Kaci was dead? Her heart couldn’t accept that, and her brain hurt, as if it couldn’t process three simple words. She was breathing, but only just, and the rest of what Cathy had to say seemed to have poured over her without her understanding any of it. Maybe she died, too? Maybe …

“Bette! Bette! Get it together! You have got to survive this, make it through the next few months and then we’ll figure out what to do. Okay?”

Bette turned to her, on the verge of snapping.

“Get it together! I’ll be damned if you don’t make it either, dammit! Kaci became my friend, too, Bette. And you were her best friend, I know that. You have got to make it!”

Cathy slammed the door and thumped on the side of the helo to signal to the helicopter pilot to take off after she ran out of the way.

That had been a week ago, and Bette had changed identities three times since then, restyled her hair, hid in Europe for a while, and then had flown to LA. From here, she was heading to a place where she hoped she could stop running, at least for a while, so that she could process what had happened, grieve for her best friend, and try to make sense of how she’d suddenly become the likely target of people who wanted their secret. Hers and Kaci’s before, and now, just hers.

As Cathy told her, Kaci had taken many precautions to make sure Bette would escape and stay hidden, so she must have foreseen that if there was even a rumor that got out that there was a secret code to the algorithms, Bette had to remain “off-grid” and untraceable.

She was being Bette’s protector, as always. And now she was dead.

“Fine, eleven,” power suit huffed, seemingly undeterred. She nodded at the bartender. Yes, she really needed a shot, the agitated look she gave the bartender seemed to say.  

“Anyway, even as kids, didn’t we think back then that her coding was so rad that we were sure she’d probably invent some app or tech-must-have before we all turned fifteen? Don’t you remember?”

Their voices jolted Bette back to the present.