Free Hacked by Tracy Alexander

was and remind me that I hadn’t handed in the last chemistry homework, so I chatted to him for a bit. He wanted all the news from the party. I was in the spotlight again, like it or not.
    I spent the rest of the afternoon lying on my bed,half dozing, half going over the chats I’d had with Angel, trying to remember anything that might help me find him. I wished I’d gone volunteering but it was too late by the time Joe and I’d got up. Ruby’d texted me anyway and said she’d come round afterwards.
    I replayed the conversation that had led to Angel issuing the challenge. Was it a whim, like I thought, or part of a grand and complicated plan? I remembered explaining how I’d mapped the controls for a satellite camera so I could move it about, and being surprised when Angel was impressed because everyone knows that’s easy. So maybe I was wrong about him being an elite … Maybe he was just a script kiddie … He’d never shared code with me …
    The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. He was probably twelve years old, and just using other people’s exploits to make a name for himself. Ha! Like I said, there are different types of clever, and chances were Angel was clever at using people. I concluded, once and for all, that Angel never expected me to hack a drone, was surprised when I did, hell, maybe even scared, and definitely wasn’t going to do it himself, just wanted to blag about it.
    By the time Ruby came round I was more cheerful than I had been for a week. I’d even done the chemistry homework.
    And then she dumped me.

21
    Ruby’s mum had found blood on her shirt. My blood, or maybe one of the twits’. Ruby’s mum had called Amelia’s mum and got a high-frame-rate version including the fight, the police, the damage, the weed, the booze, the vomit. Marvellous. I was firmly on the guard dog’s blacklist.
    Ruby said she didn’t want to sneak around behind her mum’s back and it was an important time with exams coming up and, although she really liked me, she didn’t like the Dan that sold stolen credit, and somewhere inside I was that Dan too. She said she was sorry. She looked sorry. She looked gorgeous as well. The red hair behind her ears as always, a bright green woolly scarf, rosy cheeks.
    I wasn’t cross. Because I decided as soon as I heard the words that I wasn’t going along with it. It wasn’t like when Soraya did it. The thing with Soraya was about being with a ‘girl’ and all I felt when I saw her with the
X-Factor
boy was miffed. Ruby was like a friend that I wanted to spend all my time with (
and
do the other stuff), and if Ruby arrived the next day arm in arm withsomeone else I’d hate it. HATE it. So, somehow or other, I was getting her back.
    ‘Just going round to Ty’s,’ I shouted.
    ‘I thought Ruby was here,’ said Dad from the armchair.
    ‘She had to go. See you.’
    I ran, but stopped after about a hundred metres because I was out of breath. A sixteen-year-old boy should probably be able to run without chest pain. Never mind.
    Ty’s house is like the council tip. His dad collects everything – tyres, pallets, metal anything, plastic plant pots in their thousands (stored in leaning towers), trolleys, barbecues …
    Ty’s dad’s head appeared from behind a pile.
    ‘Hello, Dan, just sorting out a few things.’ He knows everyone jokes about his hoarding. ‘In you go. And try not to walk into any more doors.’ That was a joke about my face.
    I pushed open the front door, shouted, ‘Hello,’ in case anyone was downstairs but went up anyway. Ty had his head in a chemistry book.
    ‘You don’t look that bad considering.’
    ‘I can’t smile,’ I said, demonstrating the lack of movement one side of my mouth.
    He laughed.
    ‘You look like a ventriloquist’s dummy.’
    ‘Cheers.’
    ‘Hope she’s worth it.’
    ‘She chucked me actually, that’s why I’m here.’
    ‘I’m not going out with you,’ he said, backing away.
    ‘Neither, but