Page 22 of No More Spies

She could love her friends and family and use her darknessonly to protect them. She could be the dragon only a few would ever know wantedto be something else. Something softer.

“I don’t know, Daddy.” She could let the river take hersomeplace infinitely cold. Or she could let her father teach her. She couldshut her heart away completely and become what everyone thought she would. Orshe could guard it and only open it to those she was closest to. She could keepher parents. She could keep her sisters. She could keep Lou. “I don’t know.”Tears began, fat and filled with toxin, rolling down her cheeks. She let thembecause it suddenly felt so damn good. “I don’t know what happened because theydrugged me and now I don’t know…I don’t know…”

A deep sob heaved from her body, the feeling so overwhelmingshe couldn’t hold herself up. It didn’t matter because her father was there,wrapping himself around her. Holding her so tight that for a moment shecouldn’t breathe.

Then her mom was there, too, wrapping around the other sideand completely encircling her, and she found herself telling them everything.

She found herself utterly broken, but now with hope that shecould put herself back together.

She wasn’t Julia Ennis and she never would be.

Kala held on to her parents as she tried to ride out thestorm.

* * * *

“Have you seen her?” Cooper hustled to catch up with TJ.Kala had been home a full week, and he’d heard nothing more than she was fineand she would be back at school today.

It had to be really bad if she hadn’t seen anyone. Were herparents so mad at her they were keeping her from her friends? She needed themright now.

He’d been in hell, not knowing what had happened. He alwaysknew what happened to Kala. She would text him when she stubbed her freakingtoe.

He’d sent her text after text, begging her to unblock him.Well, he’d sent them to Tasha since she was the only one of the Taggart sisterswho was talking to him right now.

TJ stopped, looping his thumbs through the straps of hisbackpack. “By her, I take it you mean Kala. Yes. She was at Uncle Sean’s Fridaynight. We had a barbecue.”

So the Taggarts were circling around her. Good. He wishedhis family had been invited. “How is she?”

TJ seemed to think about it for a moment. “She’s Kala. For achick who got kidnapped and apparently saw a bunch of shit, she’s surprisinglycool with it. And she claims her love of anchovies saved Kyle’s life, so she’snever giving them up no matter how stinky they are. Then she went to ChloeLodge’s party and proceeded to prove it by eating a whole large with like fiftyof those fish on them. I lost a bet on that one.”

Somehow in his head he’d thought she was traumatized. Shewas holing up because terrible things had happened, and if he could get to her,he could make it all right. He’d had this weird Romeo and Juliet thing in hishead. He’d literally been making plans to sneak out and break into her house.

All he knew was he was done with everyone keeping him awayfrom her. He should have been there when she got off the plane, but no one hadeven told him when she was going to land. They’d informed him she was home andshe’d been looked over by a doctor. She was fine.

She couldn’t be fine.

“She went to a party?” He hadn’t even known there was aparty.

“You’re grounded, dude,” TJ said by way of explanation. “Imean she is too, but apparently she’s on some kind of weird training schedule,and she can earn time in the real world. I think it helped that her dad wasthere, too. They let us hang out in the game room while they were in… It’s aroom with a lot of booze, but it doesn’t look like a bar. Chloe’s dad is weirdand intimidating. Well, one of them. The other one grilled hot dogs and didn’tmake fun of me when I two fisted. Uncle Ian did, though. He said I was going toget fluffy if I didn’t watch it. I think he body shamed me.”

Cooper ignored his best friend. “She hasn’t called me. Idon’t suppose she earned her phone privileges back.”

TJ seemed to understand there was an undercurrent to thisconversation he hadn’t counted on. “Uhm, I mean she’s been calling Lou a lot.Lou’s tutoring me and usually she’s very focused, but she claims she has toanswer Kala now because she’s worried she’ll feel abandoned if she doesn’t. Shehad her phone on Friday. She was showing me the weapons her dad’s training heron.”

An armed Kala was a fearsome thing. “Why hasn’t she calledme? I got my phone back but she blocked me and didn’t remember to fix it.”

TJ’s lips pursed like they always did when he was thinkingsomething through.

When he was trying to figure out how to not hurt someone.

“Just tell me.” He had to know. It was killing him.

“I think you should give her some space.”

“She doesn’t need space. She needs me to apologize,” hesaid, but his eyes were on the parking lot because he was almost certain he sawTasha parking the Subaru she drove. It must be nice to have an older sibling sothey didn’t have to get dropped off by their mom.

Kala offered to have Tash pick him up, too, but he’ddeclined. He had a weird schedule.

And if anyone saw him getting out of Tasha’s car with her,they would have drawn conclusions.

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