Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Of course now the space was covered with tiny ponies and tons of crayons and colored pencils and paper he’d stolen from the copy machine.
He stood and walked over. He’d given the girls two dollars to go and raid the vending machine. It wasn’t something he would normally do, but a dad did what he needed to when he was leaving voice mails for four-star generals and didn’t want giggling girls in the background. They’d been playing with the multicolored ponies, who had some serious drama going on given they were plastic toys.
How long had they been gone?
He’d blocked off access to the floor downstairs, right? The security system would have beeped if they’d managed to get into the stairwell.
Kenzie had been showing off her art skills by drawing some rainbows and smiley faces. Then there was the drawing of a kid being hit by lightning. He was pretty sure it was a kid named Henderson and the artist was his little psycho, Kala. In her kindergarten class they kept a jar of marbles that they earned through being good. When the jar was full, they would get a pizza party. The teacher was mean—something she would need to be in order to survive Kala—and she took one out when one of the kids fucked up. Henderson apparently fucked up a lot, and Kala took exception.
She was either going into the Agency one day or she would be in jail. He had to figure out how to avoid either possibility because he didn’t want that for her.
Being a parent sucked sometimes. He often wondered if Charlie was playing the odds, if she wanted a bunch of kids because some of them had to become sensible human beings and not supervillains.
It wouldn’t be Kala, and Kenz might turn out to be that superpredator who smiled a lot right before she ate her victims.
Maybe that’s just what happened when a grizzled ex-Agency dude hooked up with a superhot assassin chick. It was inevitable that they would have little demons.
He should probably tell that Henderson kid to chill out.
It was definitely too quiet.
The door to his office came open, and Kala stood there. She was dressed in a pink T-shirt with some anime character on it and jeans, her strawberry hair in a high ponytail he’d had to learn to perfect because she was picky about her hair. “Daddy, I need some butter.”
Oh, he didn’t like the sound of that. “I thought you were grabbing a bag of chips. Why would you need butter?”
Kala shrugged. “I like butter with my chips.”
He would give it to her. She was a cool customer. “Where is your sister?”
Her little mouth firmed. “She’s in the break room waiting on me to come back with some butter.”
“But the butter would be in the refrigerator, and that’s in the break room,” he pointed out.
Her brow furrowed. “Okay. I’ll look there.”
She turned and ran back.
And he followed because he knew damn straight when something was going on with his girls. He followed his daughter through the main office and its banks of cubicles. She wove her way through like she could lose him in his own office. He would give her credit for sheer arrogance.
She slipped into the break room, and he could hear them talking.
“Did you get it?” Kenzie asked.
“No, but Dad said it would be in the fridge,” Kala replied. “There’s a lot of yogurt in here. Eww. And some gross stuff. Ah, there it is.”
“Uh, I think we should talk to Dad.” Kenzie was the reasonable one. “I think it might be gross.”
Oh, they were not going to do some weird science experiment in the break room. He strode toward the door. “Guys, I said you could get one bag of chips and something sweet to share.”
Kenzie was on the floor, her little arm all the way inside the vending machine. “It got stuck.”
“So did Kenz,” Kala admitted, holding up a stick of butter. He was fairly certain it was the butter Erin used on her toast every morning. “But I’m going to grease her up and get her out.”
That was the moment Seth chose to start crying.
Yep, just another day at the office.
* * * *
Charlotte tried to stretch her lower back. It had been aching all morning, but then she was only a week away from her due date and something always ached. The baby in her womb kicked like he was trying out for a professional soccer team.
Travis. They’d already decided on Travis. Her last baby because Ian hadn’t believed her whole “I never want to be pregnant again” line and done the one thing he’d sworn he wouldn’t do. He’d gotten a vasectomy. He’d whined and complained, and she’d had to hold a bag of frozen peas to his ball sack, but she knew why he’d done it. It was far easier for him to have it done than her.