Page 27 of No More Spies

“And did it?”

Kala shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

She’d screamed and screamed until one of the assholes gaggedher, and then she’d screamed but it was a useless, futile thing. She’d burnedfrom the inside out and prayed it would be over. At some point she’d lostconsciousness.

At some point her heart had stopped.

She’d come to and the Canadian operative who’d been workingwith them had been pumping her chest. CPR. He’d given her CPR.

Not today, Maggie. Not fucking today.

Ben Parker was in love with her sister. He’d thought he wassaying the words to her, and in that moment she would have done a lot to havehim morph into Cooper. To have Cooper staring at her, tears in his eyes,praying she would live.

“Kala,” Lena admonished.

“It’s a very effective torture technique. I would havelikely told them anything, except of course I couldn’t stop screaming. He needsto refine it. There’s a happy medium. Also, the paralytic wore off before thetorture drug did, and then I couldn’t control my body. I’m pretty sure I have abunch of nerve damage. All in all, not how I wanted to spend that particularday.”

Lena’s expression went soft. “I’m sure it wasn’t. Kala, I’veread your file. You’re brave and reckless and still young. You’re already ahell of an operative, but this is the kind of event that can break a person.”

“I’m not that breakable.” She wished the woman in front ofher was more like Kai Ferguson. He’d been her therapist after the firstkidnapping. God, she had to number them at this point. Kai had taken her to arage room and given her a baseball bat. And then when she’d destroyed to herheart’s content, tears and screams included, he’d taken her for ice cream andthey’d talked. Really talked.

She wasn’t fifteen anymore. She shouldn’t need to beat thecrap out of a bunch of stuff to have a breakthrough.

“Everyone breaks, Kala. Everyone.”

Her father had told her the same thing. “Well, I didn’t haveto. My team saved me, and now all I want to do is find Emmanuel Huisman andensure he can’t do it again.” She knew better than to put into words what shewas going to do to the doctor.

Make him hurt for days. She would find that drug and see howhe liked it. Or she could go old school. There was something pure about puttingreal physical work behind the torture. The drug seemed like a cheat. She wouldslowly eviscerate him and feed him his own testicles.

Lena closed her notebook. “I’m not going to get much moreout of you, am I?”

“There’s not much more to get.” She certainly wasn’t goingto tell the good doctor that when she passed out, she’d had the dream again.The one that followed her since she was fifteen.

In the dream she was always sitting and waiting. It could beon a park bench, the sun warm on her face. At the kitchen table in the houseshe grew up in. On the bean bag in teenage Cooper’s room where they would makeout and she would get so hot she didn’t care about anything but him. And thedoor would open and she would know it was her mom.

Then Julia Ennis would walk through, the ghost she couldn’tquite shake. She would start walking in as Charlotte Taggart and morph intoJulia. A reminder that there were always two sides to every coin. And Kala knewwhich one she was.

“Tell me one true thing and I’ll close the book on this partof the investigation,” Lena offered. “I still need to profile Captain Reed, butI’ll clear you for duty if you can be honest with me about anything. What wereyou thinking as you lay there?”

“I thought it hurt. I thought I wanted to die.” Both truths,but not the truth. What the fuck was she so afraid of? Her father did this. Hermom still went to a survivors of domestic abuse group from time to time. Shewas so tired. “I wished I’d been better. Seen more. Done more. I wished I’d…Iwished I’d been in love and had someone love me back.”

Lena nodded. “All right. This is done, but you should know Ithink you should see someone regularly, and I’m not talking about just forcheckups. I won’t force you, but I am recommending it.”

Her father could get her out of it. “Fine. I can sit in achair and stare a couple of times a week.”

“It takes more than that,” Lena replied. “I’m going to askyou a question and you don’t have to answer. Think about it, and if you come toa conclusion that leads you back here, well, I’m in this office for at leastanother few weeks.”

“Shoot.” She wouldn’t be coming back.

“Is this how you want to live? I’m not talking about thejob. You’re excellent at the job. I’m talking about the walls you have up. I’mtalking about the regrets you had as you lay there thinking you would die. Manypeople find an experience like that can jump-start a change they need in theirlives.”

“What kind of change?”

“For you, I believe it’s the acceptance that you are worthyof what you feared you missed. It’s the acceptance that you’re lovable. If youdon’t believe it, why would anyone else?”

She didn’t want to admit it, but the doc had her there. Howmany times had she asked the question? How often had she lied and pretended tobe something she wasn’t so Cooper wouldn’t see she was still a scared girl whohad no idea what happened to her?

Was it time to put it aside and see what she could be?

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