lack of light, he saw her bite her quivering bottom lip and look away from him. She was breathing rapidly and spun her head back to the door, but she let him hold her briefly.
A feeling Trey assumed was fear, accentuated by a hint of panic, started to pour through his veins like liquid mercury — slippery and toxic.
A.J. had become increasingly erratic over the last few weeks. The logical part of Trey’s brain sensed she was hiding something from him. Every aspect of her had been changing more by the day, and she would disappear for hours on end. Trey’s practical instinct told him to demand A.J. tell him the truth. He’d even considered spying on her and reading her emails.
Yet, he’d repeatedly let the stupid lovesick part of himself win out — choosing to trust her and their feelings for each other. He deliberately ignored whatever signs were warning him something terrible was coming to destroy what they had. Fury with his own stupidity started to boil that mercury coursing through his body — making him embrace his own form of insanity.
He gritted his teeth, desperate to take control of the situation. Maybe if he’d been more tough with her before, rather than let her have her way all the time, they wouldn’t be in this situation — whatever it was.
With firm hands, he grabbed A.J.‘s upper arms and twisted her body to him. Her silence enraged him, and he could feel his self-control slipping away.
He sensed the code of his Adler-family DNA taking over his body after so many weeks of suppressing it. Leaping to his feet, he stood her up roughly, shaking her body and shouting at her brusquely, “Goddamn it, A.J. — I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the fuck is going on. Now!”
Her mouth dropped open, clearly shocked at how he’d changed with her.
“We don’t have much time. Can’t I tell you on the way?”
He just growled in response, squeezing her arms harder.
“Trey, you’re hurting my arms.”
“You’re hurting me. Tell me…please,” he said, his voice somber and pleading.
“I-I started playing with the Starling virus. I wanted to see what it could do…”
“What?”
Trey’s hands fell, and the fury in his veins turned to chilling terror in an instant.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. It was just to see if I could do it. I thought if I made it bigger and controlled it…you’d be so impressed.”
“Why would you want to do that? You already know I think you’re amazing.”
“But we created the virus together. When you scaled it back without telling me, I thought you were just trying to protect me. I wanted you to see I could handle all this on my own — to make you really believe in me.”
“I told you — you can’t push it. Did the school find out? What happened?”
He rushed to his computer and started damage control — deleting every file and all the information they’d received, desperately trying to turn back time.
Her voice came through the room, thick as cotton candy, “Then I saw how much money we could make. I thought we could be set for life…”
Trey’s fingers stopped and he turned to her. It was suddenly far too clear to him.
“No, A.J. Please tell me you didn’t. Who?”
“Trey…”
“Who did you try to sell it to?” he roared.
“I don’t know their names, but they’re from Russia.”
“Holy shit. Russians?”
Trey felt like someone had kicked him in the gut. He bent at the waist, running his hands through his hair so hard it hurt his scalp. The world he’d been trying to build with A.J. was shattering right before his eyes, as though a catastrophic earthquake had split the ground beneath them — wreaking havoc on everything in their vicinity — and all he could do was helplessly watch.
Trey swallowed roughly around the strangling sensation from the destruction of his own stupid reality, and choked out, “Are you nuts, A.J.? You’re going to get us killed.”
“I swear, I had it all set up. I was using dummy accounts, fake identities, and everything. But I never got the payment yesterday. I was going through all the information today and they accessed it from just a few miles away. They’re here, Trey. I mean it…we have to leave.”
“Yes. We have to get fucking gone,” he answered stonily. Trey felt his head nod involuntarily along with his words. He moved quickly through the dorm, grabbing his computer and other necessities, as A.J. collected the bag she’d packed for