Page 97 of Hidden

The second guy is back up, who the fuck are these people?

Both of them are on me. I'm the one they came for. Whatever they think I found, they knew I was getting close.

Good, that means I found something real, and if they think I’m going to stop after this, they don’t know anything about me. I’m never going to stop until I find out who they are and close them down.

My head connects with the floor, and a white burst explodes behind my eyes that I breathe through. I keep moving and keep fighting. One of them has my right arm pinned behind my back. I get my left hand into his jacket pocket while he's focused on keeping me down, my fingers closing around something hard and rectangular.

A phone. I get it out and into my waistband in the two seconds before he shifts his weight and drives an elbow into my ribs.

The pain is immediate. One rib, maybe two, fucking cracked at most.

I keep fighting.

The second guy hits me across the face, then a second time. The taste of blood comes from somewhere, my lip maybe, or inside the cheek. I can feel my eye starting to swell on the left side. Suddenly, the first guy stops and stands up, then he steps back. The second guy steps back too.

Standing over me he looks down at me. They’re taking their time about it, they're not finishing this today, which means this wasn’t about killing me. This was about sending me a message.

The first one crouches. He gets close enough that I can see the outline of his face in the dark. His voice is accented, Eastern European.

"Stay away," he says. "Or next time you won't be breathing."

He stands and they both leave through the front door, the same way they came in.

The lights come back on suddenly, and the brightness is jarring after the dark. I lie on the floor for a moment and let my eyes adjust and take inventory.

My ribs on the left side. Yes, they’re cracked.

My face, left eye, and my lip, are all bleeding.

I roll to my side and get one knee under me and stand, which takes longer than it should. The room comes back into focus.

Declan is on his feet, the phones already powering back on. Crawford emergencies have taught him the same lesson they've taught the rest of us. Move first, ask questions later.

"Fuck," I say to nobody in particular. It comes out rough, the rib making itself known every time my lungs expand.

"We need to go to Mum and Dad's," Mason says. "Now."

"No."

"Miles…"

"No." I find the wall with one hand and use it. "They got into my system; I need to know how. I need to know what they accessed, what they saw, and what I have to rebuild before I go anywhere."

"You need a hospital." Mason tries to fight with me, but he can fight all he wants, I'm not leaving.

"I need to figure out how they broke my software."

"Miles." Mason's voice carries the edge it always does once he's done arguing. "You can barely stand."

He's right. I know he's right because the room is doing something it shouldn't be doing and my left hand is on the wall for a reason. I breathe through it, carefully, because of the pain tearing through my ribs.

Declan is looking at me with the steady assessment of someone running calculations. "What did they take?"

"Nothing from the rig, I pulled it before they got in." I shift my weight to test the ribs. "They got into the laptop remotely. I don't know how deep they were before I killed the connection."

"How long do you need?"

"Hours, maybe more."