernalia from guns to drugs, hire any kind of services from hit men to hookers, and do so without being tracked by the any of the things that track you on the World Wide Web. This is where I found the man who helped me become someone else, at least online. You’re never supposed to contact him again unless it’s an emergency, but I’ve logged on to his site and opened a chat box.

I’m found, I wrote, and identified myself by the code name he gave me long ago: lostgirl. I fell asleep waiting.

Now there’s a curt response: Not my problem. No guarantees in this business.

I opt for honest begging: Please help me.

What do you want?
What do I want? Good question. I found this man when I was trying to create an online presence for Wren Greenwood, effectively burying my past in a digital grave. I thought it meant that no one would ever connect my past to my present. But it obviously didn’t work. So what do I want from him now?

Hello?
Can you help me find the man who found me? I type.

He found you? Now you want to find him?
Another good point. I think about just dropping this. But no. If he can help, I need him to. So, instead I type, It’s complicated.

That’s a pretty common relationship status these days.
Can you help me?
Hard to say.
What do you need to find him?
The red cursor blinks. I wonder if he’ll just disappear and never answer me again. He—I think it’s a he?—and I have never met. I don’t know his name, what he looks like, where he lives. But he helped me construct an online past for an identity that wasn’t mine. Now, if he doesn’t answer me, there’s really nothing I can do.

I wait, foot tapping, agitation growing. Outside the sun is setting, the sky a morose steel gray. I’m so tired. It feels like midnight. But the clock says it’s only 3:30 p.m. Shit. Dear Birdie. I have to call Jax.

I sweat it out another ten minutes, watching the screen. I’m about to give up on this when he answers: Send me everything you have on him. I’ll see what I can do.

He gives me an email address that is just a series of numbers and a server name I’ve never seen before.