He usually had kids like them for breakfast: he would have his men hunt them down, teach them a lesson they would never forget, and that would've been the end of it.
But because his state of ennui had made him restless, he had found himself acting out of character and taking personal control of the hunt. With just a few clicks, he had his army of virtual spybots trawling the entire Internet for his target, and every 'crew' that his bots reported to him was scrutinized with due diligence.
There was nothing too silly or far-fetched for his always-running bots, and that was how he had inevitably found her.
Her real name was Sara Perez, but all of her online profiles had her listed as Sara Crewe, and that was how she had unwittingly screwed herself over, punch fucking line intended.
One click was all it had taken to reveal her most recent online activity. Just one click, and the monster had its first peek into her world as the letters she typed made their way to her screen...and his.
SARA CREWE: Can we Netflix and chill, y'all?
The Little Prince's Rose: Firstly: y'all is NOT slang, and you have no business using it if you're not from the South.
Sara Crewe: Does it count if I love watching Dynasty?
Jane Eyre: Nope!
The Little Prince's Rose: And secondly, "Netflix and chill" should not be taken literally. It's basically the code word for home sex, which we all know your virginal self would be too shy to use.
Sara Crewe: Don't be too sure. I can end up Netflixing and chilling with a stranger because of FOMO.
Jane Eyre: Uh...the correct way to say that would be just Netflix and chilling.
Sara Crewe: Whatevs.
Jane Eyre: WHY is it so important anyway? Is it really so bad for people at your workplace to know that words more than five letters don't scare you?
Sara Crewe: Uh...yeah.
The Little Prince's Rose: Yikes. You should really leave that shithole and find a job somewhere else.
Sara Crewe: It's fine. Getting bullied is nothing new to me.
The Little Prince's Rose: Why do you speak like a ninety year old?
Jane Eyre: Yeah, you never spilled the tea on that one.
Sara Crewe: WHOA!
Jane Eyre: Whoa?
The Little Prince's Rose: What she said.
Sara Crewe: How do you guys know I'm drinking tea?!
The Little Prince's Rose: HAHAHAHAHAHA
Jane Eyre: Google it! HAHAHAHA
Sara Crewe: OH. HAHAHAHAHA
Jane Eyre: YOU ARE SO CUTE!
The Little Prince's Rose: Agreed!
Sara Crewe: Can we just please get back to the tea?
Jane Eyre: Such a spoilsport! But I am still curious, so do tell!
Sara Crewe: A long, long time ago—-
The Little Prince's Rose: Seriously? That long ago?
Sara Crewe: On Annie Joyce's eleventh birthday, I heard one of the boys in class saying 'that's dope', and I was so worried and distressed that I immediately told our teacher about it. I didn't want them to get into any trouble. I just wanted to save them.
The Little Prince's Rose: Save them from what?
Sara Crewe: I thought 'dope' meant drugs.
...
...
Jane Eyre: OMG YOU'RE SERIOUS? LMAO
Sara Crewe: It completely changed the trajectory of my social life, so yes, I am pretty serious, and I've become the laughingstock of my school ever since.
THE CHAT FORUM HIS Sara was logged into had decent security. Quite good, actually, but just not good enough for monsters like him, and in moments, every morsel of data about her that was available online had immediately been downloaded to his private server.
Her insistence on learning to butcher her already-pretty way of speaking had intrigued him, and with a few taps on his keyboard, he had all the data he needed to control her life. He could have emptied her bank account, forward her mail to a different address, or even buy her a new bra, and it would be the correct cup size, thanks to the information that came from her last online purchase.
But what most surprised him, however, was when he eventually realized she had been lying to her online friends. The other girls believed his Sara was a twenty-something office worker in New York, when in truth she was an eighteen-year-old girl from New Jersey who had three months to go before graduating from high school.
That she had everyone fooled, himself included, had originally pissed him off, and all he had been able to think about was getting back at her. His Sara, he had kept thinking that time, must be made to pay for deceiving him, and it was why he had dug into her life like it was his own cave of treasures to explore.
He had dug and dug and dug without giving a damn about hiding his tracks, but the more he found out about her, the less he wanted to get rid of her. The more he knew about her, the more he wanted to keep her.
Own her.