Page 7 of Black Reign

Then we built NULL.

Our own private encrypted room.

Our own little digital country with a population of two.

There have been weeks when we barely speak.

Months when we talk every night.

Sometimes she disappears.

Sometimes I do.

Then one of us drops a message into the dark and the other returns as though no time has passed.

I've never called it love.

That would be ridiculous.

I've never seen her entire face.

I've never heard her voice.

I don't know where she lives.

I don't know what her go-to drink is, whether she sleeps with the windows open, or what she looks like first thing in the morning.

I don't even know if Vesper is remotely close to her real name.

But I know how she thinks—and that might be worse.

The photographs haven't helped.

They started innocent enough.

Bare feet on a balcony.

My hand wrapped around a whiskey glass.

Her hair falling over one shoulder.

My wrist beneath a white cuff.

Then she sent me her mouth.

That one remains an act of war.

Full lower lip caught beneath white teeth.

Nothing above her nose.

No identifying background.

No jewelry.

Nothing I could run.

I stared at it longer than a stable man should admit.