It must have been nearly 2am when I arrived home at my tiny little bungalow in the middle of Pawnee. I pushed open the door slowly to keep the creaking to a minimum in case Melina was in bed asleep.

Of course, she wasn't though. She pounced on me the second I came in.

'You said you would call me the second you were done!' She growled and smacked me across the arms and head. 'You worried me to death, it's been nearly two hours.'

The living room light was off, all that was on was Melina's computer monitor in the right hand corner. She seemed to be flicking through social media sites as I could sometimes hear the ding of Facebook messenger or the notification from skype.

'Sorry.' I whispered, pulling the money out from my bra cup where I had kept it safe. I handed her the wad of cash and she took it with a sigh.

'So, it went well I presume?' She smiled, holding my hand and leading me into the kitchen. She flicked on the light and the shining almost blinded me instantly.

'Without a hitch, just like you said. You were right.' I mumbled, T-bone's words were still floating around in my head like a broken record.

I wouldn't be lying if I said I was conflicted about telling Mel or not. On one hand, what blume was doing was monstrous and disgusting and had to be stopped. Whatever Mel and I could do would help out in some way. But then, on the other hand, Mel and I were both 23 years old, we'd both only been in the hacking lifestyle a little while, about three years for me and 4 for Melina. The two of us never dabbled in anything to risky, a few bank accounts, some illegal merchandise here and there but nothing that could be traced back to us.

Blume was the biggest company in Chicago and they owned everything, if Mel and I were unsuccessful in our attempts it would mean death for us in a best scenario and in a worst scenario it meant our families were in peril too.

Plus, there was the fact that neither of us had ever attempted anything more risky, we wouldn't even know where to start. I mean, Melina makes viruses every so often and sends them to small companies that mean nothing to the world. I occasionally look at building schematics and steal from small bank accounts but that's all just a game to us.

'You okay?' Melina grabbed at my shoulder just as T-bone had earlier. 'You went quiet for a few minutes, are you sure you're alright?'

'Yeah...' I gulped, deciding to sleep on the information that T-bone gave me. I'll think about it when I go to bed and reach a decision by morning. 'I'm just a little shaken up… I am a bit of a wiener when it comes to these things you know.'

Melina giggled and walked over to the cupboard under the sink, she pulled out our large metal containing and placed the six thousand dollars inside it. 'I'll take this to the bank tomorrow and transfer it into my account. I think the banks going to get suspicious if I keep putting massive sums of money into our joint account.'

'That's fine.' I smiled. 'I have to go shopping tomorrow anyway so why don't we go together and we can make a day out of it.'

'Make a day out of going to the bank and then going shopping?' Melina laughed. 'Sure, if we're going into town then I want to go to that italian restaurant by the river in the loop for lunch.'

'Done.' I smirked. 'Now, the big question is… Is it too late for me to eat food and then go to bed?'

'It is never too late to eat food.' Melina winked and placed the metal case under the sink again. 'What is it you want? I'll make you something.'

'Have we got any red vines left?' I jumped up onto the kitchen counter. 'I'm in the mood for some vine-y goodness.'

'You seem to be in a much better mood now you're home.' Melina laughed. 'Don't worry, I won't make you go on anymore swaps for at least a few months. I know how much you hate them.'

'Thanks, sweets.' I smiled as she pulled a packet of red vines out of the cupboard and handed them to me. 'Don't eat them all, Wal-Mart said they weren't getting another shipment of them in until Wednesday.'

'Damn it.' I mumbled pulling five from the packet and handing it to her back. I pushed all five vines into my mouth at the same time and giggled at the thought of how silly I must look.

'Picture of beauty.' Melina laughed, placing the packet back in the cupboard then choosing to sit beside me on the cupboard. 'So… What did you think of T-Bone? Do you still think he's a ravenous monster?'

'Maybe.' I shrugged. 'I mean if he killed a load of people, Mel, of course he's a monster. However, he practically pays our bills nowadays so I deal with him.'

'Spoken like your mother.' Mel winked but then instantly hissed. 'Sorry, I didn't mean-'

'It's fine.' I smiled sweetly back.

'Well, I think I ought to go to bed. I want to be up in time to watch the reruns of Doctor Who. That'll always be the biggest thing I miss about England. Watching Doctor Who at a reasonable time.'

I smiled sweetly as the two of us jumped of the counter in sync and walked through to the living room and the down into the corridors to our bedrooms.

'See you in the morning.' I heard Melina call from her room just as she shut the door. Mine was a little further down the corridor but I reached it, opened the door and stepped in then locked it shut behind me.

I twisted my neck until it clicked just as I shrugged out of the revealing dress I'd been wearing all night and pulled myself into one of my oversized shirts and boxer shorts. I jumped into bed in the darkness and pulled my phone up to my face for some casually scrolling through some social media sites.

But Melina's words were still in my head. That I spoke just like my mother. My mother was still a tender subject for me which was why Melina tripped over herself to apologise. It was because the two of us, my mother and I, were so alike that I hadn't seen her in so long.

My mother and I hadn't spoken in almost four years. Melina and I originally moved over to Chicago for university purposes, she was taking engineering and I was taking midwifery, which obviously upset both of our mothers that we were moving across the globe.

Then around 8 months into both our courses, Melina and I knew that university was a mistake and neither of us should be there. We dropped out and immediately started looking for jobs in the surrounding area. Melina's mother was angry but supportive of her decision and stayed in touch. My mother was not.

My mother told me that I had become lazy and that was why I failed at my course, then when I told her I was staying in Chicago to get a job she was even more angry and demanded I came home. I told her no and she told me to cut myself out of her life then. Just like that and obviously, nearly four years later, that's what I did.

For the following year after my separation from my mother, Melina and I dabbled around trying whatever jobs we could. I worked in Wal-Mart part time then in a small cafe in Mad Mile for the rest of my time just trying to scrape together as much cash as I could. I was working maybe 17 hours every day, including weekends spending all the rest of my time sleeping.

Melina was lucky enough to get a job in a small company where she was a secondary engineer. It was here where she dabbled in hacking and programming for the first time. The job was terribly paid as it was just apprenticeship work so she was getting about four dollars an hour for 25 hours a week. However, the apprenticeship was only meant to last a year and after that, if the company took her on she would be earning up to 11 dollars an hour for up to 40 hours a week.

Melina was always apologetic, because of the terrible pay she was earning it meant I had to work two jobs but the two of us counted down the days until she was hopefully took on and then I would be able to drop one of my jobs.

Another year passed and sadly, the company let Melina go and she couldn't find anywhere else that would take her on as an engineer. The two of us knew we would have to either buy a cheaper place to live or move back to England.

That was when Melina introduced me to the hacking world, she showed me the few tips and tricks she had learnt and one day, simply by mistake, I gained access to a bank account from some man in missouri. He wasn't disgustingly rich but he had a disgusting past that led to me, in a pit of anger, to take half of the cash from his bank account and transfer it into my own.

Melina was almost disgusted at first but we used the money to pay the bills and the little debt we were starting to build up. The two of us dabbled more and it was around Melina's 20th birthday that we decided to take up hacking full time to pay our bills and keep living.

I quit both of my jobs and immediately got to work into finding bank accounts to hack, I only wanted to take from people who had committed wrongs in their life and didn't deserve the money while Mel dabbled in creating software, apps, viruses, computer programs, etc or anything that would sell for a high price.

I knew what I was doing was illegal so I made some decisions and made a few mistakes to make sure that if I was ever caught that my family wouldn't be traced and found too.

So maybe… T-Bone's offer wasn't as dangerous to them as I thought. I trusted my skills enough to think that if I was ever put under arrest, they'd never be able to tell who or where my family are so what risk did this message poss exactly?

But do I want to take that chance?

I mean, blume are a massive company surely they'll have means of their own to find out who I am and where I come from. If they're willing to kill a large list of people just for their hacking into the system then I have no doubt they'd be able to use my family against me. I've heard about stuff like this before, where corrupt companies used blackmail to get where they want.

If I remember correctly, that was the vigilantes excuse for his horrible actions. Some company killed his daughter or his sister… I don't really remember, they killed someone important to him and he basically went on a blood spree.

If I agree to work for T-Bone it would be like not caring that he's a murderer. He killed a lot of people during his tantrum and if I just agree to help him take down the same company he was trying to what will that make me? Will I have to kill people to get what I want?

I've never killed anyone. I don't know how to fight, I can't shoot a gun. I'm useless in battle, what if this gets me killed?

I sighed. My head would slowly whirl into a pit full of questions that I didn't have the answers for at this time. Yet there was something that Grady said that was leering me over to his side.

"They're being brutal, Clark, they're killing children in their beds."

Any company who kills children out of fear for its own self-preservation doesn't deserve to exist and I knew that I would do anything to take it out completely. When 8am rolled around, I had my answer.

I was going to help them take down Blume.