Chapter 16 — Whispers and Webs
The "secure comms channel" Rafe had set up was less an app and more a ghost in the machine, a whisper in the digital ether. He’d shown me the basics – how to initiate a connection, how to send encrypted messages that dissolved into nothingness after a single read, how to trigger a data wipe with a specific phrase. It felt like having a secret language, a hidden weapon. I spent hours in my room, practicing, testing the limits, feeling a thrill of control that was intoxicating. Jensen and Troy could try to hunt me, but they’d be chasing shadows in the digital realm, and I was becoming a master of creating them.
Cain visited again that evening, his presence in the bar less about fatherly concern and more about strategic planning. He sat with Milo, poring over
