#Chapter 79: Friction

Amelia I kept our encrypted messages on a second drive. Just in case. Not on a laptop. Not on the server. Instead, I tucked the data chip into the bottom of a hollow lipstick tube, matte red, the kind Jenny used to wear. It felt ridiculous, how theatrical it was. But the best hiding places always were. No one would think twice about it sitting at the bottom of a makeup bag. And if they did, if they somehow found it, they'd need a retinal scan and a voiceprint to even begin to touch what it held. That tube stayed in the small zipper pouch inside my purse, always in reach, always on me. I didn’t trust the system anymore. The walls were starting to hum with secrets, and I had the growing, awful feeling that someone was always just behind me, just out of frame, listening in. I could feel eyes I couldn’t see. We’d said we’d stop, Richard and I. We had promised ourselves distance, logic, discipline. A clean break. And we held to it, for two whole days. Forty-eight hours of silence st