Keeping Me (Spy Chronicles Book 2)(29)

Second, I learned that I am good with accents. Or at least, I can do a pretty good Kiwi accent. Oh, yeah, I learned that people in New Zealand are referred to as Kiwis. But after the bird—not the fruit. Apparently there are these birds that don’t have wings and they’re all over New Zealand. I’ve seen a few of them hopping around.

And the third thing I learned about myself is that I suck at languages. I can't even say a standard Hello, nice to meet you in Swiss German. Nope.

“You're trying too hard,” Brett says.

“How do I say piss off in Swiss German?” I ask, looking over at Bass for the answer.

Brett is possibly the nicest person I've ever met. But after three hours of this, I'm exhausted. And I'm also thinking that my dad needs to relocate Spy School to an English speaking country. Like New Zealand.

Bass says the Swiss German words and I'm about to repeat them to Brett when he speaks.

“Twinkie break?” Brett asks.

Which makes me smile.

“She is not allowed to eat Twinkies. Or anything artificial,” Bass says.

I turn to glare at Sebastian, and in perfect Swiss German, I tell him to piss off.

Brett and Sebastian both start laughing.

“I guess she just needed the proper motivation,” Brett says. “Maybe we should start with slang and then move on to more formal stuff.”

I roll my eyes. “Fine. As long as I get my Twinkie.”

“Oh, I wasn't joking about you not getting one,” Sebastian says. “Besides, dinner is almost ready. Apparently Gage is ordering Hunter and your dad around. Doing some sort of recipe they found online.”

“Hunter is... cooking?” I ask.

I’m afraid.

“Your dad is teaching him. He says it's important for every young bachelor to know how to cook. Something about it impressing girls?”

I laugh. “Oh, my gosh. That's too funny.” I wonder if that means Hunter is going to ask that girl out... I hope so. He deserves to be happy.

“It's weird. Your dad went from being paranoid that somebody on my team was going to try and date you, to giving us pointers on how to pick up chicks,” Brett says. “It's very bizarre.”

“Not so strange, actually,” I say. “I finally got him to realize that I'm not going to date any of you.”

“Really? How did you do that?” Brett asks.

I told him I was too enamored with another boy.

But that boy is currently standing in the room with us, so I can't tell Brett that.

“I will tell you later,” I say. “Right now, I want food. I'm pretty sure Bass made me burn off, like, a thousand calories on our run.”

“You ran half a mile,” Sebastian says.

“That far? No wonder I'm so famished,” I say, and walk towards the kitchen. I don't look back, but I know that Sebastian and Brett are following me. It’s something I’ve grown accustomed to—somebody always being there. It’s almost comforting after being left alone my whole life.

When I walk into the kitchen, Dad is yelling something at Hunter in Swiss German. This gives me a new motivation to learn the language. If everybody around me is going to be speaking the language, I need to know what they’re saying.

“I just realized, you and your dad are a lot alike,” Sebastian says.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Never mind,” Bass says.

“How was your lesson?” Dad asks, when we walk farther into the kitchen.

Brett answers for me. “Well, languages are definitely not her forte. But she does learn slang very easily.”

“Ah, don’t worry, Serenity. It’ll get easier,” Dad says.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, waving a hand. “Is the food almost done? I’m starving.”

“Five more minutes,” Dad says. “Will you go get Sander? He’s down by the docks. Tell him the food is almost done.”

“Um, sure,” I say.

When I walk from the room, I’m surprised that nobody is following me. This whole my-dad-trusting-me thing is new. And strange. Though, I suppose he always trusted me. He just didn’t trust the guys.

I walk from the house towards the docks, where I find Sander. He’s standing there, looking out at the river.

“Hey,” I say, walking up behind him. “Dad said to come tell you that the food is almost ready.”

“Thanks,” Sander says, but doesn’t look towards me.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

Finally, he looks over. “Yeah. I’m fine. It’s really pretty here, right?”

“Very,” I say, agreeing.

“I have to leave,” Sander says, finally turning to look at me.

“To go where?”

“Massachusetts.”

“Oh. And you’re not coming back?” I ask.

“Not for a while,” he says.

“What are you doing there?”

He sighs. “There is this girl. Phoenix Black. Her dad is a politician and apparently he did something to anger a group of terrorist. They’re looking for her. The group is... nasty. And they’re good at what they do. Luckily for the girl, I am better. I’m going to go there and protect her.”

“Good,” I say. “How old is she?”