“Not really,” Zee said. Apparently, there was a first time for everything. “I actually wanted to talk to you about Brooke.”
Say what?
“I know she can seem kind of intense,” Zee said, “and I know you think she’s bossy, but Brooke’s under a lot of pressure right now.”
The last time Zee had pulled me over for a heart-to-heart, it was about Chloe. This time, it was Brooke. I was starting to wonder if our resident profiler’s mission in life was to make me understand the psychological complexities of bitchiness.
“Pressure?” I tried to sort it out in my own mind before Zee could throw herself into full-on wisdom-imparting mode. “Well, there was an explosion,” I mused. “And it sounds like the Big Guys Upstairs are kind of breathing down her neck about it.”
“And,” Zee added, “homecoming’s this weekend.”
As if I needed reminding.
“As far as Brooke’s concerned, she can’t afford to lose this case, and she can’t afford to lose that crown.” Zee gave me a look, willing me to understand her.
I tried to oblige. Apparently, Brooke was stressing about whether or not she’d win a title everyone already knew was hers. And this was supposed to make me feel sorry for her how?
“As far as Brooke’s mother is concerned, losing out on queen and losing a case to the Big Guys are equally unacceptable outcomes.” Zee paused. “She’s really leaning on Brooke right now.”
Ahhhh…the infamous Mrs. Camden. All I knew about her was that she’d trained Brooke for the Squad program from the cradle. From the tone in Zee’s voice, it sounded like she was pretty hard-core about it, even now.
“Brooke’s mom can be…intense.”
At this point, I was used to Brooke being Brooke. A few weeks ago, I probably would have told her to stick her pompoms where the sun don’t shine if she’d even thought about pulling me off a case, however briefly. All things considered, my response to Brooke’s “request” was looking downright reasonable, and Zee’s info-dumping seemed less than necessary.
“Anything else to share, O Wise One?” I asked.
“Actually,” Zee said. “Now it’s your turn to share.”
I stared at her dumbly.
“You’re tough, Toby, but you also saw somebody die today.” Zee carefully measured my response. “That’s a hard pill for anyone to swallow.”
“Technically, I didn’t see him die.” I shrugged the words off, even as I said them. “I was sort of unconscious at the time.”
“Uh-huh.” Zee was less than persuaded by my response.
“It doesn’t seem real.” I tried for honesty over technicalities this time. “This whole thing—what we do, who we are—it’s all just so surreal that I can’t quite wrap my mind around the fact that today actually happened.”
“Believe it or not,” Zee said, “that might be a good thing.”
And here I’d thought denial was a psychological no-no.
“What we do is surreal,” Zee said. “It’s unbelievable, and there would probably be something wrong with you if you didn’t have a hard time processing this. I just need to know—are you having second thoughts?”
“Second thoughts? About the Squad?”
She nodded.
“I’m starting to think the CIA is seriously deranged for letting us do this,” I told her, “but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to do it.” I paused. “Actually, the fact that we probably shouldn’t be doing this kind of makes me want to do it more.”
Zee snorted. “Adrenaline junkie,” she accused.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Or maybe,” Zee filled in, “the fact that the danger is real is making you realize that the good we do is real, too.”
I didn’t reply. Zee was the PhD, not me, and I wasn’t all that curious as to why nearly having my head taken off by flying debris was more of a turn-on to the spy gig than a turn-off.
“You’ll call if you need to talk?” Zee asked.
I nodded. “Sure.”
“Cool.”
“That it?”
Zee grinned. “Unless you want to talk about your feelings for Jack?”
I glared at her.
“Didn’t think so.”
CHAPTER 11
Code Word: The Fam
For the first time since I’d joined the Squad, I walked through my front door before eight o’clock at night. The first couple of weeks, I kept thinking that my mother would at least ask why we were having such long practices, but apparently, unbeknownst to me, she’d caught a documentary on competitive cheerleading, and she didn’t seem to think that the hours I was keeping were all that unusual.
Then again, there was very little that did strike my mom as unusual. She was the kind of person who could walk into a room and discover that it was filled with penguins, and she would just shrug it off like it was nothing. She wasn’t at all oblivious; she noticed everything, took note, and filed it away for future reference, but nothing fazed her. Nothing. My dad was the exact opposite. Most days, he was so caught up in equations and theorems that the mere existence of nonnumeric entities in the world took him by surprise.
“You’re home for dinner,” my mom commented the second she set eyes on me. “Help me set the table.”
See? No questions as to why I was home for dinner, or, for that matter, how I’d gotten the cut on the side of my head. She definitely noticed it, and the look in her eyes told me that she wanted me to know she’d noticed it, but she didn’t spare it so much as an additional comment.
I set the table for four, and at the last minute, my mom had me add a place setting, which could only mean one of two things. The first option was that my dad had brought someone home with him from work. The second was that one of Noah’s friends had tagged along after school. I spent a single moment devoutly praying that it was the first option. I would rather listen to multiple socially awkward physicists wax poetic about string theory than suffer the company of the freshman goof squad.
“Mom?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Who’s the fifth setting for?”
“Noah’s friend Chuck.”
Today was just really not my day. Chuck had an unhealthy Toby obsession. He’d had the aforementioned obsession since the pre-Squad days, and needless to say, my becoming the stereotypical teen boy’s dream overnight hadn’t done much to dissuade him.