"Come in," Chloe said, her voice low and distracted, eyes locked on the cascade of scrolling code. Her fingers moved fast over the keyboard, each keystroke sharp, deliberate, like she could force the machine to give up its secrets through sheer will.
She wasn't a hacker. Not really. She'd picked up enough over the years to be dangerous—enough to understand when something was worth protecting and when something was worth breaking open. These files were both. They were her backup, her insurance, the parts of the past she refused to let fade into whatever story her family wanted to sell her.
Her desire to know the past had been building for weeks, quiet at first, then gnawing, then impossible to ignore. She didn't want to keep asking questions about who her family members were, or whether they were on good terms, or why the answers always shifted depending on who was talking. The explanations changed with the audience.
