Under no circumstances would Rel give in to his urge to brush his fingers through Hazel’s hair as she slept, chemical enhancement or no. Everything in him wanted to, but despite her obvious gestures of closeness, she had not expressly given him permission for any liberties, and the last time he had seen her, she had oozed outright hostility. Did he expect she had changed her mind just because he had been right about Peter Donovan?

Though his impulses seemed much more subdued, at some point in his ordeal, he had decided that genuine cause for adrenaline or a sense of Hazel’s distress could suppress the artificial rushes somewhat. He couldn’t risk that he would give in to his wishes, thinking he was safe, but then lose control when the situation had calmed down and the surges kicked back in.

He blew out a breath.

Hazel looked like some kind of smoking hot, bad-ass game character, and Rel found himself a little starstruck as he looked at her in the amazing dress and the surreal shoes. He hoped that she had found an excuse to clobber Peter Donovan with those boots.

Just as they approached the building, Rel felt Hazel begin to stir. She lifted her head and glanced, first out the window, and then up at Rel’s face.

“Oh my gosh; I am so sorry…” she worried, sitting up quickly as her skin flushed pink.

“Hazel,” he comforted, placing his hand on hers. “It’s okay. You were coming down off an adrenaline rush. You were exhausted.”

As the car slowed, Hazel swung her feet down to the floor of the car, lifting herself to a demurer posture. “I just…I have no idea what to do now. Wait,” she glanced up at the hulking shadow of a building that loomed over them. “Where are we?”

“Dragnet,” he informed, and Hazel narrowed her eyes in confusion.

“Not the NCB? Isn’t this a bit risky?”

“Vee is here; that’s all I know.” He climbed out of the vehicle and helped her out. “She has information about Peter and all this stuff that you and I have been working on.”

“But at Tomás DeSoto’s business? Is Sophie here, too?”

Rel stopped and turned to face Hazel, gripping her shoulders so he could look into her face. “Hazel, I know barely more than you do. I know that Vee told me to come here. She told me that ‘it is Peter.’ I don’t even know what is Peter. I heard it, and I came for you.” On the last sentence, he released her shoulders and looked at the ground, kicking at the gravel at his feet. He hadn’t intended to explain quite so much.

“I understand, Rel.” She looked up at him, reaching for his hand. “Thank you. I’m not sure I would have been brave enough to get away from him if I hadn’t known you were waiting for me a few feet away.”

Instead of answering, Rel just nodded and pulled her by their joined hands in through the automatic entrance. For the first time in days, he courted the contact with Hazel. Once inside the first set of doors, he paused and contacted Vee. A moment later, the second entrance opened, and he and Hazel proceeded to the elevators. As if she would bite, Rel pressed himself to the furthest corner of the cubicle.

Thinking about her last trip up an elevator, Hazel blushed, avoiding Rel’s gaze. As if he could have any idea! No, it had been Hazel’s own thoughts that had embarrassed her. She realized about halfway up that she wasn’t thinking of Peter – she was imagining a scene like the one with Peter, but with Rel instead. She shivered. That’s unrealistic, she assured herself. He almost emanated discomfort as he crammed his mammoth form into a corner. Blowing out a breath, Hazel turned to the elevator doors as if impatient for them to open. When they did open, she rushed out into the large lobby of the fortieth floor.

With none of the interior lights on, the view afforded three walls of floor to ceiling windows and the lighted skyline outside, and despite all the chaos compelling her at the moment, Hazel paused. She scanned the panorama slowly, letting the beauty calm her.

“I don’t think I would spend a night anywhere but here if I owned this place.” Rel approached her and stood with her shoulder to shoulder.

“Peter’s place is like this,” she murmured, not sure if the memory made her sad about losing Peter or relieved that she was not trapped with him.

“I’m sorry, Hazel,” Rel turned his face down to address her. “I know you were close.”

Hazel rubbed her hands up and down on her arms. “I just keep thinking that there is something there, a conscience and a heart that I can reach. But I think I’m just attributing my own motives to him…”

“No one is without a heart,” Rel insisted. “But some people’s hearts are beyond reaching until they crash and burn.”

Turning to face Rel, Hazel shrugged. “And Peter is not likely to crash and burn, despite all of this stuff we are attempting. He’s too smart, and he’s gotten enough power that he’s basically invulnerable.”

“Basically,” Rel reached for her arm – she was scared. “But don’t underestimate what we’ve got going here.”

Hazel finally smiled up at him, reading a completely different meaning into his words than he intended. When he processed the possible implications, his eyes popped open in anxiety.

“You’re right,” Hazel agreed, clamping her hand on the arm he had reached for her. “We have a good thing going.” Rather than let go of him, she slid her hand down to his and clasped their fingers together, leading him toward the apparent office door.

Ignoring his fear, he left his hand in hers.

A moment later, Vee opened the door in their faces, welcoming them into Tomás’s office. When she noticed their clasped hands, she raised an eyebrow at Rel who just shrugged. He hadn’t stopped grinning.

“Hazel,” gushed Mr. DeSoto, noting the joined hands of the pair as they entered. “I am so glad that you are safe.” And I guess you are safe from Peter, too, he added silently, pleased that he had not caused her too much distress.

“I’m glad you’re safe, too, and Sophie. I was very worried after you wrote that note. How are you able to talk to me about this now? Are you not monitored?”

Tomás ran his hand over his hair. “My Wire…was removed, and it is hooked up to false vitals in another room. I’m like you, now.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” imposed Vee. “We have a lot to do in the next few days, and we don’t know what it is yet. I think it would be a good idea to make a gameplan.”

Hazel turned to the older woman. “I would think there is a lot more we could do now, with the resources of the government.”

The other three occupants of the room exchanged looks, and Rel pulled Hazel to face him. “We can’t use the resources of the government,” he explained. “There are too many people who are compromised. We could ask for help, but we would be asking people to put their children in danger if they helped us.”

“You know how likely that is to work,” Hazel huffed, nodding toward her best friend’s father.

“I made insane compromises to save my daughter, and stupid decisions when I decided to fight back,” Tomás agreed, his eyes dropping in regret.

“But maybe we could –” Hazel began, but Tomás cut her off.

“I need to tell you something, Hazel, and I need to tell you before you continue to help here.”

The air seemed to suck out of the room, and Hazel stared into the tense faces of Vee and Tomás. When she glanced at Rel, he shrugged, as clueless as she was.

“What is it?” Hazel prompted. “Why do you both look like you’re terrified?”

“You have to understand,” Tomás began, “that Peter Donovan had been using my daughter to control me. When I tried to stand against him, he sent her into cardiac arrest – for the second time. And the second time, he did not stop. Only when your friend there and Ms. Garrison intervened was she released. I was devastated.”

“Mr. DeSoto, please. I know how bad things were for you. But please just tell me. You’re killing my anxiety.”

Tomás DeSoto huffed out a breath and said nothing for a moment. Finally, he closed his eyes and began his explanation.

“I heard you talking to Sophie.” His eyes opened, and he reached a hand as if to touch her arm. “I know I should not have, but I was coming up the stairs and you were there, talking. I heard about Peter – about your confusion at his interest. I admit: I was not thinking about you. Peter was using something I valued to make me help him commit a horrible act. I knew of nothing Peter valued – until I heard you.”

“What did you do?”

“I gave one of my techs a command – I had access to all the schematics of every building in this town – and I reverse-engineered a command that caused a short in your Bridge security panel in your home.”

Hazel gasped, grasping her hands to her stomach as if someone had punched her.

“The foam system should have kicked in, but it didn’t.”

As she felt herself reeling, Rel’s hand appeared and helped her to a chair a few feet behind her. Mr. DeSoto? Her mind couldn’t grasp it, even in his desperation – it was so heartless. Plus, his comment on the foam brought to mind an earlier moment that created a mental dissonance, a déjà vu disconnect that stripped her ability to focus.

“Understand,” came the unexpected voice of Vee Garrison, “that Mr. DeSoto is currently under my supervision with potential criminal charges pending. We know – and he knows – that this is no small offense. In fact, he confessed, or we never would have known. He wanted to make sure we understood the danger of what Peter Donovan has been doing.”

It was heartless, Hazel fully believed that, but the word “criminal” kicked her out of her disbelief. Rel had crouched beside her chair and wrapped his arm across her shoulders, rubbing his hand on her arm, and she turned to look at him, her croaking voice eking out past the lump in her throat. “Criminal?” she wondered. “Surely he was under some duress. It was Sophie. I was there when she almost died. It was horrible.”

Shaking his head, Rel peered deeply into her eyes and raised his hand to cup her cheek. She still held her arms across her stomach, in pain from the revelation, yet she managed to feel concern for the man who had caused the pain. Sometimes, Rel couldn’t believe she existed.

Vee exchanged a look with Tomás, and she read there a mix of shame and relief. “Duress is part of the reason he is still here,” she continued. “I plan to argue vehemently that he was in extreme circumstances which should be taken into consideration.”

“But, Hazel,” Tomás insisted. “It is a miracle that no one was hurt. I will pay the civil damages, but the potential for injury or loss-of-life cannot be ignored. I need to face judgment – for the sake of my own conscience as well as for the justice owed others.”

With a steeling breath, Hazel looked away from Rel, leaning against him for strength. “Um…I’m probably the person least affected by this in the apartment building. I have very few possessions. I think it’s only fair that you bear some responsibility…”

“And he will,” Vee assured.

Once she had forced herself back into thought, her mind’s dissonance suddenly resolved, and she realized why Tomás’s words had confused her. Her Pulse sped. “I think Peter might have caused it.”

She saw Rel’s head tilt in confusion in her peripheral vision. “Caused what?” he wondered.

“The failure of the fire suppressant system. I didn’t have any suspicions about Peter at the time, but he said something that night. ‘Makes sense that if it were going to happen it would happen in that ancient building.’”

“I’m not one to give that guy the benefit of the doubt, but that doesn’t prove anything.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “But then he said, ‘Your staying here will be pretty convenient.’ You don’t know. Everything Peter says means something, though if you pinned him on it, he would deny it. Mr. DeSoto checked the system, but it failed anyway. And Peter wanted me staying at his apartment. He had really ramped up the pressure on me to start dating him – or whatever his version of that would have looked like.”

The knot had loosened in her stomach as she talked, and at her last words, she felt Rel tense. Despite her shock, one side of her mouth raised in a subtle smile. Rel did not like the idea of her dating Pete. Touched, she reached for his free hand and laced their fingers together. She felt him relax.

“So,” she continued, “now we have that out of the way and can start figuring out how we can fix this.”

With a glance at Rel, Hazel stepped over to Mr. DeSoto, and Vee stepped up beside Rel to take the taller woman’s place. “She suits you,” Vee whispered.

“Not going there yet, Vee.”

“Well, she’s like some Amazon queen, what with those broad shoulders and height that makes me feel Lilliputian.”

Rel pursed his lips at her.

“It’s a compliment, Paul Bunyan. I’m incredibly jealous of her. You have to understand that none of us short girls ever get to be models, so we grouse about the unfairness of it all.”

“She’s kind of Goldilocks.”

“Goldilocks?”

“Just right,” he grinned, staring at Hazel as he made the stupid joke. “So, whatever you think, doesn’t really affect me.”

“I think she’s amazing, but my opinion shouldn’t matter anyway. I have formulas to figure out my relationships, and you see how that has worked out.”

With a surprising laugh, Rel turned to Vee. “I think I do see,” he smirked, turning back to Hazel and Tomás.

In a completely uncharacteristic move, Vee blushed, though likely no one would notice on her warm chestnut countenance. “You see nothing,” she murmured, letting one corner of her mouth lift as she and Rel stared at the pair.

+++++++++++++++

“Ziyad, I need you to do something for me,” Peter implored his business cohort.

“What is it? You sound intense.”

“Yeah, pull up the play feed for a gamer named ExDominus in Trip. I need to find out who he plays with. It’s a name I’m looking for to finalize the Deconstruction.”

“I thought we managed all those…” Ziyad leveled dumbly. When Peter didn’t answer, Ziyad just acquiesced. “Okay, Peter. I’m on it. I’ll get back to you in half an hour.”

The Bridge schematic stretched out behind him, but Peter just stared out the window at the lights of the city that spattered across the night. Somewhere out there, the only person he had brought into his life stood beyond his detection, disconnected, and she was sitting in judgment of him.

If she had thought for two seconds, Hazel would have realized that she could not possibly judge him. Not only had he been the one who had created the system he intended to crash, he could see things that she could not see. She was a gamer - nothing else – and the reason he had kept her around after he had gained an infinite amount of resources was because he knew she would let him push her to whatever he wanted. She had no right to decide the virtue of his actions. He knew what would happen if he didn’t shut down the Bridge – not today, maybe not in his lifetime, but eventually. And yet she had not just judged him. She had run away from him, rejected him. Resisted him to the point of violence.

She had nowhere to run, of course. Her apartment was gone, so she would go to the DeSoto home. Just as he had done with Mr. DeSoto, Peter would manage Hazel through Sophie. Pete could feel no remorse for his treatment of Sophie – the woman had never liked him, had been jealous of his relationship with Hazel. If he sent Sophie crashing, Hazel would know, and she would have no choice but to seek him out to save her friend.

Peter simply had to talk to Hazel.

If he could have five minutes with her, he could persuade her. He could combine reason and fear and pressure and assurances and have her so confused by the end of the conversation that she would be glad to stay with him. Probably, he could even convince her that the Bridge needed to shut down.

He just couldn’t let her shut him out.

Turning back to the schematic, he honed in on the DeSoto home. No Wires on the premises. Surely, Sophie was still too weak to go anywhere. With Mr. DeSoto’s resources, though, maybe she could have a nurse cart her around. Peter searched out her Wire, but nothing showed up. Had they managed to disconnect her from the Bridge? Not without Mr. DeSoto, and Peter could see the comatose vital signs still beeping away at the Dragnet building.

“Damn it!” He grabbed a coaster off the nearby table and sent it crashing into the stone wall across the room, where it shattered and scattered clay dust in a half-circle on the floor.

Peter shook his head, clearing it so he could think of the next step. Before he let Hazel distract him, he needed to activate the next step in the Deconstruction. It would take him only a few moments, a few messages sent, and then he could place that aside for the next couple of days.

If he knew one thing, he knew that Hazel would show up for the Partie. All of his pressure over the past week or so, combined with the loss of her apartment and Sophie’s recovery, had distracted Hazel, but Hazel could not afford to blow off the Partie. Not only that, but she lived for the game. Trip had saved her after the Crash, and she needed it more than she needed anything else. Maybe she would wait a day – at most two – but she would be back online in the game very soon, and with a simple command, the Bridge would alert him when she did. He could not afford to leave her out there with the knowledge she had betrayed to him. With the knowledge that she had betrayed him.

Until he found her, though, Peter would implement some other plans that would likely lead him in her direction.