the legitimate. Take time off to think about things, that’s what Professor Brown told me. But I can read between the lines just fine, thank you. What she was really saying is, We don’t think this program suits you.
And since digging in the earth to find ancient bones so I could put the puzzle pieces of the past together was the only thing that ever made me feel a part of society at large—well, the words ‘complete devastation’ run through my mind.
Growing up the child of a man who trains shadow government assassins was not a choice I ever got to make. It was my fate. I did not come into this world declaring myself to be a killer. I didn’t teach myself to hold and shoot a gun. To throw knives and shoot arrows. I didn’t drag myself across this country in an RV knowing secrets that certain people might kill for.
My father did that to me.
And while I don’t blame him—he did his best and all that training saved my life over and over again—I fucking hate that this is who I am.
And I have regrets. I have big-time regrets. And I have questions. Like why is this my destiny? Why do I have to live on the outside, forever looking in at all the things I want but can’t have?
This career was obtainable. I felt it. I still feel it. I’m qualified, I’m smart, I’m inquisitive, I’m a hard worker, and I get good grades. I didn’t fuck up anything too big doing my lab work. I made mistakes, like anyone new to the process of discovery. But I had no major missteps.
And a lot of good it did me.
There is something about me. I feel it burning inside me. Something attached to my soul that declares me different.
I don’t want to be different. I want to be same.
I roll over on my back and stare at the ceiling. Ford and Ashleigh did a good job as my parents after my father was killed and my fellow assassins and I fought our way into a tenuous illusion of peace. I traveled and made friends. Obtained a first-class education. Had a few boyfriends even. Nothing serious. And not because of Nick.
I was making progress in the love department. Steady progress. I had dates to dances in high school. One serious boyfriend freshman year of undergrad. Three one-night stands the rest of college.
All that came to an abrupt end in my senior year when I was abducted by a sick man looking for revenge over an old debt that wasn’t even mine. He did not rape me. It could’ve been so much worse than it was. I know that. But it affected me. It shut me down. Not right away. I put on that fake face I had practiced over and over again while I was adjusting to living the life of a normal girl. I went back to school after I was saved by my assassin friend, Merc. I finished up school in Colorado and moved here to this very house.
Merc and I never told Ford and Ashleigh anything about the abduction. Ford is a security freak and it was his idea to take most of the precautions. But once they left to go home—Ford holding me tighter that day than any other time in my life—I called James and everything just spilled out. He flew in specialists to fortify the house. He brought me guns and ammo. He even brought me some Kevlar clothing made special by a friend in Central America.
I insisted I wasn’t scared. The man who wanted to hurt me was dead. And I really wasn’t scared. I was terrified.
That realization was enough to rock my whole world, because I was always the fearless one. I was the one with all the answers. I was the one who would do the job no matter the consequences. And even though this thought I had today walking home with the FBI agent has been in the back of my head since that abduction—right now is the first time I will admit to it.
I am weak. I am small. I am a girl. Worse than a girl. I am a Company girl. And I have pushed all my fucked-up moments away into a place that hides the truth in order to protect this fragile part of me that lingers. The part of me that knows I will never be OK. I will never get over the things