"You're acting out, Janey."

The garden was rotating slowly in the air, suspended by invisible threads in the sky. A sea of clouds drifted beneath the overgrown grass and mossy stones, lit a surfeit of purples and blues. By any stretch of logic, it should have been cold here, but Jane found herself to be comfortable and warm.

"What?" she asked, roused from her distracted thoughts.

Her father was seated next to her, clad in much the same clothes as he always wore. Jeans, boots, and a stained t-shirt. A contractor's uniform.

"You know what I said," he replied. His tone was ever-patient, as if Jane were still the little girl he had left behind.

"It's- dad, come on. I'm just poking around a little bit. They won't even know."

He looked her over, eyebrows raised. "And where does it stop, Janey? You're already breaking into their accounts and spying on them. Where do you draw the line?"

A wind had picked up, speeding along the river of clouds below. The grass rustled, autumn leaves catching amongst their blades.

"I don't know... I just can't stop."

Her father was nodding, as if in understanding.

A beeping was filling the air, robotic and artificial.

"This won't end well." She wasn't sure which of them had spoken, Jane herself or her father, but the words rang true. This would not end well, much like how it had ended the last time. How she had ended up in this town.

The beeping was growing louder.

Her father's familiar touch reached her shoulders, comforting and warm. "I can't stop you anymore, Janey. I don't think I ever could. Just promise me you'll keep yourself safe."

Jane opened her mouth to reply, but her father stopped her with a wave of his hand.

"Every system has a point of failure. Even yours," he said.

The beeping was far too loud. It drowned out her reply, voice lost in its artificial klaxon.

A loud electronic beeping startled her from her rest.

She cracked one eye open, realizing she had fallen asleep at her desk again. She groaned.

A small string of drool hung from the corner of her lip. Absently, she wiped it with the sleeve of her jacket. The teddy bear lay at her feet, staring up at her. She returned the stare, still dazed from her dreams.

The hood of her jacket hung against her cheek. Her mouth felt dry.

The alarm clock redoubled its effort, beeping even louder than before. Insistent. Demanding of attention.

Jane sighed, blinking. Then froze. The clock read eight o'clock in the morning.

She leapt from her chair, slamming one hand against the reset button of the clock. The other hastily pulled the scrunchie from her ponytail, freeing her amber hair. She hopped unsteadily on one foot as she quickly removed her sweatpants. Once free of her legs, she kicked them away.

The rest of her clothes followed in much the same path, thrown into the plastic laundry basket in the corner of her room.

She was utterly late for what amounted to the worst part of her life. Her constant source of stress and unhappiness.

School.

In a hurry, she exited her room. Across the hallway, her mother's bedroom door was still closed. If she listened hard enough, she could hear her mother's soft snoring. At least the overpowering smell of booze had dissipated.

The shower curtain inside the bathroom held a faded but still pretty pattern of flowers.

With a sweep, the polyester sheet of faded orchids was pushed to the side. She stepped into the shower, simultaneously turning the knob to switch it on.

She gasped. The frigid water immediately shocked away any residual exhaustion she had left. She was abruptly, painfully, uncomfortably, wide awake.

Through the half window of the bathroom, she could hear birds chirping over the sound of her shower. The honking of traffic, absent the night before, had now returned.

Wiping the water from her eyes, she turned the knob and emerged from behind the flowery shower curtain.

Toweling off, she caught a glimpse of her thin frame in the mirror. Her skin, already naturally fair, was deeply pale from long hours inside. Most of her hobbies involved her laptop in one way or another, and Jane preferred it that way. It wasn't that she disliked being outside her home, it simply held nothing of interest for her.

She thought about Beatrice Ruth as she wrapped the towel around her chest. Even through the tiny preview of her profile picture, she had exuded femininity. Something Jane was painfully aware she lacked.

What possible relationship could Beatrice and Ryder have?

Her critical self-assessment was interrupted as she heard her cell-phone ringing from within her bedroom.

Her curiosity rose. Who could possibly be calling her? There were very few people that had her phone number, let alone knew of her existence.

The flat screen displayed an image of a blonde girl with far too much makeup and a septum piercing. The text beneath read 'Vicky'.

Victoria Allyson. Jane couldn't help but smile.

Victoria, known to her as Vicky, was the only girl that had stuck with her when she had first enrolled in their high school. The rest, after an initial phase of getting to know Jane, had all found their own cliques. Cliques that required far more social charisma than Jane could employ.

She slid a finger across the screen, accepting the call.

"Jane!" her friend sounded out of breath. "I'm outside! I've been outside!"

"You're what?" Jane asked, her eyes flying to the window as if she could see through the blinds.

"I'm outside. You know, the place not inside?"

Jane could practically hear Vicky's eyes roll.

"Okay, sorry, sorry! Give me a sec," Jane said, scooping up the least foul smelling clothes from her bedroom floor.

Yet another baggy jacket, jeans, and a mismatched pair of socks. Jane was dressed to impress, as always.

Her phone buzzed again.

Jane frowned at Victoria's playful impatience. She pulled it from her pocket, and stopped. The message wasn't from Victoria.

[08:17]Unknown number: I know what you're up to.

[08:17]Unknown number: Keep digging. We will be in touch.

Jane read the message, then reread it. Her fingers had gone numb in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.

Keep digging? Who were they? Was this some sort of prank?

She gripped the hem of her jacket, reading the text once more, trying to discern anything that could provide context to the creepy message. She found none.

Her heart skipped a beat as her phone beeped from yet another text. This time, it truly was from Victoria.

Jane shook her head. She had to focus. The message, for all she knew, could just be spam mail sent by a malfunctioning bot. She'd covered her tracks thoroughly. There was no way anyone was onto her. And Victoria was impatiently waiting for her outside.

Replacing the phone in her pants, she stuffed her laptop into a messenger bag, and rushed out the door.

The sun was unusually dim for an early summer morning. Heavy patches of gray clouds swirled amongst the blue of the morning sky, blotting out any light that may reach the ground. It lent a gloomy, oppressive air to Jane's already distracted mood.

The clamor of heavy traffic intensified once the front door was open, briefly echoing through the entryway. Jane wondered if it would disturb her mother.

Victoria Allyson stood before her, one hip cocked to the side. An exaggerated expression of disappointment adorned her face, her perfectly penciled eyebrows drawn together. Her septum piercing caught what little sunlight peeked from between the clouds.

"I've been out here for ten minutes," Victoria said, crossing her arms. She was the perfect picture of an angry best friend.

Jane rubbed the back of her head.

"Sorry, I overslept," she said, simply.

"You owe me lunch!" Victoria laughed, expression of disappointment dissipating instantly.

She was quick to forgive.

The bangles and leather straps on her arms clinked together as she checked her watch.

"Come on," Victoria said, "we're gonna miss the bus."

Today, she wore a dark crop-top, revealing a scandalous tattoo of a pistol on her waist. Sometimes, Jane envied Victoria's confidence in her own fashion choices.

Jane smiled, shutting the door and stepping outside.

"Jeez, you ever heard of mowing?" Victoria joked, glancing at the overgrown weeds surrounding the stone path to Jane's front door.

"The mower broke," Jane said.

It was true. The lawn mower was broken. It was also true that she was too lazy to mow the lawn.

"But you're a tech whiz, you can fix it!" Victoria said.

Jane shook her head, "I'm a coder, it's like... not the same."

Victoria seemed confused, but accepted the short explanation nonetheless.

The bus station was unusually empty for this time of day. The honking and beeping of the commuters seemed to blur together as it slowly passed them by, a cascade of modern noises.

"So, you gonna tell me?" Victoria asked.

Jane blinked, momentarily disoriented by her thoughts. "Tell you what?"

"Why you overslept," Vicky said. "Come on, I can see the eye bags!"

Jane prodded below her eyes, as if she could feel the difference.

"I- uh..." Jane awkwardly blurted out, unsure of what to tell her. How do you explain breaking into someone's private accounts in order to stalk their personal life?

Even Victoria, her only friend, didn't know about her particular hobby. Her secret.

The bus, as if sent by her guardian angel, rescued Jane. It pulled ahead of the bus stop, honking its horn to get their attention. She wasted no time in walking towards it, pretending to have forgotten entirely about Victoria's question.

The doors opened with a pressurized hiss, revealing the dirty steel floors and torn seats of their local school bus.

The uniformed driver smiled at them, his impressive mustache curling upwards at the corners.

The eyes of the other passengers merely slid over Jane, instead coming to a fascinated rest behind her. Jane did not even need to look back to know what they were staring at. If you weren't used to her appearance, Victoria could easily catch your attention, much as she was doing now.

Despite this, a single pair of eyes refused to look away from Jane. They completely ignored Victoria, instead drinking in the very sight of Jane.

Slowly, she raised her head to meet the gaze of the most handsome boy she'd ever seen.

Ryder Jackson sat between a pair of overgrown-looking teenagers, ignoring their animated conversation. They gesticulated with their hands, but he did not even register the movement. The entirety of his attention seemed to be suddenly consumed by the image of Jane. His eyes were wide, lips parting in surprise. It was as if he were seeing color for the first time.

Victoria poked her in the back, between the shoulder blades.

"Uh... Jane? Why aren't you moving?"

Jane opened her mouth to reply, before realizing she hadn't enough air in her lungs to speak. Ryder said nothing either as he continued to look into her eyes, apparently as stunned as she was. Jane's stomach was filled with butterflies, and she found that she could not bring herself to move.

Then the bus lurched, and the moment was gone. Ryder blinked, and closed his mouth.

Jane, breath regained, blinked away the surprise.

What had just happened?

Keeping her eyes low, Jane walked the narrow path of the bus, finally finding an empty pair of seats at the rear.

The cloth seats wheezed under their combined weight as they sat down. Victoria sighed next to her, straightening her hair.

"All those donations from the Jacksons and the bus still sucks," Victoria commented.

The back of Ryder's perfect head nodded along with the conversation of his friends. Jane caught herself tracking the hypnotic movement.

"What?" Jane asked, turning to her.

"You know, Jacksons? Wood industry money? Crusty bus?" Victoria's pierced eyebrows raised. "Are you feeling okay?"

She held the back of her hand to Jane's forehead, checking her temperature. Jane pulled back reflexively.

"Sorry, I'm just tired," Jane replied, trying her best impression of a reassuring smile.

"Okay-y-y," Victoria said, drawing out the last syllable. "But I can set off the sprinklers again if you wanna ditch."

This roused a laugh from Jane, who remembered how they'd initially met. As daring as her friend was, she was terrible at sneaking around. Her bold appearance and loud personality might have something to do with it.

"I'm fine, I promise," Jane said.

With an effort, she pulled her eyes from Ryder's head and stared out the window.

Through it, lines of trees and bushes interspersed between commercial buildings and suburban homes were visible, all melding into a single scenic strip of urban humanity.

The greenery and homes began to appear less frequently as the bus drove ever closer to the town proper. Alexander was, undoubtedly, a small town. The sidewalks were wide and the streets were only ever busy on mornings like this one. It was rare to find an unfamiliar face in a crowd here.

There had been an unforeseen advantage to living in a small town. Cyber-security was basically non-existent. Passwords were short and simple. Ports were left open. Security patches were ignored. The physical terminals themselves were usually left within reach of the public.

Within the six months she had been living here, Jane had managed to brute-force several of the township's admin accounts with barely any effort.

Why she had in the first place, Jane didn't know.

She felt the bus decelerate as it pulled into the parking lot of her high school. Victoria stood, tapping Jane on the arm.

Thunder rolled amongst the darkening clouds above them.

"I gotta submit something, catch ya at lunch?" she asked, not waiting for a response. She knew Jane had nothing else to do during her lunch break.

"Sure," Jane said, even after she was far out of earshot.

The chatter as the students disembarked drowned her soft voice out.

She waited a few seconds in her seat, watching the other kids filter out of the bus.

She hated it here.