Without Regret (Pyte/Sentinel #2)(21)

Stronger? Her?

Um no, she thought. If anything she’d always thought of herself as weaker than most people. She’d always been smaller than everyone else, even as a baby. When her mother had been pregnant with her and her brother the doctors expressed their concern that she was too small and probably wouldn’t survive. After a second and third opinion her parents had resigned themselves to her loss.

They hadn’t even bothered buying a crib or clothes for her. All of their focus went to her unborn brother. Her father had decorated the nursery into a boy’s dream room with exotic animals painted all over the walls, dinosaurs toys and sports memorabilia. Her mother filled the drawers and closet full of little boy clothes and actually started a pregnancy journal for him. She wasn’t even mentioned in the book.

When her brother hadn’t survived the birth her parents had been distraught. She knew they’d never expected that outcome and that her brother’s death had hurt them because they’d fallen in love with him the moment they found out about him. When she came out kicking and screaming they’d simply resigned themselves to her existence. Not that they’d ever have to say it, but she knew they blamed her for her brother’s death.

She knew it in the way they looked at her and pretty much ignored her. They provided her with the basics, roof over her head, clothes and food and minimal care until she could start doing things for herself. They hadn’t cared what she did just as long as she stayed out of their way. The only times they concerned themselves with her was when the police or FBI came knocking on their door because she may have hacked into one or a few hundred companies. Of course she knew there was nothing to worry about since she’d covered her tracks.

It also helped that her parents had no clue about what she was up to. Not that they tried to help her or were even upset when she was dragged out of the house in cuffs, but then again what parent was going to think their eight year old daughter was really responsible for crashing a large company’s server? She hadn’t been worried that the charges would stick. Even then she knew she had a special touch with computers that no one else could understand. She’d covered her tracks well. If it hadn’t been for the damn dial up connection (which she thanked god every day that she no longer had to use) they wouldn’t have had anything on her.

Thankfully the judge had been computer illiterate at the time and couldn’t fathom a young child doing the damage the team of highly paid lawyers was accusing her of. Granted the next five judges had a hard time thinking it was a coincidence, but then again they didn’t have any real evidence against her, which really was a blessing since the public defenders she kept getting stuck with didn’t really seem to know what they were doing. Even she had to admit that it was a little unnerving when they kept mumbling, “oh my god, oh my god” over and over again during the trial.

She’d learned quickly not to expect much from any of the public defenders assigned to her. Although she really wished they’d been able to get her out on bail, not that her parents would have forked over the money.

Unfortunately for her she seemed to fit in less at juvenile hall than she had at school, which really shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Short, smart mouthed computer geeks really didn’t do well with large girls who liked to entertain themselves by playing, “Beat the crap out of the nerd.”

Thankfully she’d learned during her second stay at Juvie that she fit quite nicely behind one of the bookcases in the small library, which was a good thing since her mouth constantly seemed to get her in trouble. The only thing that she would agree with Chris was that she was pretty fast, but then again anyone who had to run away from a girl nicknamed Big Bertha would have to be.

“You’re not really buying any of this are you?” Chris asked, breaking into her thoughts with a heavy semi annoyed sigh, making her wonder what she’d missed, but not actually caring enough to ask him to repeat himself.

“Would you let me go if I said yes?” she asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

His eyes narrowed on her as he let out, in her opinion, an adorable little growl that would probably scare the hell out of most women. She really needed to get the hell out of here before she did something stupid like blush.

“Why don’t we go talk out in the hall?” Ephraim suggested, gesturing for Chris to follow him out into the hall.

With one last look of annoyance in her direction, Chris stood up and reluctantly followed his “father” out of the room, giving her a good view of a rather delicious butt and golden back muscles that she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off of. Thankfully the sound of the door closing caught her attention.

Her eyebrows shot up in disbelief as she looked around the empty sitting room. Did they really think she was going to sit here and wait for them? She inwardly snorted at that as she crawled over the arm of the couch and headed over to the open window. Even though they were on the first floor it was a bit of a drop to the ground from the window. They probably had a deep basement, she decided as she carefully raised the screen as she kept an eye on the door.

By the time they realized what she did she’d be long gone, she thought with a smug little smile.

Chapter 7

“This isn’t working,” Chris said as soon as the door shut behind him.

Ephraim shook his head as he leaned back against the banister. “No, it’s not.”