Spy School Oneshot Collection

The Agony of Not Knowing

Catherine's POV, at the end of SSAS

With Shayla in custody, I was left with Jessica to wait what was truly one of the hardest waits of my life.

Everything now was completely out of my control, and there were so many things that could go wrong. And as much as I love Alexander, only a fool would trust him with the fate of the world if they had a choice. Our only other choice, our only real chance, was with the kids.

I so wanted for them to not have to do this. They were risking their lives while I was forced to stay where it was safe. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. I should have been the one out there, putting myself at risk. That was my job; they had merely volunteered to go.

Shayla had seemed to only be concerned with the fact that she had been caught. She didn't seem at all concerned with all of the lives that were at risk.

Before Shayla was taken away, Jessica had been staring at Shayla with a look of hatred on her face. She seemed to have a million things she wanted to say to her mother, but no words came out.

Once Shayla was officially arrested and brought into custody, Jessica had looked over to me and asked, "What happens now?"

All I was able to say in response was, "I don't know."

I really wanted to be optimistic about this, but my mind just kept going back to the worst case scenario, and as much as I wanted to push that horrific thought out of my head, it stubbornly remained. I knew they could probably defuse the bomb, but that could take too long. All they would get was a few minutes, if that.

The ship could explode before they got there.

While that would certainly be devastating, if they were going to fail, that's how I wanted it to happen. I cared about the rest of the people who could die, but they weren't family. I didn't know them. So as much as I wanted to save them, I wanted the guarantee that Alexander, Erica, Benjamin, and Michael were safe even more.

But that wasn't my decision.

"How much time is left?" Jessica asked.

"Ten minutes," I said gravely.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"It's not your fault."

"It feels like it is," Jessica said. "If both of my parents are evil, doesn't that make me a little evil, too?"

"Of course not," I said.

"But I'm here where it's safe. I'm just as old as Ben and Mike, and I've got just as much knowledge of this sort of thing as Alexander. And unlike you, I'm not injured."

"By that logic, everyone's evil at least a little," I said.

I thought about Trixie, about what I'd have to tell her if this mission went south. And even if things succeeded, I still had so much explaining to do to her. I mean, what kind of mother lies to her daughter about her whole life? About her whole family? We were trying to protect her, but I don't even know that we really did that. The Croatoan found out about her anyway.

At the time, keeping things a secret had felt like the right thing to do. And then, later, when we started to regret it, it was just too late to tell her.

I hated that we had to learn that Benjamin and Michael had told Trixie about our family secrets from Murray. I understood why Benjamin and Michael chose not to tell us that they had told Trixie, but as soon as I knew they were safe, I was going to be so angry at the two of them.

"What are you thinking about?" Jessica asked.

"Just... stuff," I said.

"Does your leg still hurt?"