Keeping Me (Spy Chronicles Book 2)(25)

Which makes me laugh. “Well, kind of, yeah. But you might be my favorite person.”

“More than Sander and Gage?”

“Yes, but if you tell them, I will deny it,” I say.

Bass is quiet for a while. So long that I think he’s not going to respond. But then he does.

“Why do you like me so much? I’ve been really mean to you,” he says.

I stop walking and turn to him. We’re close to the house and I’m not quite ready to be back there yet. “I just... I think you were only mean to me because you didn’t want me to like you. And it works with most people. Maybe it would’ve worked with me, too, but that first day that I met you, in the gym, you looked at my bruises and I don’t think I’ve ever seen somebody so angry in my life. You were ready to kill somebody for me. And I knew that you weren’t really a bad person. Not really. You just pretend to be because you want to push people away.”

“You’re very good at reading people,” Bass says.

“I’ve spent my entire life watching people. What else can you do when you’re not allowed to talk to them?”

“I wanted to not like you,” he says. “I wanted to hate you. And part of me still wants that, because hating people is easier than liking them. I mean, if it wasn’t for you, I’d be back at Spy School right now. That’s comfortable. Easy. And you are anything but easy. I swear I have never met anybody more complicated, in my life.”

“I’m really not that complicated,” I tell him.

“You are,” Bass says. “But that’s okay, because I think you’re going to be worth the effort.”

“I hope that’s a compliment.”

“It is,” he says. “We should get back before your dad sends the firing squad.”

We both take off walking back to the house. And, while part of me feels like what Sebastian said was a joke, part of me realizes it’s true. My dad would send a firing squad to find me. It doesn’t scare me though. It feels good to be so loved.





Such a girl.





“If there is twenty feet or more between you and the perpetrator, what do you do?” Dad asks me later that night.

I'm apparently supposed to be learning how to handle myself in certain types of situation. The problem is I'm clueless about this stuff. It's not exactly something they taught me in my Floridian public high school.

“Uh, run,” I answer.

“Wrong,” Dad says.

“Why is that wrong?”

“If you run, they could pull a gun out and shoot you.”

I nod, like I understand, but I don't. I've been shot at once in my life, and that was when Sebastian and I jumped from that two story window. That was the scariest experience of my life. Maybe even more than the night Gage was shot.

“So, what do I do?” I ask.

“You shoot them,” Dad says.

“But I don't want to hurt anybody,” I say.

I hear a lot of responses from the guys, who are all currently sitting in on my session. Most of them sound annoyed with my answer. I ignore them, because I am honestly trying to learn.

“Serenity, you don't shoot to injure. You shoot to kill,” Dad says.

Which makes me gasp. “Dad, I'm not killing anybody. Or shooting anybody.”

“It's you or them.”

“I don't like this scenario,” I say. “How is it fair of me to say that my life is worth more than somebody else's?”

“Your life is always worth more,” Dad says.

“You say that because you're my dad. But their dad might feel differently.”

“I'm not your dad, but I agree with him,” Gage says. “You're always worth more.”

I look over at Gage. He's sitting in a recliner with his feet up. There is an IV stand beside him, reminding me just how close to death he really came.

“I would kill somebody to save you,” I tell my dad. “Or Gage. Or Jaxon. Or Sebastian. Or anybody in this room right now.”

“Well, that's a start at least,” Dad says. “We've just got to work on your sense of self preservation.”

“Dad, I've survived a lot of horrible situations,” I say. “I'm not as weak as I look.”

But he ignores me. “Sebastian, how did she do today on your run?”

“She didn't even make it to the half mile mark before she had to stop,” Bass answers. “It was kind of horrible, actually.”

“Do it again tomorrow,” Dad says. “I would also like to start gun training tomorrow.”

Yay.

Guns...

Literally, that is going to be my least favorite part.

“Brett, I'd like you to help her learn Swiss German,” Dad says. “And Bass, you're going to be her chaperone. I don't want her alone with any of the guys.”

Which makes me roll my eyes.

“Who is going to chaperone her and Bass when they're running?” Sander asks.

“They're fine,” Dad says.

Sander looks at me. “I don't know. I think if you should be worried about anybody, it's her and Bass.”

“I'm sitting right here,” Bass says. “I can talk for myself.”