Zevris might have mistaken this for disorganization, but he realized quickly that she’d still been in the process of unpacking her belongings. He could see signs everywhere of her having been creating order out of chaos.
His gaze settled on her dining table. He stepped over to it, reached down, and plucked her phone from its stand at the center of the table. When he attempted to unlock the device, he was greeted by a screen asking for a passcode.
Releasing a huff, he roused his neural transceiver and initiated a connection with the phone. As simple as it was to hack human technology, Zevris didn’t like doing so with his neural transceiver; human devices were especially vulnerable to malicious software, and he had no desire to have whatever garbage they flung through their virtual networks get stuck in his head. Who knew what viruses and corruptions could affect him?
Once the phone’s code had been cracked, he severed the connection between the device and his neural transceiver and entered the code with his thumb. The display opened on Tabitha’s home screen.
As Dexter’s loud drinking gave way to eating of equal volume—and considerably more crunchiness—Zevris looked through Tabitha’s phone. The busiest form of communication for her seemed to be her email, which was filled with order submissions, payment and shipping confirmations, and message notifications from various social media platforms. Her contacts list was small but well organized, and her message and call history were sparse, both consisting primarily of calls and text messages to and from a contact labeled Mia Jones.
There were no contacts marked as Brother or Sister, none labeled Mother or Father. Only one seemed to have any family connection—Nan. Zevris seemed to recall it being synonymous with grandmother.
Curious, he went to the text thread associated with Nan, and frowned as he noticed the date of the last message—slightly over two years ago.
Nan had texted, I’m so glad you stopped by this weekend, hon. Dexter misses you already! If you’re still having trouble keeping up with those orders, let me know. I’m not too old to pitch in and teach you a thing or two more.
Tell Dex I’m still mad at him for eating the turkey off my sandwich, Tabitha had replied with a little laughing face. It was nice to be home for a little while. And I may have to take you up on that offer. Things are picking up! It’s not enough to quit my day job or anything yet, but who knows? Maybe one day. Love you!
Love you too, Nan had sent two minutes later, the words surrounded by pink hearts.
The last message on the thread was from ten days afterward, sent by Tabitha.
I know this is stupid, and all I’m going to do is sit here hoping that I’ll get some kind of response, but…I really miss you. I really, really miss you, so much that I can barely breathe. I know you urged me to find my own way, to make my own life, but you were always there for me anyway, and I just don’t know how to keep going without you. I miss you, Nan.
Zevris stared down at the screen, a tightness seizing his chest that he couldn’t quite define. He’d spent his years as an althicar spying, infiltrating, sabotaging, and waging what the humans called guerilla warfare on numerous planets. He’d found compromising information of both political and personal nature on numerous targets, but he’d never felt this sense of wrongness in doing so.
He’d just intruded on something deeply private. On something no one was meant to see. As simple as that last message had been, he could not ignore the weight of emotion it bore. Because that message—and the inactivity afterward—made it easy to infer what had happened to Nan.
Exhaling slowly, he exited the messages, locked the screen, and slipped the phone into his pocket. The tightness in his chest didn’t fade as he resumed his search of the house; in fact, it only strengthened when he noticed the framed pictures on display. Several were of Tabitha and an older woman with grayish hair but the same green eyes. That older female appeared in a number of the other photographs in which her hair was light brown instead of gray, often alongside a young girl with blond hair and emerald eyes.
There was one in which the pair were standing in front of a huge, misshapen witch’s head, looking as though they were about to be swallowed by the gaping mouth—though their