The second we got to Ade's apartment I began examining his wounds. I cringed when I realized how bad they were and forced him into the bathroom. I stood on my tiptoes struggling to dab at a cut above his eyebrow before he helped me out and sat on the closed toilet. I stood between his legs and resumed my ministrations, smirking when he winced.
"Hey, at least we have matching looks now." I deadpanned referring to my similarly battered face.
"Hell is hot."
"Well bring ice water for the both of us and I'll see you there. Take off your shirt" He lifted it over his head, rolling his eyes. I squatted in front of him and counted three slashes across his abdomen. Clearly they had tried to stab him multiple times, likely more than three, but they only got close of three of those times. Luckily they were unsuccessful and the wounds were lacerations rather than actual stab wounds. The lacerations weren't deep, as I could tell by the fact that he could still walk and talk, but that didn't stop him from being a little bitch. He winced and whined as I pressed a large clean rag soaked in antiseptic across his abdomen to stop the bleeding.
"Did you at least find it?" he asked in between whines.
"Of course. George Nelson also confirmed that their tracking system is digital, just as I thought."
"Before he met his untimely death I'm assuming." Disapproval was etched across his face.
"You know I don't fuck with loose ends...or abusive parents for that matter."
"Aye I don't give a fuck about him, I'm worried about what this is doing to you. You're an eighteen year old honor student from the suburbs and all of a sudden you're killing people like it's nothing. I know it's affecting you."
"It isn't as big of a deal as you think." I sighed lifting the rag, and started cleaning up the cuts. The bleeding had mostly stopped. I could tell he thought about responding to me and decided against it, much to my relief. I slathered antibiotic ointment over the wounds and wrapped his torso in a clean bandage over gauze. Once I was done I washed my hands and ended our brief silence. "If I catch you in that fucking gym tomorrow, trying to do anything but rest, I will slap the shit out of you. Take a rest so those can heal without any problems."
"Look at the pot calling the kettle negro."
"The saying is 'the pot calling the kettle black'-"
"That's the point."
"You know what? You're just unbelievable. Who the fuck even-? Why the fuck-? You irk me."
"That's not news. Move so I can go look at the device before they remotely self destruct it or some shit."
Ade hobbled into the room to take the sleek black device from where it lay on our bedside to his office. I left him to do whatever the fuck he was doing since I didn't understand any of that computer shit, or want to, and moved to the kitchen. My parents tried desperately to get me into coding but it was one thing I wouldn't do, even for them. I snuck books into coding club all the time and would disappear for hours at a time. When the staff finally found me in a corner reading I was terrified they'd tell my parents. Instead, our instructor just told my mom he thought I really took to linguistics and that my time would be better served in a creative writing club or learning a different language. She refused at first until she realized it was her chance to make me learn Spanish. The bilingual daughter flex trumps the coding daughter flex I guess. Hence why I'm fluent in four languages now. About two hours later I had almost finished making chicken stew and boiling rice when my heart almost fell out of my ass. I tried to elbow whoever had hoisted me over their shoulder before I realized I recognized the aura of stupidity that had drifted into the room.
"Put me down you dumb fuck."
"You're so vulgar." Ade laughed.
"yOuRe So VuLgAr"
"Stop being yourself for a second so I can say something."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you're irritating."
"What?" My eyebrows rose and I glared at him.
"You were right." he changed the subject after losing our staring contest and set me down..
"What?"
"It was a tracker. You were right. You were fucking right about everything. This is it. We got them."
"WHAT?"
"Say what one more damn time."
"I'll say what the fuck I want-"
"Okay so it was a lot of guess and check, " he cut me off "but since you already guessed it was some type of tracker, I had a head start. I had to take apart the device and check the hardware to see what type of device it was, obviously. I recognized the type of hardware considering it partially uses technology we use for location based services in cellphones. I checked again to see where that information could be going to or what it connects to ..." I'm not going to lie, I tuned him out the second I heard hardware. Just be grateful I can recall that much. I finally tuned back in as he finished "and then it was just a final couple of child's play hacks to break through firewall and server protections. Finally, there was one last password protection I couldn't crack, no matter how hard I tried. Then, I remembered the emails. We thought they were codes, but they weren't, they were a key. The password to get into the server seems to switch frequently but they're regular words that are encoded using the key. I figured since only Ximenes and a few other people had access to this map the passwords would have to be things he knew about or that were relevant to him. I tried almost everything in the book, and then I realized the most obvious thing ever. The man is obsessed with you. I used the key to encode your name and it worked! Every single location that's currently being used to transport humans for trafficking is marked on a digital map on my fucking computer screen. You know they say the internet is like this huge iceberg, with what most people see being the very tip and the rest underwater in the form of the dark web? This is as dark as it fucking gets. We're on the underside of the iceberg. We have everything. We got them, because of you." My eyes widened as I processed everything he said.
"Oh shit. Oh shit!" I was unable to stop myself from jumping back in his arms although I cringed the second I thought about it.
"You know, not to hype myself, but I'm a genius."
"Computer nerd. Someone bring bullying back, your glasses wearing ass is feeling yourself too much because you know how to tap keys. "
"First of all, you're vile. But I didn't mean that easy shit. I meant that knew it would be you. From the second I met you, something told me you were the answer. You know I did a couple warehouses before even meeting you and I never realized that each one had the same device. Yet after three raida you noticed it. In fact, I don't doubt that you saw it the first time and just wanted confirmation before you said anything. I know that people have told you you're beautiful, or studious, or poised, your entire life, but I won't let that distract me from how smart you are. That's the fatal mistake X is making and the mistake anyone who ever underestimates you makes. You're so confident in everything to do with your appearance but you don't give yourself enough credit for the things that really matter. You're the smartest person I know. I lived in silicon valley, I've met the biggest tech revolutionaries in the world, Nobel peace prize winners, but I've still never met someone as smart as you. You know you're so fucking smart it scares me? The way you could probably manipulate every single person on the earth without flinching, the way you switch your entire demeanor when you see X like it's nothing. Not to mention you're crazy so the two combined is just terrifying. But you never admit it, so if you won't, I will today. Everything I am from here on out, is because of you. Everything those kids become if this works, is because of you. You need to know that before we go forward, and I will remind you however many times I need to. The only thing that could make you ruin this would be you second guessing yourself. We are so close. Don't fuck it up. "I turned away from Ade a bit so he wouldn't see the tears welling in my eyes. I hated when he got sentimental because he did it so rarely that it made me feel special to him. Which of course, I was. He was special to me too. I was sure that if your friend could be your soulmate platonically, then he would be mine. He understood I hated sentimentality and emotion. He knew I hated the idea of being special to someone or having someone be special to me, even if he didn't know why. He didn't know why every time I looked at him in the eyes for too long, or even thought about him, my stomach dropped. But he knew I hated it. If I was supposedly so smart, why didn't I have the slightest idea what to do with my emotions? Not just with him, but in general. I had repressed them for so long and then I was dragged into this bullshit and they all started flooding back. The flood was drowning me. I was drowning in my own fucking thoughts and feelings. I hated it.
"Don't start that sappy shit. I struggled through Algebra II and you can hack into the fucking dark web in less than an hour. You're right, you are a genius, and I'm more proud of you than you could ever imagine." I brushed off Ade's compliments, but he looked in my eyes and knew his words weren't wasted on me. "We need to go over what we'll do from here, but I think I just wanna chill for once, if that's okay. We both aren't in the best shape, especially you now, and for whatever comes next we should take a week or two to recuperate and plan every single thing out from here. Then, when we have a fallback for any and everything that could go wrong, we set it all into motion. If we play our cards correctly, I'll never have to step foot in that awful house and pretend to love that psychopath ever again. As for now, make sure my chicken stew doesn't burn while I take a shower." I dapped him up and walked away, looking back to make sure he was watching my stew. I laughed as I caught him red handed taking a drumstick from the pot.
Looking back now, I wonder if a part of him knew what would happen, and he was trying to give me as much strength to deal with it as possible through his words. He always knew that type of shit.