Page 128 of No More Spies

TJ started toward them, but Cooper stopped him. “You can’t.It’s too much.”

Kala managed to get a glimpse of the door. It was nowengulfed in flames. They couldn’t leave that way. Cooper started for thestairs, but Kala could feel her heart twisting inside her body. Like last time.

“Hey, I love you,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I love you somuch.”

A pain started in her chest, and the world went black.

ChapterTwenty

Kala blinked as she woke, the world still hazy. She’d beenin the house again. The one that haunted her dreams sometimes. But this timeCooper had been there. This time Lou had reached out across time and space andwouldn’t let her go. This time she wouldn’t hide and shove what happened deepinside.

She coughed and winced.

Everything hurt. Especially her chest.

Damn it. She’d had another heart attack. Huisman’s drugssucked. 0 out of 5. Would not recommend.

“Hey, kid.”

Her father stood over her. He looked haggard, his darkclothes wrinkled and a long scrape on his cheek. It appeared someone hadstitched him up in the field.

“You’re in a hospital in Virginia,” he said quietly. “You’vebeen out for roughly six hours. The doctors say you’ll be fine in the shortterm, but they want someone to watch you for a while. Aidan is talking aboutsetting you up with a portable monitor for a couple of months. They don’t knowwhat the experimental drugs did. What kind of damage.”

Probably a lot, but she was already feeling better becauseshe glanced to her left and Cooper was asleep in a chair beside her bed. BeyondCoop, Lou and TJ were curled up on what appeared to be the world’s mostuncomfortable cot. TJ’s legs hung off.

“Is everyone okay? You look worse for the wear.” She glancedaround the room. “Mom and Kenz? What happened with Eve? Devi told me she wasalive when Lena took us.”

“Eve is recuperating nicely. I talked to Alex about an hourago, and they’re going to send her home tomorrow. The first thing she did whenshe came out of surgery was ask about you. Now I can tell her good news. Yourmom and Kenzie are grabbing some coffee,” her dad explained. “Tasha is withTristan, trying to track the cars in case one of them contains Zach and Devi.As for the team, everyone’s fine. I got into it with one of the guards. It’snothing. By the time we got in, they were mostly fleeing, so we didn’t even getto fight much. It’s you we’re worried about. We were lucky to have Aidan withus.”

“I’ll be okay,” she whispered back to her dad. How much hadthis job of hers cost her parents? “The last time he worked me over for waylonger, and I was fine a couple of days later. But I think I should come out ofthe field for a while. Maybe a long while.”

A long breath huffed out of her dad, and his shouldersslumped. He reached for her hand. “I thought…”

“You thought you would have to fight me,” she surmised,squeezing her dad’s hand. She’d learned this lesson. “You thought I would doanything I had to do to keep my job. I’m more than my job, and I don’t want tofind that bullet with my name on it. I think one day I’d like to actually workat McKay-Taggart, and I want to start learning how to run the place. I’m prettysure Coop will be there with me, and we’ll keep the name going strong. Butit’ll have to wait a couple of years. Dad, we have to see this one through.After we catch Huisman, we can all decide what we want to do, but we have todeal with him.”

Or the world would burn. She knew that. She’d known for along time. But it didn’t look like she would be the one to take him down. Shewould be relegated to being behind the scenes.

And she was okay with that. Her sister could finish thisjob, and Kala would be cheering her on all the way.

“I promise we won’t let him get away with it.” Her fatherbrought her hand up to his lips, kissing it. “I thought I lost you.”

She gave him a smile. A weak smile, but a smile. “I’mtougher than that.” She glanced over and Coop was still asleep, lookingadorably rumpled. “Did he lose his shit? Did someone take video this timebecause I would like to see it.”

Her father’s eyes rolled. “No. He did not. He got you out ofthe house and then started CPR. Aidan took over as soon as he could. He hadadrenaline in his pack and got your heart restarted, and here we are.”

“And in the chaos Huisman escaped.” But he wasn’t the onlyone. One of the last things she remembered was watching her cousin beingcarried out like she was Persephone being dragged to the underworld. “How didZach get away?”

Her father growled a little. “From what I can tell, he hadsomeone waiting for him. He’s in the wind. Do you think he plans to hurt yourcousin?”

She managed to slightly shake her head. She was going totalk to Cooper about his CPR techniques. Or Aidan. One of them had nearlycracked her ribs, it felt like. Otherwise, she seemed to be in decentcondition. “He’s in love with her. I think he knows his time is limited, and hewants to protect her while he can. And probably sleep with her. A lot.”

“Too much information. I’m going to kill that kid when wecatch him,” her father grumbled. “I could help him. I’m not going to turn himover to the damn Agency. Your mother wouldn’t let me.”

Her mom had a soft spot for Zach, but then she also knewwhat it meant to be beholden to a criminal parent. Although she was pretty sureShannon Reed wasn’t like her grandfather, the hard-core syndicate boss. She wasabout to do a lot of research into Cooper’s biological mother. “He needs to dothis. I think Devi will prove harder to deal with than he imagines.”

The door opened, and she heard a soft gasp. “You’re awake.”

“Thank god you’re awake.”

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