Free Faceless by Jus Accardo

was determined to get this girl to grin like that in the waking world. “I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something familiar about you.”
    I motioned to the chair by Cain’s desk. “So you never answered my question. You a Six?”
    “I am,” she said, sinking onto the chair. She pulled up both feet and tucked them close to her body, never taking her eyes off mine. I couldn’t blame her for being leery. If a strange girl showed up in my dreams—well—yeah, never mind. What seventeen-year-old guy would be upset about that?
    She was wearing the socks again. The purple ones with the dancing mice on each toe. Picking at the edges of the left one, she said, “I can hack computers.”
    She was being modest. Hack computers? I knew a lot of people that could do that. What she could do was something epic. “While the hacker-chick status is hot and everything, how does that make you a Six?”
    She grinned and tapped the side of her head. “I can do it with my mind.”
    “Ahh,” I said. “That’s more like it.”
    “The boarding house is where I live.”
    “So you’re what, an orphan or something?”
    She giggled. The sound sent prickles across my skin. This could be bad. I didn’t have time for distractions right now. I was here to do a job, then get out. I’d dated my fair share when I was—well—me, but this girl was already getting under my skin in a way none of the others had. I couldn’t figure it out.
    She shifted on the bed, hesitating for a moment. She was still suspicious, and that made me admire her all the more. I’d met too many girls that just bought whatever crap they were sold right off the bat. Give me cautious and smart over easy and dense any day of the year. “Not at all. It’s a place for people like us.”
    Not how I’d planned this, but at least now we were getting somewhere. “What kind of place?”
    “A place to start over. A place where we can be ourselves.”
    “Start over? Were things bad at home?”
    She said something vague, but I didn’t quite catch it. Something else—an odd ringing—drowned it out.
    “What’s wrong?”
    The noise again. Like a siren, or an alarm. It was distracting and getting louder every minute. I tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t go away. “You don’t—”
    I shot up, the sound of the alarm clock blaring in my ear. Yanking the cord from the wall, I knocked it off the dresser and sent it crashing to the ground. The unhealthy rattling sound it made on impact told me there was a good chance we’d never have this issue again.
    I threw off the covers and padded over to the window. The early morning sun greeted me with annoying brightness. Time to get ready for work .

Chapter Eight
    Cynthia, the same woman that drove me to Dromere the day before, was waiting outside when I emerged from the boarding house. We drove in silence except for my single, thwarted attempt to change the station on the radio. In a deceptively sweet voice, she told me she’d melt my organs if I tried it again. Considering where I was living, I took the threat seriously and resigned myself to listening to some dude whine about his tractor and runaway dog. Or he could have been complaining that his dog ran away with his tractor. Either way, it sucked a big one.
    When I arrived at Dromere, I signed in at the front reception area and made my way deeper into the building. I passed Donna’s desk where she and Devin were bent over a stack of papers, talking quietly. Devin looked up as I got to the end of the hall, catching my eye for a moment before I turned the corner and ducked out of sight. I had been curious about her before, but last night had made it impossible to think of anything else. Now, more than ever, I needed to know what she was doing with Denazen. My mind raged that this was a distraction I didn’t need, but I couldn’t help it. She didn’t fit the normal profile.
    I arrived at Wentz’s temporary main floor office to find it empty. He’d left me a