The image glitches out, and the video goes dark.
We just stare at it, the black screen screaming at us.
Jackson stands up and throws his stool to the ground. Stevie flinches, ducking behind the island.
“Saturday is tomorrow,” Jackson growls.
“Yes, well, Saturday generally follows Friday,” Parker drawls, but his voice is devoid of all humor.
Jackson turns to him, a murderous intent in his eyes. It’s hard for Jackson to snap, his tolerance for bullshit higher than the average person’s. But when he does blow? There’s no stopping him until he comes down. I put my arm up to pause him, giving him a look. Our emotions are on the fritz, we need to take a step back.
Parker pulls out his phone and brings it to his ear.
“Who are you calling?” I nod at him.
“Sydney.”
Right. Shit. She’s going to be pissed we didn’t call her the minute we found Stevie in the apartment. But we need her, she’ll know what to do. Because right now, whatever we decide won’t be the right decision.
I understand everything that just happened, but my brain just won’t process it. It doesn’t seem real, like a deep fake or some shit.
I’m in denial. Deep, deep, deep denial.
It’s not possible. Ten years. I’ve been Blade for ten years. And some person just appears out of thin air, having solved a puzzle I’d purposely lost the pieces to?
I was careful. We were all careful. We had a plan for everything, knew what our safety measures were. This should never have happened.
But it did. Because while I spent years perfecting the code of my life, making sure the system was flawless, I didn’t account for my own backdoor. That I would create a glitch, one that opened me up to vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities that would let someone crack the code.
The glitch could have been anyone, anything; it just happened to be Stevie in this scenario.
It would be so easy to blame her, to let her take the fall for our emotions, but that would be wrong. We all let down our guards, we got comfortable. I have no regrets when it comes to Stevie. None at all.
But I have no idea what any of this means. If we can’t stop the information from leaking, what does that mean for The System? What happens to us?
I walk over and sink to the floor next to Stevie, letting my armor shatter as I lean into her. She’s stiff at first, but then she relaxes against me, the tension leaving her body.
“Who am I if I’m not Blade?”
“Aleksander Knight.” She says it so simply.
“Aleksander Knight is nothing.”
The fears that I’ve pushed down since I was a kid bubble their way up, the insecurities that I masked, literally, cracking through. Becoming NightBlade32 made me feel special. Everyone wants to know Blade, fuck Blade, be Blade. And I am Blade. I’m the source of their jealousy, their envy, and it feels fantastic to have a throne among the other gods of Olympus.
No one’s ever cared about Aleksander Knight.
There’s nothing special about Aleksander Knight.
A fire lights in Stevie’s puffy eyes, her body coming alive for the first time in hours. “Aleksander Knight is my everything. You are my everything. Eisai i psychi mou.” Stevie reaches up and holds my face. “I know it might feel like Blade is a separate person, a persona you’ve built, but that is you. Aleksander Knight exists without Blade, but Blade doesn’t exist without Aleksander Knight. All those trophies? All those awards? You won them. Aleksander Knight is the streaming superstar behind Blade. You are the creator, and that makes you a god.”
I feel her fire warm my veins, her words recharging me.
“I know I’ve been a complete mess, a zombie. I’m acting like my world is falling apart, when really, it’s yours. I’ve been selfish, and it’s because I can’t bear the thought of losing you. You are the blood in my veins, my heart beats for you, but I’ve just injected a poison into my bloodstream, and I don’t know whether it will kill us or not.”
“It won’t.” I hold her hands. “I’ll suck the poison out myself if I have to.”
“I was so scared you’d hate me.”
“I could never hate you. This isn’t your fault.”
She rests her forehead against mine. “Aleks, you are Blade, even without the mask.”
“But will people still want Blade without the mask?”
Will they want the man behind the mystery if there is no mystery?
“I don’t know, agapi mou.” Her honesty burns. “But I have to believe they will. Because I still want you.”
I hug her to my chest.
I won’t lose her, and I won’t lose myself.
I’m Aleksander Knight and I’m NightBlade32. I’m one of the best. This person thinks they’ve got everything figured out, that they’ve solved the map, but they don’t realize that I’m the moderator and I create my own rules.
Renewed strength flows through me like an energy potion.
Sydney comes striding out of the elevator, laptop tucked under one arm, a briefcase in the other. “Alright, hit me with it. Where’s the evidence?”
We all point to the laptop still sitting open on the island.
Sydney scrolls through all the photos, jotting down her own notes as she goes. We see her face harden as the images of herself pop up, but she powers through, her mind working at its best. She watches the video over and over, listening for something.
“She’s a woman on a mission,” Stevie whispers.
“She’s our publicist.”
“It’s weird, isn’t it, that they couldn’t figure me out?” Jackson sits next to Syd, looking over her notes.
“Not really, you can clearly tell that this person was targeting Stevie. They only ever found you guys when you were with her. Doesn’t seem like they could track you otherwise. Even after they’d found the apartment, they had to rely on Stevie to know where you were because our security is so high. She was the weak link.”
Stevie winces.
“Sorry, hon, just stating the facts.”
“It’s fine, I knew all that.” She slumps against me.
“But the threat is against us, not Stevie. She was just a means to an end. Why not just send the flash drive to us?” Parker counters, swiping more tiny calming cookies from the bowl. I’m pretty sure he’s eaten thirty at this point. I don’t think they’re helping.
“Probably because your mail gets screened. Security would have flagged this in an instant. All of management would have been called in, you boys wouldn’t have had a chance to decide how to deal with anything. They used Stevie to bypass that.”
“Actually, I have another reason.” Stevie gets up and grabs the decrepit roses, dropping them on the island. Syd eyes them with disgust.
“What the hell happened to those?”
A bitter laugh leaves Stevie. “I did.” She points at them. “I’ve been receiving pink roses for weeks now. Ever since Chase and I broke up. He used to get them for me all the time while we were dating. They’re his thing.”
“What? Why did you never mention this to me?” I shoot to my feet, and she holds her hands out defensively, trying to calm my bristling tiger.
“Because they stopped. After our date at Moira, he went radio silent. These flowers and that thumb drive are the first I’ve heard from him in weeks.”