Page 26 of Unhinged Kallie

“Training will start in thirty minutes, and your cousin Troy will be joining us.”

“Dad, why does he have to join,” Kallie asked, her lip pushing out into a pout.

“Because he lives here.” Cain shrugged like that explained everything.

I stayed frozen by the counter, hoping and praying Cain didn’t turn and let me know that today was the day I became the lesson.

“I know, but….” Kallie sighed and stepped away from her dad. “Okay,” she mumbled, giving up the fight.

“Carter, I do expect you to join class,” Cain said like there was another option.

“Yes, sir, of course.”

He turned, leaving without another word, and I slumped against the counter. I really didn’t want to know what this new training was. The fact that he called it training and not school already told me I wouldn’t like it.

“Aren’t you excited?”

“I guess,” I said, shoveling the remaining batter into my mouth.

“I am.”

Putting the bowl into the sink, I decided to clean it. Glancing over my shoulder at Kallie, I asked, “Why?”

“Because he sees me, Carter. He sees me, and he’s not angry or disappointed and didn’t make me feel bad.”

I scrubbed the bowl. “Feel bad about what?”

“About wanting to kill someone, of course,” she said, her voice so sweet it didn’t match the words. I stopped moving as they settled into my head. “I wonder what my mom would think of what I want? I worry that I’d disappoint her.”

“You’d never be a disappointment to your mom,” I said and looked down at her as she teasingly nudged me.

“So you don’t care either?”

“About you wanting to kill someone?”

Kallie bit her bottom lip as she stared at me, and I felt trapped between the wrong answer and a worse one. If I said I thought it was horrible, I was hurting the one person I truly cared about, and if I said no, I was encouraging her to hurt someone.

I decided to go with the middle answer. “I don’t know. I guess it depends on who it is,” I said and finished rinsing off the bowl before laying it on the drying rack.

Luckily, the timer dinged, and Kallie jumped into action to pull her muffins out of the oven. I was positive she’d planned on hounding me more, but I didn’t know what to say.

Pouring two glasses of milk, I waited until Kallie handed me a small plate of muffins before walking over to the table. I couldn’t help wondering what my Aunt Kirby would’ve thought of all this. Was she okay with it? Had she always been okay with what Cain did? I mean, she had worked for the FBI. Was that even possible? Could she be an agent and a vigilante? It was all very confusing.

“Ouch,” I hissed and then blew out, but the hot muffin had already burned the roof of my mouth. That was going to hurt for a few days.

“You should blow on them. They’re hot,” Kallie said.

“Thanks,” I mumbled and rolled my eyes.

Fifteen minutes later, we met Cain in the hallway as the door opened, and Troy walked inside. My fear spiked as Cain opened the door to the basement. The other two didn’t seem to care as we marched down the stairs, and all I could think was that I was never getting out of here. I was going to be locked up from this moment on.

My apprehension shifted into high gear as Cain laid his thumb over the scanner, and the heavy metal door clicked open.

“Be sure not to touch anything, and I want to see impeccable note-taking. Every lesson, no matter how small it may seem, is of the utmost importance.”

The door swung open, and nothing could’ve prepared me to walk into the room and see a man strapped down on the metal worktable.

Sweat trickled down my back as the door locked into place. It had been a long time since I was in this room, but some of it I still remembered. The distinct chemical smell with a hint of citrus. How every surface sparkled because it was so clean, and of course, the wall of images. None of it had changed. It still had the same smell, was so clean you could eat off the floor, and the wall of faces had only gotten larger. There were definitely a lot more pictures with giant Xs through the image. I swallowed hard.