“Don’t they get a trial?” I ask.
“We’re not America,” he says. “There is no trial.”
I get what he’s saying, but it’s still weird. Doesn’t everybody deserve a fair trial?
“Will they be in prison forever?” I ask.
“There is always a shot at redemption,” Dad says.
His words relieve me, mostly because I don’t want these guys to be in prison forever. Steven manipulated them and he used them. Yes, they deserve punishment for their part, but I don’t think all of them are bad. How can they be? They just got caught up on the wrong side of a war.
“You’re too kind for your own good sometimes,” he says. “So much like your mom.”
I smile at his words, knowing he means them as a compliment.
The door to my room opens up and I watch as Sebastian comes in with a bag of food in his hands. He immediately hands it to my dad and comes up beside my bed, taking my hand in his.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod. “I’m okay. Are you? You got shot.”
“It barely grazed me,” he says, lifting his shirt to show me his stitches.
His wound looks bad. It’s all red and he has at least twelve stitches.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t awake when you were getting stitched up,” I say, my fingers touching the skin just below his wound. I try to keep my touch soft so I don’t hurt him. “I’m not even sure why I passed out.”
“I passed out the first time I killed somebody,” Dad says, reminding me he’s still in the room.
I drop my hand from Sebastian’s side.
“Does that mean I get to go home soon?” I ask.
“Yeah, I’ll go get the doctor,” Dad says, but he pauses to look at Sebastian. “Behave.”
I roll my eyes as he leaves the room.
“Is your dad ever going to trust me?” Bass asks.
“He already does,” I say. “Or he wouldn’t have let me go around the world with you.”
“He trusts me to protect you, but he doesn’t trust me with your virtue.”
I laugh. “I doubt he’ll trust you with that, even when we’re thirty and have kids of our own.”
“You’re probably right,” he says.
“So... this is really over,” I say.
“It is,” Sebastian says.
“You can finally see your family again.”
“Yeah,” he says. “We can.”
“Does that mean you’re taking me with you?”
“My little sister would kill me if I didn’t,” he says. “I think she likes you more than she likes me.”
“I doubt that.”
After all, Sebastian is her brother. I’m just the girl her brother is dating.
“Dad said Nolan helped you,” I say.
“He did,” he says. “Your dad told me that Nolan has been working for him the whole time and just pretending with Steven. And I know he saved your life, but I still don’t like the guy.”
“You don’t like anybody.”
“That’s not true,” Sebastian says. “I like you.”
“And I still can’t figure out why,” I say.
He laughs. “Me, either.”
I stick my tongue out at him.
I still can’t believe it.
We’re safe.
Steven is dead.
We’re going to be okay.
A few minutes later, Dad comes in with a doctor who looks me over and declares that I’m okay to go home.
Home.
For the first time ever, I get to go home and not be scared.
Promise?
When we get back from the hospital, I find out that we did lose a few lives in the explosion—two male graduates. I didn’t know them, but I do know that they will be terribly missed. We will have a memorial for them next week, which I will be attending.
Steven’s men didn’t come out quite as lucky. I’m sad for lives lost on that end, too—any loss of life is sad.
Sebastian and I hang out in the living room while we wait for my dad to come back home. He has a few things to attend to.
Even though we’re not under an immediate threat, he still wants Sebastian here with me. He says he has ‘many’ enemies, which I don’t doubt. But Sebastian would be here, anyway.
We’re bonded in a way I don’t think many can understand, and it’s strange to be apart from him now.
“Steven is dead,” I say.
We haven’t really talked about the whole me-killing-his-dad thing. And I know he wasn’t close with the guy, but he was still his dad.
“Thank you,” Sebastian says. “I talked about killing him for so long, but I don’t know if I would have been able to. Even though he’s a monster, he’s still my dad.”
“You would have killed him if you had to,” I say. “In the end, it came down to him killing you or me killing him and I realized that I can live with the guilt, but I can’t live without you. But I’m glad it was me who had to make that decision.”
“What do we do now?” he asks.
I raise an eyebrow, curious what he means.
“I mean... my whole life has been leading up to this moment and now it’s over,” he says, explaining. “What do I do now? How do I even begin to live a normal life? What is normal, even?”
“Spy School is not normal,” I say. “Besides, I’m beginning to think that normal is overrated.”
“You would think that.”
“I suppose the first thing we should do is graduate,” I say. “We could take classes until graduation this spring and finish up our training.”
“That’s a given,” he says.
“And then when we graduate, we can finally go to Disney World,” I say.
Sebastian laughs. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Why?”
“It’s like... when a pro football player in America is asked what he wants to do after winning the Super Bowl, and he answers that he is going to Disney World,” Sebastian says. “I mean, we just defeated one of the biggest threats to Spy School, and you want to go to Disney World.”
“It’s number one on our bucket list,” I say.
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Are you really okay?” I ask him, needing to know. “I mean, you watched me kill your father in front of you. Do you... hate me? Or resent me?”
“You saved my life,” Sebastian says. “How could I ever hate you for that?”
His words relieve me, but I still worry he may change his mind someday.
I hope he doesn’t.
“Serenity, I love you. Nothing has changed my feelings,” he says. “If anything, my feelings are only stronger, after what you did for me.”
“Promise you’ll tell me if you change your mind?”
“I promise,” he says. “But I won’t change my mind.”
I nod.
Perhaps Sebastian is right, though.
What do we do now?
The past few months, we’ve lived our life one step ahead of danger, and at one point I was in the literal hands of the enemy. But we’re safe now. The threat is gone. And while I know there are many more threats out there, for now everything is quiet.
“Do you think life will be boring now?” I ask.
“With you? Not a chance,” Sebastian says.
“You know my dad isn’t going to let you stay in my room anymore,” I say.
“I figured as much,” he says.
“And I don’t think my dad is the kind of guy we could sneak around,” I say. “He knows everything.”
“Your dad is kind of scary,” Sebastian says. “But please don’t tell him I said that.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” I say. “Besides, my dad loves you.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t love me dating his only daughter.”
“He will just have to get used to that,” I say.
I hear a car pull up out front and I look out the window to see my dad’s SUV pull up.
“He’s back,” I say, turning back to Bass. “At some point tonight, I am going to have to say goodbye to you.”
“Yes, but I will be back tomorrow. Always.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” he says, kissing me on the lips.
We both back away from each other when the door opens up.
Dad walks in, but I hear another pair of footsteps.
My heart nearly stops when I see who walks in the door.
Forgiveness.
I look into Nolan’s green eyes, not knowing what to think.
He’s here.
In my house.
With my dad.
And he’s not the bad guy.
My mind hasn’t stopped racing since I saw him in Australia. Since he let Sebastian and me go. Since... he treated me well as a prisoner and then helped me escape. And then seeing him help Sebastian...
But then I think back to that day at the bowling alley.
He shot Gage. And he nearly killed him. And he gave me a concussion. How does one move on from that?
“I’m not asking for things to go back to the way they were,” Nolan says, as we sit at the dining room table. He’s sitting across from me and Sebastian is sitting beside me. Sebastian has had his hand on my thigh, which is a really welcome distraction right now.
“How could they? You shot Gage,” I say.
“He’s alive,” he says.
“Barely. It took months of recovering,” I say. “And how can he ever be the same? His team leader, somebody he looked up to and admired, shot him.”
“Gage knows why I did what I did,” Nolan says. “I never would’ve killed him. I knew where to aim the gun.”
“How can you know?”
“I’ve trained my entire life. And your dad was the one who told me where to aim,” he says.
That’s right.
My dad was the one who put him up to being a double agent.
But I didn’t know that he had told him to shoot Gage!
“We don’t have to be friends,” Nolan says. “I just hope that you will forgive me, because everything I did was for you and Sebastian and your dad. If I hadn’t done what I did, your dad wouldn’t have known what Steven’s plans were. Because he knew, they were waiting when we came into town. And Steven was shocked. He really thought he was just going to sneak over to your house and annihilate you guys. He wanted to run Spy School himself.”
“You saved my life,” I say. “More than once. And I can never thank you enough for that.”
But could things go back to the way they were?
“I do forgive you,” I say.
“I still don’t like you,” Sebastian says to Nolan. “But I owe you for saving her life. Thank you.”
“I think we could be friends again,” I say. “Or at least, we could try.”
“That’s all I can ask of you,” Nolan says.
“But only if Gage is okay with it.”
“I’ve already spoken to him,” he says. “I’ve talked to all the guys. They are willing to forgive me for what I’ve done—after all, I was only doing my job.”
“Are you going to join the team again?” I ask.
I’m not sure Nolan joining the team again would be a good thing. Especially not now that Sebastian has joined. The two of them would never get along.
“No, your father and I agree that I am better off being a single agent,” Nolan says. “Someday I might change my mind, but for now I am going to work alone.”
“That’s probably for the best,” I say.
Nolan turns to Sebastian. “I’m surprised you’ve joined a team. I thought you were a work alone kind of guy.”
Sebastian shrugs. “Serenity changed my mind.”
Nolan grins. “I think she’s good at doing that.” He looks at me. “By the way, nice work taking Steven down the way you did. I think he severely underestimated you. I mean, you’re small, underweight, a girl, and you’ve only been training for a few months. He never even saw you coming.”
No, I don’t think he did.
“What will you do now that this is over?” Nolan asks.
“Finish school,” I tell him, then grin and tell him our plans. “And then we’re going to Disney World.”
“Disney World?” he asks, wrinkling his nose.
“It’s her idea,” Sebastian says.
“He wants to go too,” I say.
“Only to make you happy.”
Sebastian kisses the top of my head and I lean in closer to him.
This boy.
He has my heart completely.
“You two are disgustingly sweet,” Nolan says. “By the way, good luck with her dad.”
“I know exactly what I’m getting into by dating her,” Sebastian says. “And I am certain that she is worth it.”
Best boyfriend ever.
Since I was rescued in Florida and brought here, there have been a lot of bumps in the road. Things haven’t been easy at all, but even through all this chaos, I have made friends. I have met my dad and I now have a real family. And I met Sebastian, the love of my love. I can’t regret anything that has brought me to this point.
Things will never be perfect or easy, but that’s life. And I’m just glad that, no matter how long or short it is, I’ve gotten to spend my time with people I love. In the end, isn’t that what matters?
Tuesday, April 17
Disney World.
I am officially a Spy School graduate, though I still have a lot to learn, I am excited about my future and what is to come.
Sebastian and I still train every single morning and the rest of our team joins us, when they’re not on a mission, which is rare. We’re all always busy, which is the way I like it. I feel like I always need to be doing something.
“Serenity, I love your tiara,” Sofia says, when we meet at the front gate.
Disney World.
We’re finally here.
And I am so excited. I feel like a kid again.
Sebastian is holding onto my hand, as always. I look over at him and smile.
This is everything I dreamed it would be, and more.
“Are you going to get a tiara?” I ask Sofia.
“Nah, I want some Mickey ears,” she says. “Maybe they have some pink ones.”
Sofia goes on and on about how excited she is, but Sebastian isn’t paying any attention to his little sister. He’s watching me.
“What?” I ask him.
“Nothing, you’re just... really beautiful,” he says. “And now I really can call you princess.”
I grin. “You can call me princess anytime, now that you don’t say it like it’s an insult.”
“It was never an insult.”
I am about to call him on his bluff.
“Okay, maybe at first,” he says. “But then I got to know you.”
“And now?”
“Now I think I’m lucky to have you in my life,” he says. “I don’t deserve you.”
“It is me who doesn’t deserve you,” I say. “Happy birthday.”
“You’ve already told me ten times today,” he says.
“And I’ll probably tell you ten more times.”
Today is Sebastian’s nineteenth birthday. And I honestly can’t think of a better way to celebrate it.
Dad, who has been on his phone, finally hangs up.
He wasn’t supposed to work today.
But I should’ve known better.
I guess I can cut him a little slack. I mean, he has an entire organization to run.
“Everybody else is here,” Dad says.
Everybody else?
I turn around to see who he’s talking about and smile when I see the rest of my team—Gage, Hunter, Jaxon, Brett and Sander, who is holding hands with that girl I met, Phoenix, I think.
Today couldn’t be more perfect.
Scotland?
Later that night, we eat at a really nice restaurant, in a private room. Dad says he has some kind of announcemen
t and that he can’t talk about it in front of anybody else, just us who know about Spy School. I notice that Phoenix is in the room, so I guess my dad doesn’t care that she knows. I’m not sure about that.
While at Spy School I have learned that you’re not allowed to tell anybody about Spy School, but there are exceptions. One being that once you get engaged, you’re allowed to tell your future spouse about the school, after they sign a confidentiality waiver. I don’t know a whole lot about it other than that, but I don’t need it. I’m dating Sebastian.
I look at Sebastian, he’s got his hand on my thigh under the table. I don’t know if he’s even aware that he’s doing it. He just always likes to touch me whenever we’re close, and I like that.
Growing up, I never saw the woman who raised me kiss her husband. The two of them never touched or even acted like they liked each other. So, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I am relieved that he likes to touch me so much.
After we eat our meal, Dad stands up, I guess he wants to make his announcement now. When he starts talking, the entire room turns to him to listen.
It’s not just that he’s the leader of Spy School. He just demands attention. It’s who he is. Sebastian says that I’m a lot like him, but I’m not so sure about that. I could never demand the attention of an entire room like he does.
“As you all know, my daughter has recently graduated,” Dad says, grinning at me. “And now it’s time for her to receive her first assignment. Her and her team.”
I now am unable to stop myself from smiling.
I am going to get my first assignment.
I’m a real agent now.
“As much as I hate seeing my daughter off, I know that it’s time,” Dad says. “Tonight, you all will be boarding a flight to Scotland.”
Scotland.
Okay.
At least they speak English there.
And I’ve always wanted to go to Scotland. They have the best accents.
“Once you are there, you will be helping track down a terrorist cell that has been trying to hide out there while they plan their next attack,” Dad says. “You’ll find out more information on the plane. But know that you all are helping the world become a better and safer place.”
Saving Me Page 9
