Over and Run With - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Ten

"Hey, uh, Morgan?"

I couldn't stop staring at the door. As though if I stopped staring at it for even a second, it might cease to exist. Like it might vanish, and we would lose any protection we had from the threat standing on the other side. "Yeah?"

Luke was pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "Just so that I know that we're on the same page, you did ask me to get in contact with Hughes, right?"

Still looking at the door. "Yeah," I said. "I did do that."

"Okay," he said. "And—just making sure—the whole point of this was for you to ask him some questions? Find out what he had to say to you?"

Still looking. "That was the general idea, yeah."

"Mhmm." He let his hand fall, but then he looked up at the ceiling, as though there was a scream in him somewhere, but years of highly advanced training was keeping it inside. "One more question: did you, or did you not, just close the door on the man in question?"

"That does seem to be what happened here, doesn't it?"

"Great," he said. "I would say that this is going great so far, wouldn't you?"

"Well I thought I'd have a little more than a day to figure a few things out."

"Are we arguing because I'm too efficient?" he asked. "Is that what's happening right now?"

"Oi." Finn is always a spy before he is your friend. Always business before niceties. "Is somebody going to open the damn door?"

For the briefest moment, I was able to tear my eyes from the door and look at Luke. Then Luke, following suit, looked at me. Even he—eternally confident, endlessly smug—didn't look too sure about what was about to happen next.

But he nodded. And I nodded. And when I reached for the knob, I knew that he had my back.

Blake Hughes has always been a beautiful man. I now know that it is because he can't afford the alternative. People trust beautiful people; strangers, civilians, and spies alike. Even now, knowing everything he's done—fifteen years of deceit and dishonesty towards the people he claimed to love—I could understand how I had once fallen for it. All of it. With that twinkle in his eye and the song in his smile, Hughes was all kinds of charm, and not even the best spies I knew had been able to spot his lies.

I could hear the truths of the world, and Luke could see them. But Hughes? Well, Hughes could sing them into existence. "I guess I probably deserved that, didn't I?"

"Don't talk." I don't know what made me say it. I'd like to think that it came from a place of leadership. Of taking control over the situation. But truthfully, I think it was more born out of fear. I think I knew that if Hughes had the chance to talk, then I would end up listening, and I wasn't sure that I was ready to hear any of it yet.

"Virgo, I—"

"Don't call me that."

"The lady told you to stop talking, Hughes." Luke crossed his arms over his chest, and in that moment I could see every last mile he'd run, every last weight he'd lifted, and every last bag he'd punched in order to one day become stronger than his enemy. "I suggest you listen."

Hughes, who had on more than one occasion witnessed exactly how hard Luke could throw a punch, didn't respond. He just threw his hands up in a silent surrender, perfectly cooperative. Endlessly ready to please. His was the kind of aww-shucks routine that felt totally disarming, which made it all the more shocking when he did ultimately turn against you.