by Ally Carter
We slept all day and paced all night and even the moon felt like a searchlight, sweeping across the ocean.
“Well, I’ll say this for Macey,” Zach whispered as he walked up behind me, “I like her idea of roughing it.”
I was sitting in an Adirondack chair on the deserted stretch of beach, looking out at the ocean. I’d pulled the world’s softest blanket off one of the guest beds and was sitting in the dark with it wrapped around my shoulders, my feet buried in the sand.
“We have five grand in cash and ten fake IDs,” I said to Zach. I didn’t turn to face him. The facts just came pouring out of me, unstoppable. “We have six credit cards, but I don’t trust two of them. They can be traced back to the school, so… We’ll need to get the van off the road. Too many people know it. We’ve used it too many times. So that leaves buses, I guess. We’ll have to—”
“Cammie.” My name was a whisper on Zach’s lips, and he eased closer.
“The girls did a good job packing.” I didn’t think about when they’d done it—how they’d known. But every spy knows that running away is always a possibility. “We have basic comms and Liz has enough computers to hack NASA. We still need physical gear, though. Sporting goods. Electronics. We’ll need a hardware store at some point. We should split up for that part.”
“Cam.” Zach kneeled in the sand in front of me. He took my hands. I hadn’t realized how cold they were until he rubbed them in his own. “We need to talk about them.”
“What about them?”
“Is this what’s best for them?”
“We’re going to need a team, Zach. We’re going to need this team.”
“We don’t need a team to run, Gallagher Girl. I can’t go back because my mom is part of the Circle. You’re in danger because of what the ambassador may or may not have told you. We’ve got to go to ground. You and me. We have to run. Hide. Disappear.” He said the last word more slowly. I knew how big it was and what it meant. “And it will be easier if it’s just the two of us.”
“I’m not going to ground, Zach.” I’d been thinking it for hours, weighing it. Worrying about it. So I stood and started toward the house. It was like all roads had been leading to that sandy beach for ages. Since I woke up in the Alps. Since I fell down a laundry chute in Boston. Since I pulled a pop bottle out of a trash can and said hello to a boy who had seen me in a crowd.
“Where are you going?”
I looked at the first boy who had ever seen me—the real me—and I told him, “To end it.”
“We need to talk,” I said as soon as I stepped inside.
“Good. You’re here. We need to figure out a way to make contact with your mom.” Bex was pacing. “My mum will know how. We just have to—”
“No.” I shook my head and read her eyes. “Bex, what is rule number seven for an operative in deep cover?”
Bex knew the answer, but she didn’t say it.
“An operative in deep cover operates alone without risking the safety and security of others,” I said, rattling off one of the many things I’d learned from Joe Solomon. “There are maybe a half dozen people on this planet we can trust, and if you think they aren’t going to be under constant surveillance, you’re crazy. Which means”—I took a deep breath—“from this point forward, we’re on our own.”
“But…” The words seemed hard for Liz; the weight of all that was happening was far too heavy for her small shoulders. “We have to tell someone. About my test, about what the Circle is doing. Someone has to do something about it!”
“Someone is going to do something about it, Liz.” I looked around the group. “We’re going to do something about it.”
“Cam, let’s think about this,” Zach told me, and I spun on him.
“I was supposed to sleep longer!” I heard myself shouting.
As random outbursts go, that was a pretty good one. I watched my roommates look at each other—at Zach. I watched them try to see what I was saying, so I talked on.
“Something has been bothering me ever since Preston’s dad died. The drugs they used to knock me out on the way to the prison…they wore off too soon. Our theory has always been that the Circle sent a gunman to kill the ambassador before he could talk to me. Silence him. I wasn’t even supposed to be with the ambassador when the gunman came. That was the story, right?”
“We know, Cam,” Bex told me.
I shook my head. “But what if it was just a story? What if I was exactly where I was supposed to be—exactly when I was supposed to be there?”
I watched the people I know best look at me like I was a crazy person. Trust me. It’s a look I know pretty well.
“Remember what you told me in London, Bex? That the Circle doesn’t need me dead anymore because it’s too late to stop me from telling anyone about the list?”
“Yeah, Cam,” Bex said.
“You said that they didn’t need me dead, but they’d probably still try to kill me if it was convenient—just for spite. Remember that?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Well, what if it was convenient? What if someone wanted me in that room? What if someone meant for me to die too?”
“Someone like Max Edwards?” Zach asked.
I nodded. “If I was supposed to sleep for another hour, why did he come check on me when he did? Why take me in to see the ambassador early? I mean…maybe it was all a coincidence.…”
“Or maybe it wasn’t,” Bex said.
“The Circle has moles everywhere,” Liz said. “Even on his task force.”
“Maybe they have one leading the task force,” Macey said.
“Do you think they know?” Zach asked me. “Your mom and Joe, do you think they suspect Edwards is dirty?”
“I’m not sure he is,” I said with a shrug. “But I don’t like him. And I don’t like…it. In any case, there’s no telling who we can trust.” I took a deep breath and steadied my nerves as I went on. “And that’s why we have to go alone.”
“Gallagher Girl, let’s think about this.”
“I have thought about it. And this is it, Zach. This is what comes next. I’m through waiting and hiding. I’m not running or lying low or going to ground or any of the spy terms that can basically be translated as wait for someone else to do something. I am tired of waiting.”
I looked around, expecting protests, but none came, so I talked on. “Preston’s dad asked for me and he mentioned Liz, so I think she’s right, and I think this thing is happening. I think the Circle is trying to start World War Three.”
“So that’s why we call my parents,” Bex countered, and I shook my head.
“They have a job, Bex. They have a mission.” I took a deep breath and admitted, “Every last one of them is busy tracking down the leaders of the Circle. Whether they realize it or not, they’re trying to stop it from that end. And just hearing our voices might be enough to land them in a prison too. So…no. I’m going to try to stop World War Three. And I’m asking you to help me.”
“Where do we start?” Bex asked.
I felt them all looking at me—waiting for me to say something, do something. It was the way I always looked at my mom or Aunt Abby or Mr. Solomon. I felt them waiting for orders. And I realized they weren’t going with me on this quest—they were following me. I felt the weight of the responsibility crushing down on me, and my roommates must have sensed it.
“Cam, you’re the one who saw where they’re holding Preston.” Bex was moving toward me. “You’re the one who heard what the ambassador had to say. And, Cam, you’re the only one of us who has ever been entirely on your own, going after the Circle.”
“I got caught,” I reminded everyone. Especially myself.
“You survived,” Bex told me, emphasis on the final word, on the only thing that really mattered. “So”—she took a slight step back and crossed her arms—“what are we going to do?”
I felt them waiting, watching, and I wondered if Zach was right—if the two of us would be better of
f on our own. But it was too late. We couldn’t lose my roommates if we tried. They were Gallagher Girls. They would find us.
“Lizzie.” I turned to her. “What happens next? I mean…what’s the next domino?”
“It could be any number of things. I built a model, and it’s scanning the Internet for anything that fits with the pattern, and then I’ll cross-reference that against—”
“Short version, Liz,” Bex reminded her.
“I don’t know yet,” Liz blurted. “But I will soon. Probably soon. Hopefully soon.”
“How soon?” I asked.
“A couple days. Maybe sooner.”
“Okay, so in the meantime, we get Preston.”
I waited for the objections, the questions, the doubts, but no one said a thing until Bex asked, “What do we know about this prison?”
“Before Joe left, he told me it’s a maximum-security facility in the Alaskan arctic,” Zach said, taking over. “Very remote. Very extreme. Very secure. Only the highest-level terror targets are taken there.”
“Because it’s so remote?” Liz asked.
Zach shook his head. “Because, officially, it doesn’t exist. Prisoners only get sent there if they are never supposed to leave.”
I didn’t want to look at Macey, but I couldn’t help myself. I watched her from the corner of my eye, waiting for her to wince or cringe, but she was stoic. Frozen.
“How big is it?” Bex asked.
“Not sure.” I shook my head. “The facility was built into the mountain, and I didn’t see the whole thing. It was like a maze. I think you’re supposed to get lost.”
“Do you remember the route you took?” Bex asked, and I smiled.
“Every step.”
“Good,” Macey said. “There’s a gun safe in the basement.”
“No.” I shook my head.
“But—”
“We can’t blast our way in, Macey. No matter how much firepower we bring, they are going to have more. Our only way in is very, very quietly.”
“It’s not that simple, okay?” Zach shook his head. Frustration poured off him in waves. “You guys don’t get it. The temperature and altitude alone make this maybe the hardest target in the country. If you think this is going to be easy, you’re crazy.”
“Zach’s right,” Bex said.
“I got out,” I said, almost under my breath.
“And you were lucky,” he countered.
Until then, I hadn’t really considered how miraculous it was. There had been too much adrenaline, too many wild thoughts inside my mind. But that didn’t change the fact that I couldn’t tell him he was wrong. I could only say, “So I can get in.”
“Getting out is different than breaking in,” Zach told me.
“It’s a prison, Zach. Keeping people in is kind of the idea.”
“But—”
“But what?” I asked him.
“But if we get caught, there’s no getting out. Maybe ever again.”
I thought about what Aunt Abby had told me in Rome, that we couldn’t be kids and adults at the same time—that we no longer got to have it both ways. People had already come for Zach. They already wanted me. If we did this it would be official. There’d be no turning back for any of us.
“Okay.” Bex rubbed her hands on her thighs, warming them as if in preparation for where we had to go and what we had to do. “We’re going.” It wasn’t an argument. It was an order. And none of us had the strength to defy her. “We’re going right now.”
Macey walked to a door off the kitchen, threw it open, and switched on the light. Instantly, fluorescents flickered to life, buzzing and glowing and illuminating a massive room filled with rows and rows of shelves covered in skis and down jackets and jumpsuits, cables and tents. Every rich-person toy in the world filled the massive room, and Macey smiled.
“What do we need?”
Turns out sneaking up on a top secret government prison is far more time-consuming than being invited through the front door.
We left for Alaska the next morning and flew all day. I think the plane belonged to Blackthorne, but Zach didn’t explain, and I didn’t ask. I just sat in the row behind him while he flew and Bex copiloted. By the time we reached the mountains, she was certain she was certified. I, on the other hand, had had too many bad driver’s ed experiences to let her go solo anytime soon. Still, I didn’t have the strength to say otherwise.
Step two was a chopper into the forest. I recognized the pilot, a girl named Neha who had been a senior when we were seventh graders. But we didn’t exactly catch up. It wasn’t exactly the time. Even though it was only seven P.M., we flew under the cover of darkness to the base of a mountain.
And then we were gone, out of the chopper and into the snow. It swirled around us as Neha lifted off, her lights disappearing into a black sky filled with more stars than I had ever seen, leaving us alone in the wilderness with nothing but an uphill climb ahead.
Number of hours we climbed: 6
Number of times Liz fell down: 12
Number of times Liz almost dragged at least three of us down with her: 7
Number of times we said anything about it: 0
Number of moments when I had to wonder if we were making the biggest mistake of our lives: Every single one of them
“We’re here.”
The way Bex looked around the cave you would have thought it was the Ritz-Carlton. But, in truth, it was a narrow crevice with a dirt floor. Brush covered the entrance. Snow had blown inside, and ice collected in the corners. But it was home, at least for the time being, and I was content to squeeze inside and drop my pack.
“We can light a fire here. They won’t see the smoke through the trees, and there’s enough ventilation overhead that we don’t have to worry about suffocating.” Zach pointed up to the ceiling overhead. Cracks ran through the stone, and I could see strips of the starry sky.
“We should get some rest.” It was after midnight, and Bex dropped her pack on the ground. “Tomorrow, we have work to do.”
Judging from the aches in my back and the sweat in my boots, we’d already done plenty of work today, but I didn’t think it was the time to argue. Macey, however, disagreed.
“But—” she started.
Bex cut her off with a look.
“We won’t get Preston back by running off half-cocked with no plan, Macey. We get him back by being smart.”
“Being smart,” Macey repeated.
“Okay.” I unfurled my sleeping bag. “Now, get some sleep.”
As hard as I tried to sleep, I couldn’t. Macey was beside me, too still as she lay on her back, looking up through the cracks in the cave, staring at the stars. They were almost too bright. I wanted to turn them off.
Bex slept, and Liz, worn out as she was, crashed with her boots still on. I wondered where my mom and Mr. Solomon were. I wanted to know if they’d approve of what we were doing.
I saw a shadow move near the doorway, inching down the walls. So I pulled my sleeping bag around my shoulders and, silently as I could, I followed.
“Go to sleep, Gallagher Girl,” Zach said. He didn’t turn to face me. He just leaned against the cave’s entrance, staring at the mountain peak that loomed overhead. He stared so intently at it that I wondered if he had X-ray vision and was trying to see what lay inside. Or maybe he was just trying to see tomorrow.
“I can’t sleep,” I told him.
“You should try.”
“And you’re out here not taking your own advice because…” I didn’t try to finish. I just wrapped the sleeping bag around his shoulders and melted into his arms, rested the back of my head on his chest and leaned against him, staring up at the sky.
“I never knew there were this many stars.”
“I can’t see them,” he told me. His breath was warm on my neck, and he kissed the soft skin at the base of my hair. “I just see you.”
“That’s one of your cheesier lines,” I told him but didn’t move to mak
e him stop.
“It’s the altitude,” he told me. “I don’t have enough oxygen in my brain.”
“I see.” I sighed as his kisses moved higher.
His arms grew tighter around my waist, and for the first time in hours, I wasn’t cold. I didn’t shiver. I was safe there in that moment and I wanted it to last forever. But it couldn’t. From the depths of the cave, I heard Liz coughing in her sleep.
“We shouldn’t have let her come,” I said.
“If it were up to me none of you would be here.” Zach stopped kissing me. He turned me to face him. “You know this is crazy, right?”
“Preston would do it for us,” I said.
“Would he?” I couldn’t tell if it was a rhetorical question or not until Zach said again, “Would he really?”
I shook my head and looked back at the top of the mountain. It was below zero, and I shivered even in my insulated clothing. I was half a world away from my summer vacation, but the memories I didn’t have were always there, coursing under the surface. No matter how many times I tried to claim them, they slipped away. The harder I tried, the faster they shot out of my reach, so I didn’t try to grab them then.
“I don’t know how to say it, Zach, but…last summer. I think he saved my life.”
“They may not come for him, Cammie. He’s probably safe in there. And…” Zach trailed off. Something in his face told me he didn’t want to finish. Something in my gut told me he had to.
“And what?”
“What if he’s supposed to be in there? What if Preston is dangerous?”
I pulled away. Maybe I had to look at him more squarely, or maybe it felt a little like I was temporarily touching a stranger.
“This is Preston we’re talking about, Zach. Dangerous isn’t the word I’d use to describe him.”
“And people are never more than they appear?”
“I can’t leave him in there,” I said. “Not if we might need him.”