Her fingers were frozen on the keys, as if any sudden movement would set off the inevitable situation she had found herself in.

Jane’s friends had been captured. Jackson had them in his fortress of a mansion along with his small army of professional killers. She did not want to imagine what sort of plans he had for them.

On her screen, a simple ‘NO SIGNAL’ persisted, white text on dark static. She swallowed, eyes fixed on the white-and-black noise. A low buzz hissed through her ear piece, signaling that the connection had been cut. Their faces seemed to smile at her from the screen, half-formed memories lost in an electrostatic sea.

Ryder’s smile, his arms around her, whispering how he loved Jane so.

Victoria comforting her in the diner, silently begging for forgiveness.

She had to do something. She must get inside. Danger or not, she had to save her friends. Already they have done the same for her, twice over.

The van’s floor was littered with all sorts of technological gizmos, interspersed with bits of assorted material Jane had bought. Batteries and magnets, a spool of copper wire, and a can of black spray-paint left by Victoria.

Fingers numb in trepidation, she gathered these things, stuffing them into a backpack. She had no time to sort what would be useful from what wouldn’t be.

Slinging the pack over her shoulder, she pulled her hood up, and leaped from the van. Her heart, already pounding, doubled its efforts at the sudden exertion. Her sneakers landed in the dirt with a thud, the contents of the bag rattling.

As the over-sized gate drew closer into view, Jane’s mind ran through the security systems she had studied. The cameras would be simple enough to disable, and the alarm would only activate if the gate was forced open.

Strangely, the guard was nowhere to be seen. The gates stood alone, hulking and unattended.

For a moment, her eyes roved around the expanse of the property, searching for the missing guard. Where had he gone?

A burst of noise from a radio at the other end of the wall answered her question. She had only seconds to get past the gate before the guard returned to his post.

Breaking into a sprint, she pulled the spray-paint from the bag. The wind howled through her hood, throwing red hair across her face. She shook them away, raising the can in the general direction of the cameras.

For once in her life, she hit her mark. The jet of aerosolized paint coated the cameras with incredible efficiency, immediately blacking out any image it would be transmitting. From the other end, it would seem as if the feed had simply gone dark.

That left only the alarm.

Jane smiled, her father’s words ringing once more in her ears. Every system, a point of failure.

In the case of this particular security measure, it was that an electric current would be interrupted if the gates were forced open, triggering it. The simplest solution? Don’t interrupt the current.

Jane already knew the particular spot where the two halves of the security system met. Careful to avoid being shocked, she wrapped the braided copper around the two sides.

And then, with both hands, she shoved. The gates gave way, hinges groaning. They had only opened partially, due to the copper wire holding them together. Jane had left just enough slack for her to slide through.

She could hear the radio static once more, closer than before. The guard was coming.

Teeth gritted, she ducked beneath the electrified copper, and broke through.

Sprinting across the expansive lawn, she could only pray that the guard would not notice the thin wire wrapped around the gate.

The lights had gone out in the house. Where once yellow beams spilled from the windows, there was now only darkness. This worked to Jane’s advantage as she approached the house with rapid steps, confident under the cover of the night.

No activity in Jackson’s study, nor anywhere else. Her chest was heaving, a painful stitch in her side. It had been a long time since she had needed to run so fast. Jane crouched for a moment, phone buzzing in her pocket.

To her surprise, the notification was that of a text from Ryder. Somehow, he had managed to send her a message, wherever he was.

[9:22]Ryder: basement

[9:22]Ryder: dnt come

[9:22]Ryder: run

Jane stared at the text, incredulous. Absolutely not. Like hell she would run. There was no way she was leaving them down there.

A knife wedged beneath the nearby window allowed her access to the first floor. Almost immediately, she realized her mistake, as the sound of heavy footsteps trickled through the hallways. Jackson’s men were on alert, patrolling through the house. They weren’t aware of her yet, but that would change if she didn’t do something.

Just like that night in the school so many days ago, she buried herself in a corner, laptop open.

The IMSI catcher had a unique ability when combined with the text-spoofing built into her laptop’s operating system. A trick that few ever truly needed, save for pranking and annoying their friends.

Inputting the proper commands, Jane straightened, ears straining.

The endless buzzing and dinging of the henchmen’s phones began, thousands of texts and missed calls streaming into their devices, locking up the feeble processors. The cacophony was stupendous, filling the night with digital tones that echoed from the men’s pockets.

Jane, despite the danger, found herself smiling. She could track them by sound alone now.

“Gotcha,” she whispered beneath her breath.

Staying low, she rounded the corner. There was a repetitive clanging coming from further ahead, the phone’s owner cursing as he tapped the overloaded phone. The screen flashed repetitively, revealing his annoyed expression.

It was simple, she found. The Jackson manor was labyrinthine, with twisting hallways and confusing interconnected rooms. With the men’s locations compromised by their ring tones, all Jane needed to do was move around them, leaving them none the wiser.

Another glance at her phone, this time at the building’s blueprint, courtesy of the Alexander library’s servers.

She was right above them, the basement and her friends separated from her by mere inches of wood and stone. No doubt, simply descending the narrow stair-case would find her mired in the bristling barrels of Jackson’s thugs. She needed to draw them out, somehow.

An idea struck her. This entire time, she had been thinking like a hacker, avoiding detection and utilizing subterfuge to survive. Perhaps it was time she started thinking like a law-breaking teenager instead.

The other major flaw in highly sensitive security systems was that they were very easy to trigger. A single command, hastily typed into her laptop, set off absolute chaos in the compound.

Sirens blared, a high keening that pierced the ears. The hallways were abruptly awash in crimson light as emergency systems activated, each red bulb positioned to illuminate the home. The endless buzzing and pinging of the men’s cell phones were drowned out by the klaxons.

A torrent of footsteps echoed from the staircase before her. She ducked into a nearby doorway, peeking around the corner. The torrent of footsteps preceded a torrent of armed men, a man at the front shouting orders. They passed Jane, entirely unaware of her deception.

Numbers thinned as much as she could hope, Jane crept to the mouth of the staircase, and descended.

It reminded her so much of her time in Beatrice’s tepid basement. A cold humidity bit through her jacket, raising the hair on her arms. Instead of a wide, empty space, however, upright rows of wine rested in wooden cradles, dust coating their purple glass.

Between the wine racks, Jane could make out Victoria’s blonde ponytail, a cloth wrapped around her face. She was gagged.

There was a rhythmic repetition of footsteps. Jane moved closer, crouching behind the racks.

Jackson, minuscule pistol in hand, paced before Victoria and his own son, both of which kneeled against the stone floor. Dust floated through the air, disturbed from their rest by the explosions.

“Why did you have to do this? Have I not given you enough? No… perhaps I gave you too much.” Jackson’s voice was tight, with more emotion in it than Jane had ever heard from him.

His suit had come undone, somewhat. The necktie had been pulled loose, both ends of the red cloth hanging against his chest. Sweat beaded his brow, which was set in a scowl of rage and disappointment.

“And you! Allyson. Oh, I should have known,” Jackson continued, ceasing his pacing. “You’re no different than that father of yours. I dare say, if I hadn’t evicted him from his position, this town would still be a backwards rat-hole.”

Victoria growled something into the gag, the words muffled by the cloth. Her face was quickly turning red from the effort of straining against her bonds.

Jane had to act. Jackson was clearly leading up to something, and she didn’t want to find out what. She had no weaponry. The distance between her and the crime lord was too vast. There was no way to reach him without being shot.

The gunshot in her kitchen echoed once more in her head. Instinctually, she flinched, for a moment lost in that horrible memory.

No. Jackson had killed one Mackenzie. She wouldn’t let him get her too.

The determination was shifting in her chest, a deep hatred burrowing itself into her mind. Her mother was dead by this man’s hand. He had hunted her, threatened her friends, and was now about to kill them too.

There was no time to waste. She unzipped her bag, most of the contents entirely useless to her. Excess batteries and the left-over spools of copper wire and the paint can and-

The paint can.

Jackson was closer to the pair, his hand wrapping around the back of Ryder’s gag. With a violent tug, he pulled it from his son’s lips.

“Explain yourself, Ryder,” he ordered.

Ryder’s glare was made of fire, a lock-step match for his father’s icy stare. “You didn’t give me squat. All of this was just you feeding your own ego!”

The older Jackson pocketed the pistol, crouching down to Ryder’s level. “I gave you everything. Money, fame, opportunity, your mother would be proud of what I built for you.”

“No,” Ryder said, quoting his father. “She would be ashamed.”

The little exchange was all the time Jane needed to jury-rig her contraption. The paint can was wrapped in wires, a battery firmly attached to it. All she needed to do was touch one end of the copper to the other. Winding her hand back, she let it fly.

And for the second time that night, her aim struck true.

The explosion of rapidly depressurized paint was deafening inside the basement. Jackson recoiled, his hand going to shield his eyes, but it was too late. Jane had already charged him.

He was no small man. Though Ryder was far larger, the older Jackson was built as sturdily as his son. Jane found her initial tackle into his abdomen ineffective, the man barely losing his balance.

They hung there, dark specks of paint coating the walls like an abstract painting, for a single moment.

Jackson swung his fist, narrowly missing Jane as she ducked. Again, she tackled him, this time just as ineffectual as the last.

Ryder was shouting something, lost on her ears as she did her best to overpower his father.

Jackson cursed, wrapping an arm around her waist and hoisting her up. She shouted, wordlessly, before he slammed a fist into her jaw.

The taste of blood filled her mouth, but hatred dulled the pain. Her mother’s eyes, wide with terror as she bled out, filled Jane’s mind.

She roared, no longer fully in control. Her vision growing a deep red, the corners darkening as Jackson became all she saw.

He lost his grip on the teenage girl, her ferocity momentarily surprising him. She clawed at his face, feeling a satisfaction as her nails gouged thin lines across his cheek. Stunned, Jackson stumbled back, his gait unbalanced, the pistol falling from his pocket with a clatter. Almost immediately, Jane snatched it up.

“Drop it,” Joss growled, a rifle in his hands.

He was behind her, next to the wine rack. She hadn’t heard him enter during her scuffle with Jackson.

The pistol was heavy in her hand, Jackson frozen between the crosshairs.

“Drop it!” Joss shouted, repeating himself.

There was no other course of action. Slowly, Jane crouched, and lowered the gun to the ground.

“Miss Mackenzie.” Jackson stooped, once more palming the tiny pistol in his hands. “On your knees. Go on, just like the others.”

She had no choice. The cold of the stone floor seeped through her jeans as she knelt, eyes darting around the room. The situation had grown out of control. She’d lost the element of surprise, as well as her only weapon.

“No. I want you to face them,” Jackson said. With a rough jerk, he turned her around by the shoulder.

Jane found herself looking into the worried eyes of her friends. Ryder’s lips were pressed into a thin line, Victoria’s shoulders straining as she struggled against her bonds. Jane was struck by the sudden realization that they looked so young. Mere teenagers, being held at gunpoint in a dusty basement.

“This all started with you, Mackenzie. If you hadn’t been poking around with that little laptop of yours, you would still be in that depressing… house of yours.”

“No!” Ryder’s expression tightened as Jane felt the cold barrel of the pistol pressed against her skull.

“This is your fault too, Ryder. If you’d simply accepted all the gifts I’ve given you, instead of biting the hand that feeds, maybe I wouldn’t have had to do this.”

“Dad, just kill me! Come on, she’s… Don’t hurt her. Shoot me instead. Please,” Ryder pleaded.

“Ryder, shut up!” Jane shouted. She couldn’t bear the thought of having to watch that.

Another bang, even more deafening than the electrified paint can. Jane’s ears rang with the sheer volume as she realized Jackson had fired the gun into the wall.

“I will finish the job. With all of you. Wash my hands of this idiotic debacle at last.” Jackson’s voice held a finality, his mind set, the decision already made.

With a kick, Jane fell flat on her stomach, the air rushing from her lungs. The pistol clicked above her as Jackson loaded another round into the chamber.

Victoria’s struggles had paid off at last. The gag fell from her mouth, scraping against her chin. “You heard all that, detective?”

Jackson froze, pistol half-pointed at Jane. “What did you say?”

Victoria’s voice took on the same cheerful lilt that it usually wore, a smug expression of victory arranging her features. Only Jane, who had spent months being fooled by the same act, could tell she was bluffing. “We’re recording you. Audio and visual. I’m wearing a wire.”

For a moment, Jackson did not respond, the idea fully sinking in. The sudden killing intent was almost mechanical in his posture, as if killing a teenager were the correct thing to do. He cursed, and strode over Jane, finger wrapping around the trigger as he pointed it at Victoria’s head.

The voice was commanding, stronger than ever within Jane’s mind. It was ephemeral, yet seemed to surround her, deadening everything she felt. She must stay still, it said. Stay on the ground. Make yourself as small as possible. Never attract attention.

But it was the promise she had made herself, there, surrounded by thugs in the street, that overcame the voice at last. Jane had lost enough in her life. She swore to never lose anyone else. Not another one.

The knife she had jimmied the window open with was tiny, barely more than a paring knife, but it was all she had. Joss’s panicked shout came too late as she flung herself from the floor, and buried the blade in Jackson’s throat.