Since this one is very short, I will upload the next one today, too.
Like Father Like Son
Joe Solomon was sixteen.
He was young and reckless, he was young and stupid, but he was practically the same age as Zach. The difference is, Zach isn't young or reckless or stupid - not all the time, anyway. The difference is Solomon had a choice, while he didn't. He was born into this, and sometimes he feels like leaving his ex-teacher to the dogs because he had the choice and he chose wrong.
Trying to atone for past mistakes will take a lifetime.
He hopes Solomon is guilty forever.
If everything was right in the world - if the Circle of Cavan didn't exist, if Gallagher Academy and Blackthorne Institute were dust in the wind, if there were no such thing as spies or assassins - he would never know pain like he does now. Perhaps his father would be alive, his mother would smile, (he wouldn't live this life of half-truths and guilt) and he never would've met Cammie.
It scares him the most when he thinks it would be worth it, trading her for a lifetime of peace.
Then he realizes it would be pointless.
She's the reason he wants to be good - God, if it weren't for her he'd be either A) dead and gone or B) a Circle of Cavan agent. Neither of those seem fun, but surely less complicated than his lonely existence now. He wishes, sometimes, that his mother blew up in that explosion and he'd never have to deal with her again.
But the thing is, he'd put up with her and the Circle of Cavan and Joe Solomon's stupid choices for the rest of eternity if he got to spend it with Cammie.