“You okay?” Shannon perched on the edge of my desk curiously. “You’ve been really quiet today.”
I shrugged. “I had an argument with Axel and I’m trying to decide how mad to be.”
Shannon chuckled. “What happened? Maybe I can offer perspective.”
I hesitated but then told her everything. “So it’s not like we had a big fight, but it feels like he should be more supportive. Or am I being sensitive?”
“He should be more supportive,” she said automatically, “but I’ll say I think Ace would react the same way if I told him I wanted to be a Royal Protector. It’s a hard, scary job and for people like us, who don’t have military backgrounds, I don’t think it’s feasible. That’s not to say you shouldn’t try, or even dig deeper into what it would entail, but I wouldn’t be too hard on him for his reaction. He cares about you and these guys are protectors to their core—it’s part of them, especially with those they love.”
“You’re right. I’ve been pretty sheltered my whole life and now that I’ve gotten not just a taste of freedom but also the endless possibilities before me, I may be aiming a little too high.”
“There’s no such thing,” Shannon said gently. “As long as you keep your expectations realistic.”
“Would you do it?”
“Become a Royal Protector?” Shannon’s eyes widened. “No way in hell. I think Ace and the others are some of the strongest, most amazing people I’ve ever known, but it’s not for me. I would hate that kind of pressure, being on alert all the time, literally putting myself in front of bullets on a regular basis.”
“Ladies, is it lunchtime?” Logan came in rubbing his hands together. He was quite the joker, putting plastic bugs on our desks, hiding things like all the staplers or mouse pads, and generally making us laugh. Like the other Protectors, he was strong and capable, but he had a humorous side the others didn’t.
“How can you always be hungry?” I asked him.
“’Cause I’m still growing,” he said with a straight face.
“Uh-huh.” Elen shook her head at him. “Why don’t you go pick up gyros for us from that place in town I like?”
“Sure.” He nodded. “Write down your orders, I’ll call it in and then go pick it up.”
I wrote down what I wanted and then went back to work, putting Axel and all things related to the Royal Protectors out of my mind as I worked to update our password protocol for the second firewall Jonas had added. He was still able to hack into the site and though he had an advantage because he’d built it, it still should have been harder.
The rest of the afternoon flew by and by the time Elen and Shannon were ready to leave, I still had work to do.
“You guys go ahead,” I told them. “I’m going to stay a while. Jonas and I are still working on the system. We’ve found a ton of bugs and we’re running out of time to iron them out.”
“Good excuse not to go home,” Shannon said pointedly, eyeing me.
“Wait, what happened?” Elen asked, looking at me.
“Axel’s dealing with the situation in Braksa,” I told Shannon, “so he’s not home anyway. Even if we hadn’t had an argument, I wouldn’t see him tonight regardless.”
“You had an argument?” Elen asked.
“I’ll tell you in the car,” Shannon told her.
“Make sure you don’t go outside at all,” Logan told me. “I’m going to take them back to the palace and then either one of the others or I will come back to stay with you until it’s time to go.”
“I can just call you when I’m ready to go,” I protested.
He shook his head. “You know the rules. Technically, I shouldn’t leave you alone at all but I’ll be back in half an hour, tops, and you’ll be locked in with the alarm set for the outside doors and windows.”
“All right.”
“You want me to bring you dinner?”
“If you can grab something from the kitchen, that would be great. Thank you.”
I went back to work, enjoying the silence and lack of distraction since Shannon and Elen tended to be chatty throughout the day.
“I don’t know that we’re going to get through this tonight,” Jonas said to me on the phone. I had him on speaker as I worked.
“I’m getting frustrated,” I told him. “Why are we running into so many issues?”
“I’m getting a bad feeling,” he admitted. “I think we might actually be getting hacked while we’re testing the system.”
“You think?” I asked in alarm. “Should we shut it down?”
“You know what? Yes. Shut everything down completely. Turn off the routers and unplug all the connections. Depending on what happens with this situation in Braksa, I’m coming in tomorrow and we’re going to need to test things from the ground up.”
“All right. I’ll start shutting everything down.”
“I think Logan’s on his way back. Get some sleep tonight and we’ll take this apart piece by piece in the morning.”
“All right. See you then.”
I disconnected and started shutting down the computer system. The idea that someone was trying to hack our system before it was officially up and running was disconcerting. Opening an international baccalaureate school here in Limaj had been important to Erik as a way of legitimizing our country in the eyes of the rest of Europe, showing that despite being small, we still offered excellent opportunities in education. If our records were hacked before we even opened, we were going to have problems.
Logan called out to me as I was turning off the last of the routers and I smiled at him over my shoulder.
“I’ll be done in a few minutes and we can go.”
“Since we’re going right back to the palace, I didn’t grab dinner,” he said. “I hope that’s okay?”
“No problem. I’ll eat later.” I closed the door to the server room. We had a room for everything related to the computer system and I’d spent more time than I probably should have labeling everything to make it easy to know what was what. That made my job easier tonight and I locked the door behind me, sliding the wrist coil keychain over my hand so I didn’t misplace it.
I was gathering up my things when the sound of breaking glass made my head snap up. Logan got to his feet and met my gaze. “Stay here. If I don’t give you the all-clear in two minutes, call or text Jonas.” He pulled a gun from his shoulder holster and quietly moved down the hall.
My heart was going a million miles an hour and I tried to keep breathing. Memories of the night the Brat had attacked my family, came rushing back and I tried to put it out of my mind. It was probably nothing. Logan would take care of it and—
He came running back into the room with his finger to his lips. “There’s been a break-in. Text the emergency number—you have it, right?”
I nodded, immediately grabbing my phone.
“Lock yourself in the server room and don’t come out until I get you.”
“No! I can help,” I whispered, even as I pulled up the number and sent a 9-1-1 text. From what I’d been told, this would go to all the Protectors at once and it was only used during an imminent attack.