Page 36 of Overkill

“You went through my trash?” Incensed, incredulous, but also not-that-surprised. An interesting combination from Taz Guerro Griffith.

“Da.” Daria rolled her eyes. “I’m a spy. You can’t expect much better from me.”

Oh, sure. That old chestnut.

“Fact!” Goose chimed. “Befriending spies is basically asking to never have privacy.”

I was officially in hell.

“I…am so sorry.” I looked at Melody, pleading for her understanding of the utter chaos that passed for my home life. “I’m gonna go, because otherwise, this interaction will never end, and I really, really need it to.”

Melody smiled. It was a polite, cocktail kind of smile without any real depth.

“Mellie, why don’t you come into the kitchen to wait on them, and I’ll send you home with something to eat for you and the little ones.” Mamma Mack to the rescue. “I guess they’re not so little, since they are teens. They must eat you out of house and home.”

“You can say that again.” She turned her smile to Mamma Mack and nodded, following her into the house with practiced courteousness that was learned over time. Melody was the kind of girl who was hospitable and polite by training.

Daria and Taz each grabbed one of my arms and dragged me into the barn.

As soon as we got through the door, they slammed it closed and whirled on me.

“So how serious are you about this girl?” Taz had that look in her eye…the look of a fucking interrogator.

“Serious enough.”

“And people are trying to kill her? Is this a damsel in distress kink or something?” Daria pursed her lips.

“Not a kink.” I was trying to stay calm, because who knew where the rest of them had taken Melody and what they were saying to her. What the hell was Griff telling her?

“We should probably start taking some precautions. If she’s in trouble, we need to get the big guns.” Taz would take any excuse to shoot someone or blow something up.

“Not you, preggo. You’re not allowed anywhere near this.” Daria snapped at her.

“I’m not that pregnant.”

“Pregnancy is a pretty binary thing, Taz.” I almost laughed. “You either are or you ain’t.”

Daria agreed. “You can’t do anything that could harm baby Daria.”

“Baby Daria?” I chimed in.

“Da!” She rolled her eyes at me. “It’s obviously a girl, and as the best friend of both mother and father, they would obviously name her after me.”

“Oh…obviously,” I said. “It’s a girl because you said so?”

“No, duroc!” she said, calling me an idiot. “It’s a girl because little boy swimmers”—she gestured vaguely at my trousers—“are as fragile as the fully grown product. Exposure to radio frequencies, not to mention all the chemicals we probably inhale on every mission, kills the Y chromosomes, leaving nothing but the clearly superior X chromosomes. It’s only logical.”

“Is the logic in the barn with us right now?” I looked around, feigning a search for the aforementioned logic. “Do you even need a tampon?”

“No, of course not! I had the whole thing removed years ago.”

“Wait, really?” Taz said. “That’s so…permanent.”

“So is a kid. So…” She looked at Taz’s still flat belly and pursed her lips.

Taz had her hands on her hips like an angry school teacher about to scold a particularly stupid pupil. “You know she’s practically a single mom, right?”

“Yup.”