Keeping Me (Spy Chronicles Book 2)(17)

“And... Brett... somehow turned it back on?”

He nods.

“Okay,” I say, taking a breath. “And why is it bad that Brett turned the power back on?”

“It’s not bad,” Bass answers. “It’s just... nobody else could’ve turned the power back on except for...”

“Spy School,” I answer.

“Exactly,” he answers. “Now Nolan has confirmation that we’re in St. Louis.”

“And he will come after me?”

“Yes,” Bass answers.

It’s the most straightforward answer I’ve ever received from any of them, and it frightens me.

Maybe I was better off not knowing.

“But I’m here. And Sander. Brett, Jaxon, and Hunter are here, too,” Bass says. “But it’s not just us. Your dad...”

Sebastian’s voice trails off and I realize what he's trying to say.

“My dad got me thirty bodyguards to watch me at the mall,” I say. “I can only imagine what he’s done for this.”

Bass just smiles. “I can’t say that I blame him.”

“This is a good thing,” I say.

At least, I hope it is.





Protocol Lex Luthor.





I’m sitting in a chair beside Brett in the computer room. Brett is typing faster than I can comprehend and only stops every once in a while to readjust his glasses. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody concentrate so hard.

Sebastian and Sander are ‘patrolling the grounds,’ whatever that means. And Jaxon and Hunter will be here soon. I’m excited to have all the guys here, well, all except for Gage. And Nolan, but I can’t miss him. He’s a bad guy. He shot Gage and knocked me out. Not to mention the fact that he tried to kill my father.

“What exactly are you doing?” I ask Brett.

He stops typing and looks over at me. For a second, I think he forgot that I was there. He adjusts his glasses before answering. “I’m looking for a signature.”

“A signature?”

“Every computer leaves a signature. I’m trying to find the signature of who shut off the power,” Brett says.

“But I thought it was Nolan,” I say.

“It’s easy to come to that conclusion, but I want to make sure. To be honest, it’s not really his style,” he says. “I just want to one hundred percent know who we are dealing with before we take action.”

He starts typing again and I alternate between the screen, the keyboard, and Brett’s face. He’s concentrating so hard.

“Can you show me how to do that?” I ask.

This time, he answers without stopping. “Sure. You have a lot to catch up on before you can graduate spy school.”

“Well, you can teach me computers, Bass can teach me how to fight, and Jax can teach me how to drive fast,” I say.

Brett laughs.

“If I learn Swiss German, can I be on the team with you guys?” I ask.

“If your dad lets you, yes,” he says. “I mean, I can only speak for myself, but I imagine the other guys would like you on the team, too. They like you.”

“I like you guys, too,” I say.

“Can’t say I’d blame you if you hated us,” Brett says. He glances at me for a second, but then he looks right back at the screen. “After what Nolan did, I would probably hate us too.”

“It’s not your fault Nolan went all psycho,” I say.

“We should have seen it coming,” he says. “There were signs, right? There had to be.”

“You weren’t looking for them,” I say. “You had known Nolan since you were young. You were friends. He had never given you any reason not to trust him, so even if you saw signs of him going dark, you wouldn’t have noticed. I didn’t notice.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t trained to noticed,” Brett says. “The guys... me... we all let our guard down. And Gage had to pay the price for us.”

Hearing Gage’s name makes my heart hurt just a little bit.

“Do you think we can go back home soon?” I ask. “I want to see Gage.”

“Probably,” he answers. “Sebastian and Sander are unstoppable together. Everybody was shocked when Sander decided to join our team instead of teaming up with his cousin. But the two of them together will find Nolan. Well, I’ll find him. They’ll stop him.”

“Are they going to kill him?” I ask.

“Do you really want to know the answer to that?” Brett asks.

Probably not. “No.”

Brett stops typing, his mouth hanging open as he looks at the screen.

“What is it?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer me though. He just picks up his phone and calls somebody.

“Get in here,” he says, to whoever is on the phone, then the locks his phone and continues to stare at the screen with his mouth hanging wide.

“Brett, what’s wrong?” I ask.

I hear the front door open and a few seconds later, Sander and Sebastian are in the room, both of them with panicked looks on their faces.

“What’s wrong?” Sander asks.

“It’s not Nolan,” Brett says. “And we need to leave. Now.”