Spy School Out West

Chapter 14

Censored naughty word warning, and also there's some uncomfortable family dynamics and mentions of abuse. I would skip if this makes you uncomfortable. I'll include a recap at the end in bold.

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3rd Person POV
A house in the woods
1200 hours
June 8
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Walter Crowe smiled condescendingly at the agents, but worst of all at his own daughter. "Come along, sweetheart," he said, his voice sickly-sweet. 

Balto glared hatefully at him. "And you wonder why I never talk to you," she snarled. "The first real friends I've made in years, and now you're holding them at gunpoint so you can have a daughter who doesn't love you."

"They're not your real friends," Crowe said, still using a tone more appropriate for first graders. "And you know you love Daddy."

The thugs wearing sunglasses started to feel awkward. They kept their handguns trained on the CIA, but they watched the family drama play out at the same time. Jacobs stopped paying attention to his pistol and it swung slightly askew of the agents, training on a decorative bush.

"I f*cking hate you!" Balto exploded. "Mom never would have left if it wasn't for you! She was the only one keeping me safe from you! Instead you had to sleep with a woman who is basically a square root of your age, whose age was a crime for someone like you might I add, and now I can barely sleep at night! You think I don't hear you throwing empty bottles of booze around the house at night like it's nothing, breaking windows and the kitchen cabinets? You wonder why I go to bed with my door locked and a chair under the knob? You think I don't hear who you call at night when you think I'm asleep? And then you have the gall to act like I have any reason to love you? Go on, say something!"

"You know that's not true," Walter said confidently, then started to explain to his prisoners and goons. "Teenage girls of this social caliber often crack under social pressures-"

"Yes the hell it is!" Balto screamed. "Not this bull about 'social pressures' and 'self-esteem!' I don't love you! None of us f*cking do! Not any of your sons or my half-siblings or anyone! Get it through your head, you're a horrible husband and an even worse dad! What do you expect me to do when someone gives me the chance to leave you behind forever- and put you in prison? Do you want me to say 'no, I enjoy being berated and terrorized and followed everywhere I go, every minute of my life, and want to continue this way, sorry!' I did what anyone would do and you know it!"

Walter still looked confident, though his tone carried a trace amount of weakness with it. "You have no proof of this," he said. "It's proven that when teenage girls are put under high stress and expectations from-"

"NO!" Balto yelled. "And I do have proof!" She untucked her flannel from her belt and hiked up her shirt a few inches, revealing a scar under her belly button. "I was four!" She screamed. "Four! And Mom was out of the house for some reason. You had smashed a beer bottle on the counter, and there was glass all over the floor. I walked into the kitchen, and you saw me and started raving like a drunk- 'cause you were! I turned around to leave, and you grabbed me. I could smell the beer on your breath as you pushed me onto the floor! I was four! And you told me if I ever came up to you again, I'll suffer a lot worse than this. I was bleeding through my dress-up clothes, and you didn't do a damn thing about it! It was two hours before Mom came home and took me to the doctor!" Balto was close to tears, but she stormed past her father and behind the barricade of armed men. They were so shocked by this that every gun swung away from the prisoners.

Walter Crowe looked like he'd seen a ghost. Erica glanced around, confirming that every goon's guard was down, and then attacked.

She started slamming guards into each other, knocking their heads and sending them dogpiling. She was doing very little fighting herself. Whenever anyone tried to shoot, she quickly sent a convenient thug into them, and their shots would go wide. She had the whole force of twenty or more men down and out in under a minute while barely even breaking a sweat, but she wasn't done yet.