Page 19 of No More Spies

And he had his answer. He was being insecure, and he neededto work on it.

He would. He would do it for himself.

He would do it for Kala.

Chapter Four

In the end it had been strangely uneventful.

“You okay, kiddo?” her dad asked for the five hundredthtime.

“I would be better if Kyle stopped making me want to vomit,”she replied, yawning.

Her cousin sighed and stopped making out with MaeBe. “Youreally are a menace.”

She got that a lot.

After a long talk with Julia and some halfway decent pizza,her family had shown up and taken out all the bad guys. Not that she’d beenallowed to watch. No. She’d been hustled out via secret tunnel by her mom andTennessee Smith and coddled like a baby.

They didn’t know she wasn’t innocent anymore. Maybe neverhad been.

In the end it had been her dad, uncles, Aunt Erin, and MaeBewho’d taken out Julia Ennis.

She’d been free for hours now, but there was a weight on hershe wasn’t sure would ever come off again.

“Sweetie, your dad only wants you to talk to us.” Her momsat across from her, looking elegant even after what they’d been through. Afterthey’d done what they had to do, they had her on the MT jet in mere hours. Shewas on her way home.

Would it feel like home?

They were an hour into their flight, and she couldn’t bringherself to talk about it. Uncle Sean had tried. Aunt Erin had offered her asoda and told her it was okay if she wanted to punch something. Uncle Theo hadasked if she wanted his phone and AirPods to listen to some music.

Knowing her uncle it was probably some whiny girl rock.

She didn’t feel like she belonged here anymore.

“I did. I told you what happened. Cooper’s an asshole, andI’ve learned my lesson. Boys aren’t worth it. Consider me asexual from here onout. Ground me all you like. I won’t be going anywhere anyway. I’ve seen myshare of dead bodies now. I think I’ll ditch the whole spy thing and becomelike a librarian or something.” She bet Julia fucking Ennis never thought aboutbecoming a librarian.

Her dad pointed her way, his eyes narrowing. “And that iswhy we worry.”

She needed to deflect the parental units or she would findherself at the Ferguson Clinic for Tender Feelings. She wasn’t going to havefeelings anymore. “I’m fine. It was scary and I had to see Kyle in a towel andthat was gross, but I’m fine. I spent my time in a cell in the basementwatching the guard sneak YouTube walk-throughs of the video game he’s playing.Well, played. I assume someone killed him. Should have done a walk-through ofthis life level, buddy.”

She couldn’t quite dump the sarcasm. It was a part of her.

“Kala, you need to talk,” her mom said.

Was this what her mom and dad had been discussing earlier?They’d huddled together like they often did when trying to figure out what todo with her.

“About what? Do you want me to say I was scared? I was.” Shehad to give them enough so they thought she was normal but not so much theyever figured out the truth. Because they would be…not ashamed, exactly. Theywould blame themselves when this was fully on her. She’d had a long talk withJulia Ennis while Kyle had been showering. She’d convinced her jailer that shewas going to die of hunger, gotten him to take her to the kitchen where she’dmanaged to steal a knife, and then gotten caught by the wicked witch of theworld.

You are a smart girl, Kala Taggart. You could be great.You could be one of the real people of the world.

The worst part about talking to Julia Ennis? The fact thatshe made some sense. Julia had pointed out that her father had trained MaeBeVaughn but not her. He’d left her training to a martial arts asshole who’d toldher she was too intense. She had to find another one. He’d liked Kenzie,though. Kenzie had been teacher’s pet. Naturally she screwed that up for hersister.

I was a lot like you as a kid.

Kala had snorted and told her she doubted it.

No, I was. Tell me if I’m wrong. Your sisters are farmore popular than you are. Your mother’s always worried. At least she calls itworry, but it feels more like she’s embarrassed. They have much easierrelationships with the others. Sometimes you wish you didn’t exist at all. Itwould be easier on everyone else if you didn’t.