—

I sat there, my mouth hanging open, hardly able to believe what I was seeing.

Rose clicked the mouse, opened up a command screen, and typed some stuff that I didn’t entirely understand. The next thing I knew she was in the school’s grading system.

I thought I was pretty tech savvy. I could build a website, secure firewalls. I knew how to code Java and make pretty little applications that did all sorts of things.

But this sort of backdoor stuff was all new to me.

I had no idea that I had been sharing a room with a bona fide hacker.

“Damn, Whelan, you are flunking,” Rose said, grimacing at the sight of my less-than-stellar grades.

“Yeah, well, it’s been a tough couple of months.”

I chewed on my thumbnail, shredding the skin between my teeth.

If we were caught, we’d be expelled. That was the last thing my mother needed on top of everything else.

Maybe I should rethink this.

This was some serious crap.

What worried me most was that beneath the fear was an excitement that thrummed through my body. It made me light-headed. I wanted to chase the feeling to wherever it led me.

The mixture of terror and anticipation was an addictive cocktail.

Heady and overwhelming.

“How did you get in there? Won’t they know you’ve breached their security?” I asked nervously.

Rose scrolled through my grades and started changing things. Nothing too noticeable. She didn’t make my Fs turn into As. She was smarter than that.

A D here. A C– there.

Nothing to warrant suspicion.

“Are you kidding? Virginia College’s online security is a joke. I’ve been hacking into their system all year.” I watched as Rose turned the 45 percent I had gotten on my statistics midterm to a healthier 69 percent. Just above failing but still in trouble.

“Why are you hacking their system to begin with?” I had to sit down. This was all too much. I felt guilty. Really guilty. This was wrong. I shouldn’t be taking such a huge chance with my future like this.

But if I didn’t, my future would involve my packing up my shit in two months and never returning.

Rose looked at me blandly, her greasy hair hanging on either side of her face. I should really talk to her about the glorious magic of shampoo. “There’s a lot of money in doctored grades.”

Of course.

It was always about the money.

She exited the grading portal and closed the browser, swiveling in her chair to face me. I was trying not to hyperventilate. I wasn’t succeeding.

I was scared.

I was oh so excited.

“All done.” She frowned, peering at me. “What’s your problem?”

“We’ll get caught. We’ll get busted and get thrown out of school.” I sounded slightly hysterical. But hopeful.

What in the hell was wrong with me?

Rose appeared annoyed. “We will not get busted.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m a lot smarter at this than the slapstick cyber squad that built this system. So stop freaking out. Let me show you how this is done; then maybe you’ll see that there’s no need to have a meltdown.”

“I don’t know—”

I did know.

But there was a part of me that hung on to the shred of hesitation. That moral compass that had guided me my entire life.

Up until this point.

When I was willing to throw it all away for a means to an end.

But I had changed. Trauma alters a person. Makes her reevaluate what was important.

And what wasn’t.

And my conscience had gotten me nowhere thus far. Maybe it was time to do things differently.

Rose made a grunt of disgust. “Look, Hannah, I don’t know you that well, but I do know you’re smart as hell. You can pick this stuff up in no time. There’s more to cracking than changing grades and fucking around with someone’s email account. You can destroy someone if you want to.” Her eyes lit up as she leaned closer to me. I backed away slightly, weirded out. I had never seen my roommate passionate about anything.

But she was clearly very passionate about this.

The angel on my shoulder was officially silenced. I hated the preachy bitch anyway.

“You can tear down the world if you know how,” she whispered.

I shivered.

“When you say you can destroy someone, what exactly do you mean?”

Rose grinned and I realized that when she wasn’t hunched over a keyboard she was kind of pretty. Aside from the hair that needed styling and pasty skin that desperately needed some sun.

“There’s much for you to learn, little grasshopper,” she cackled, and I rolled my eyes.

The anger that had been rolling in my gut since Dad and Charlotte’s accident required an outlet. I needed to put it somewhere. It was killing me. Slowly.

I thought of the contractor that had poured shitty tarmac on the roads. Tarmac that should never have been used. Careless greed had taken lives.

It wasn’t right.

People needed to pay.

I stopped chewing on my thumbnail, feeling a resolve settle in my chest. “There’s some destroying I’d like to do.”

Hannah let out a whoop and turned back to her computer. “Okay, Hannah. Welcome to Hacking 101.”

Because I was ready to watch them all burn…

—

“I was messing around with a few scripts last night. Simple coding. I thought it would be fun to use it—”

“Not now, Kyle,” I barked.

My coworker looked crestfallen and I felt momentarily guilty. It wasn’t an emotion I liked to indulge in often. It irritated me.

“Sorry, I’ve just got a lot of stuff on my mind,” I said, trying for a smile.

Kyle brightened a little. “Yeah, that’s cool. But maybe at lunch?”

I nodded, blowing out a puff of air. “Yeah, lunch. I’ll help you program some stuff.”

I didn’t mind sharing knowledge. I just had to be careful what wisdom I imparted. He couldn’t know how deep down the rabbit hole I had fallen.

“Awesome. Thanks, Hannah!” he enthused, all but bouncing back to his cubicle.

I glanced around me; everyone was already into their day. Carl was reading the latest email from his ex-wife over and over again. She really was a bitch. I almost felt bad for the guy.

Almost.

I opened up a browser and went to the local paper’s website and read the latest article about the Ryan Law hack.