Only the Good Spy Young (Gallagher Girls) (18 page)

T
he mind is a powerful thing. I’ve read the research. I’ve seen it in action. My whole life had taught me those simple facts, and yet, in that moment, there was one thing my mind couldn’t start to comprehend: the woman from the roof in Boston was Zach’s mother.

I wanted to be sick.

“She’s your mother,” I stated plainly. It wasn’t a question—it was a data point, and Zach was slowly, somehow, making sense.

He reached for me. “Gallagher Girl—”

“Don’t touch me.” I pulled away, but not before his fingers grazed my skin, before I felt a spark, and I swore it would be the last thing I’d feel for him ever again.

In my ear, the comms unit was silent. We’d searched for too long, gone too far, and now there was entirely too much mountain between me and any kind of help.

“It is very nice to finally meet you, Cammie. I’ve heard so much about you.” When Zach’s mother spoke, she sounded serene. “I hope you’re not afraid. I’m sure Joe here would gladly confirm that we don’t want to kill you.”

My heart was racing, and yet somehow I knew that it was true—they really
didn’t
want to hurt me. Which meant they wanted something far, far worse.

“Cammie, I—” Again, Zach reached for me. Again, I pulled away.

“Oh, sweetheart, I can see why you like her.” His mother laughed. “But now, everyone spread out and look for Morgan’s diary.” She eyed her son and me. “And someone search the two of them.”

A guard was still holding me. Another man was moving closer. Through the light of the dim bulb that hung in the middle of the tall ceiling, I saw Zach’s eyes go wide, and I thought of all the times he’d looked at me before—on an elevator in D.C., in the town square in Roseville, and in a tiny compartment on a train barreling through the night.

But as the guard reached me, an entirely new face was staring at me, whispering, “Now!”

Believe it or not, there are some advantages to fighting two attackers instead of one. It was so much easier to throw my weight back against the man who held me and kick the guard who was walking forward with his hands outstretched.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Zach was spinning, kicking one of the ancient filing cabinets in the direction of his mother. It crashed against her, knocking her to the floor, paper falling all around her, while the guard at my back pushed me aside as if I were nothing, and ran to his boss’s aid.

“What are you doing?” the woman yelled. “Get her!”

I heard the words. Felt my vision go blurry with rage. And in the next second, a dozen things seemed to happen at once.

Mr. Solomon lunged toward one of the men near the entrance of another tunnel. My teacher threw his bound hands over the man’s head and strangled him, while I ran with all my might in their direction.

Someone moved to block my path, but I jumped onto the bookcase, used my momentum to flip midair and catch the man’s chin with my foot, before dropping lightly to the ground. But someone else appeared in the corner of my eye, and I moved just as Zach’s mother placed a kick inches from my ear.

I stepped back as she circled me. Like I was prey. Above us, that lone lightbulb swayed, casting a moving shadow over everything it touched as the woman who’d been haunting my dreams for months moved closer to me and smiled.

“You’re far prettier up close, you know.”

I parried away another of her blows, and when I countered, I landed a swift punch to her kidney and another to her face.

“Oh yes,” she said, wiping at the blood that trickled from the side of her mouth. “I can certainly see the appeal.”

“Forgive me if I can’t say the same,” I managed to quip.

Across the room, Zach had taken an old sword from the wall and was fighting two men at once. The steel blade made a sharp sound in the hollow space and the rhythmic clash of the blades was almost soothing—like a beat. A pulse.

“You know, Cammie, I do wish you and I could be friends. We have so much in common.”

“Yeah, I—” But then I couldn’t finish, because I realized that the swords were no longer clashing. I turned to see that the two men Zach had been fighting were now on the ground, bleeding, struggling to their feet, while Zach dashed to Mr. Solomon, who was fighting on the other side of the room.

Zach was so focused on Mr. Solomon, so anxious to come to our teacher’s aid, that he didn’t see when one of the men on the ground pulled out a gun and took aim at Zach’s back.

“No!” someone screamed, and only when the man stopped did I realize that it hadn’t been me. There was only one person in that cave with the power to save Zach—one person with the power to stop those dominoes from falling, and she was the person who turned from me and started toward her son.

I watched Zach’s mother slam into the gunman—heard the weapon clatter across the floor. Even without turning, I knew that no one was behind me then—that there was absolutely nothing between me and one of the tunnels that spiraled off the main floor. And yet I couldn’t move.

Everything seemed to freeze for that one second, as Zach picked up the gun and yelled, “Now! Run!”

But I couldn’t leave him, couldn’t run, couldn’t do anything but shout “No!” as Zach took aim at the metal box marked waRning: exploSiveS, and mouthed the word, “Good-bye.”

The shot echoed through the tombs. Sparks rained down, lighting up the cave like the Fourth of July. A red light sizzled past me while my arms started pumping at my sides, the journal rubbing against the small of my back. And even when the first crack of the explosion sounded through the tombs, I managed to stay ahead of it, one foot in front of the other through the eerie, smoky haze.

I kept running.

I didn’t look back.

No good would come from watching as the ghosts of Blackthorne burned.

F
ire. I tried to forget about the fire, but the narrow tunnels felt like an oven. The water seeping through the walls turned to steam. I didn’t let myself think about the caved-in passages that Zach and I had seen, and the chance that this unfamiliar tunnel was a dead end too. I just kept running until the smoke grew thinner and the air was fresher.

“Spread out!” The call echoed through the dark. “Find her!”

In my ear, the comms unit was beginning to crack and hum, and I spoke into the static, “I’m in the tombs. I’m running . . . I don’t know.” But I
did
know. Mr. Solomon was dead, but his voice was still alive in my mind. “South. I’m running south. The Circle is behind me.”

I heard my mother’s voice shouting orders, but not to me.

I ran faster. Toward the light. Toward the woods. Toward fresh air and freedom and backup. It would be over soon. All I had to do was keep running.

The sound of the river was louder. I could hear the falls and breathe the moist, fresh air.

“I’m almost clear,” I yelled into my comms. “I’m almost—”

But then I turned the corner, skidded to a stop, and realized I wasn’t near the falls—I was
behind
them.

The tunnel ended in a rocky cliff. Gushing, falling water was the only thing standing between me and sky.

“I’m behind the waterfall,” I shouted. “I’m—”

“Trapped?”

The woman didn’t look like Zach—not then, not really. Without the mask she’d worn in Boston, I could see that her hair was a dark red and her skin was as pale as Madame Dabney’s finest china. Her eyes, though. She had the same dark eyes as her son. As she looked at me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d never see his again.

“It’s over,” I told her. “I’m wearing a comms unit. Everyone knows—”

“It doesn’t matter what your protection detail knows, Cammie dear. It’s too late. No one can help you.”

I heard more sounds coming from behind her. People were coming. Her people.

“You can’t beat us,” I said. “Kill me, take me, it doesn’t matter. The Gallagher Academy will just make more girls like me. If one of us lives, we all live.”

“Of course they will.” She smiled. “They made
me
.”

I didn’t say anything—I swear I really didn’t—but the look on my face must have spoken volumes, because in the next moment, the woman was laughing a terrible, joyless laugh.

“Oh, didn’t Zach ever mention that his mother was a Gallagher Girl?” She cocked an eyebrow, then shrugged. “I guess not.”

“No.” I shook my head. “No. Gallagher Girls are—”

“We’re whatever we want to be, Cammie.” She stepped closer. I cringed at the word
we
. “
Anything
we want to be.”

I thought about what Abby and the Baxters had said that night in the castle—that the Circle had a knack for recruiting agents very young. . . . Joe Solomon had grown up and seen the light and spent his life trying to right his wrongs. But most people—I looked at Zach’s mother, at the dark depths of her eyes—most never left the tombs.

“So, see? We’re sisters, Cammie. You really don’t have to be afraid. What we need lives
inside
of you.” She tapped her temple. “We only want to borrow it.”

Mr. Solomon was dead.

Zach was dead.

“I won’t go with you,” I said, easing closer to the edge, remembering her promise and the fact that had haunted me for months: They wanted me alive.

“Come on, Cammie, step away from that nasty cliff. Don’t be foolish.”

“I’m not foolish,” I said, more certain of anything than I’d ever been in my life.

The sound of the water was deafening. The back of my shirt was wet with mist. I wanted to wipe the water from my eyes, but I needed my hands in front of me. I needed to be ready.

“You don’t want to do this, Cammie. We really
aren’t
going to hurt you.”

“I know,” I said, and I did. Sort of.

“We just want to take you someplace—ask you some questions. Help you...
remember
... some things.”

“I’m sure you do.” I moved, and the rocks at my feet crumbled.

Mr. Solomon was dead.

Zach was dead.

Her own son was dead, and still she was chasing me and whatever secret I carried.

I had been studying Protection and Enforcement for five and a half years, but until that moment I’d never seriously thought what it would feel like to kill someone—until then I’d never wanted to.

“What?” she asked. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m trying to decide whether or not I should kill you.”
She laughed. “You can’t kill me.”
But I could. At that moment I was so full of fear and rage
and grief that I could have done it. Easily. She laughed harder and stepped slowly closer, as if that wall of water and air were the worst possible fate.

And then Zach’s mother leaned close, as if confiding, and said, “If you kill
me
, then who will take you to your father?”

She lunged for me, but I was the one who no longer had anything to lose.

And before her words had found a place in my mind— before the Circle operatives who were rushing down the tunnel could reach us—I thought about the ravens, and I spread my wings to fly.

T
he jump didn’t kill me, in case you don’t already know.

I remember breaking through the falls.

I remember fresh air and the cold wind and thinking I could fly.

And then there was the crash and the freezing currents that fell over and over and over me like a blanket I was trapped inside as I fought to break free.

And then there was nothing. No more blackness. No fire. No heat and no cold.

And for the first time in months I slept and did not dream.

“Cammie!”

I heard my name echo through the night, riding on the wind. My body ached. My clothes clung to me, heavy and wet. I could hear the river and the yells and something else, a voice inside of me telling me it wasn’t safe. The Circle was still out there.

I had to move. I had to hide. I thought about the last thing Zach had ever asked of me: I had to keep running and I could never, ever look back.

Not when I heard the helicopter.

Not when I saw the spotlight sweeping across the open ground along the river and then burning me, holding me steady in its glare.

Not when I heard the deep voice yell, “I have her! She’s here!”

Not when the strong arms wrapped around me, and someone said, “Hold still.”

Not even when the black chopper landed on the ground in front of me, and my mother flew from its open door.

I had to keep running even then, but my feet no longer met the ground. I tried to fight, but the arms that held me were too strong.

“Rachel,” Agent Townsend said, still gripping me.

“Cammie, sweetheart, stop fighting,” my mother said as my teacher carried me beneath the whirling blades.