United We Spy (Gallagher Girls) (16 page)

Y
ou never know how you’re going to react to something. To anything. Tragedy, joy, heartache. They affect us all in different ways in different times and different places. There, a thousand feet in the air, I squinted against the dark stain that was spreading across my best friend’s body. I felt the sticky dampness of the blood and watched the way she crumpled, sliding off the plane’s narrow seat and onto the floor.

I think I might have yelled.

I think I might have screamed.

I think I might have cried.

But to tell you the truth, I’m not exactly sure what I did. I remember ripping off her shirt and staring at the blood.

“Light!” someone yelled, and soon there was a flashlight shining down on the small hole in Bex’s shoulder.

“Bex!” Zach yelled and dove for her. He held her head. “Wake up, Bex. Wake up. Wake up. Wake—”

Someone was crying. It might have been Liz. Or it might have been me. All I know is that Macey was beside me, a first aid kit in her hands. And I was reaching around Bex’s back, feeling the gooey wetness. A gaping hole.

“Exit wound,” I said. Zach pulled Bex into his arms and turned her around and I saw blood. So much blood. “That’s good. Isn’t that good?” I asked but no one really answered.

“We’ve got to stop the bleeding,” Liz was saying, rattling off facts. “Stop the bleeding. Clean the wound.”

I’d heard the words in every lecture on emergency medical procedures that the school doctor and Mr. Solomon had ever given, and yet, I didn’t really think about them. My hands were flying, moving, absent from my mind as I took the alcohol from Macey’s hand and poured it onto Bex’s shoulder. I was glad she was unconscious and didn’t have to feel the pain.

The gauze bandages were too small—nothing more than glorified Band-Aids—so I stuck them to the entry and exit wounds and unwound my scarf from around my neck, wrapping her body over and over.

“Don’t die, Bex,” Liz was chanting. “Don’t die. Don’t die.”

“She’s not going to die,” I said. “Bex won’t die,” I snapped, knowing that Bex herself would never allow it.

“Bex, wake up!” Zach yelled one more time.

“We’ve got to get her on the ground,” Liz said.

“We’ve got to get her to a hospital,” Preston countered.

Then Bex’s eyes fluttered open. She grabbed my hand, held it tighter than I thought possible.

“No,” she gasped. “No hospitals.”

“But—”

“They’ll find me. Find us,” Bex said, and I nodded, knowing she was right. I pressed against Bex’s wounds.

“I won’t let them find you,” I promised, and then my best friend drifted away again, her blood still wet and warm on my hands.

G
rant and Jonas didn’t ask how I knew where the lake was. No one debated how much longer we should fly. We stayed in the air as long as we possibly could, and when the sun began to creep over the horizon I pointed to the waters below and told them, “There.”

So we landed. Once we were on the ground, Grant insisted on carrying Bex inside, and my friends and I walked toward the cabin, knee-deep in snow in the predawn light.

“What is this place?” Zach asked.

“It’s safe,” I told him.

“Cam…” Zach said, his voice a warning.

“It’s a ranch. Grandpa buys his bulls here. The owners only use this cabin for hunting, though. And nothing is in season now. No one is looking for us here. It’s safe,” I said again, this time the words only for myself.

Liz and Macey and I stood together in a big crude kitchen with canned goods and a propane-powered cookstove. There was a fireplace and a small bathroom with a shower but no tub, and two bedrooms. One had a set of bunk beds. The other looked like it belonged in an old motel. In every room there were cheap curtains on the windows and no locks on the doors.

Liz was already unpacking computers and unwinding cords. She looked at me. “Power?”

“There’s a generator out back,” I said but I didn’t move.

“Good,” Liz said with a nod. “I still have a backdoor into the NSA satellite system, so I can get that up and running. I need to check on the model, see if there are any headlines. And—”

“Liz.” I tried to stop her, but she just turned on me, a raw kind of desperation in her eyes.

It was neither panic nor grief but rather a very grown-up sense of urgency as she told me, “I’m going to find the next domino, Cammie. This thing, I know it’s not my fault. Not really. I know I didn’t sink that tanker or blow up that bridge, but if someone is doing this based on an idea I had—based on my
ideas
”—she said again, and I knew that that was the hardest part. For someone like Liz, ideas were sacred—“then I’ve got to stop it.” She stood up a little taller. “Then I
will
stop it.”

And I knew right then she would.

When Zach emerged from one of the bedrooms, Macey said, “How is she?”

Zach looked down at the ground. “She’s still out. I thought she might wake when we moved her, but…”

“That’s okay,” I said. “There’s no sign of fever and her pulse is strong. She is strong. She’ll be fine.”

“She’ll be fine,” Zach repeated. Then he shook his head and leaned against the cold stove.

Outside, the sun was rising higher, and, gradually, the cabin filled with an almost iridescent glow, like it was coming back to life. But then a voice cut through the haze, asking, “Is he here?”

Preston.

I know it sounds crazy, but I’d almost forgotten about Preston until he looked around the cold cabin, then back at me. “Is my father here, or are we meeting him somewhere else?”

I didn’t rush to answer. The truth was just a series of lies I couldn’t bring myself to tell: That he shouldn’t worry. That things would be okay. That his father didn’t suffer. But I didn’t want to say any of those things because, for years, I hadn’t wanted to hear them.

“He’s not coming, is he?” Preston said at last.

“No,” Macey admitted.

“Is he…” Preston started but trailed off. I couldn’t blame him. We were all trained spies, and even we didn’t have the strength to finish that particular sentence. “Why isn’t he coming? Macey?” He looked at her, but she couldn’t face him. “Someone tell me something! Cammie?”

“I’m so sorry, Preston,” I said, coming toward him. I took his hands. “I’m so sorry.”

I was maybe the only person in the room who knew what he was feeling, but the emotions were too raw for me. When he pushed away, I didn’t protest—didn’t follow. My own wounds were too sore. But I also knew that I was the only one who’d been there. I was the only one who had found my way out.

“My father is dead,” Preston said slowly, almost like he was admitting something he was ashamed of. “Of course he’s dead. Wasn’t that what you were trying to tell me in Rome—that people like my dad were dying?”

“Preston,” Macey started, but he was only looking at me.

“How did he die?” Preston struggled to keep his voice from cracking. He was still slightly frozen and totally numb, and he was trying to hold it all together, trying not to break down and be the weak link as he looked at me. “Do you know how he died?”

I wasn’t aware I was biting my lip until I tasted the blood. I nodded slowly. “He was shot. In custody. A few days ago.”

“In custody?” Preston asked like he was trying to wrap his mind around the facts, put them all in perspective. “In that place?”

He pointed at the mountain that was, by then, a thousand miles away.

“Yes,” I said. “He was there.”

“So he died,” Preston said again, like he was still trying the words on for size, trying to make them fit. “Was it your mom?” he asked Zach.

“We don’t know,” Zach admitted as if the question wasn’t offensive at all. And I guess when your mom is a psychotic terrorist it isn’t. “Cammie was there but she didn’t get a good look at the gunman. He could have been acting on Catherine’s orders. Or maybe the other members of the Inner Circle wanted to eliminate him before he could talk. We aren’t sure which.”

Preston whirled on me. “You saw it happen? You were there?”

“It was dark. I was in the other room, but…yes. I was there.”

“What were you doing there?” Preston asked.

“He asked to see me. I thought I was going to see you, but it was him instead. He told them I was the only person he would talk to.”

“Why?” Preston asked.

I shook my head. “He said he wanted to talk to me…about the Circle. And he asked me to keep you safe. But when I saw what happened to him, I knew you were never going to be safe in there.”

“And I’m supposed to be safe out here?” Preston yelled. The shock was wearing off, taking its toll. All that was left was fear and grief and terror. “Why did they arrest me?”

“The Circle,” Macey said. “It’s kind of a family business. It’s
your
family business.”

But Preston didn’t take the time to process this. He fired back, “Do you think I’m one of the bad guys?”

“No!” Macey reached for him, but Preston pulled away.

“Maybe I am.” A darkness filled his face. The truth about his father was seeping in, bleeding through his outer layers. “I could kill someone.”

“No,” Macey said. “You couldn’t.”

Preston pulled a chair out from the table and sank into it. It was like he no longer had the strength to stand.

“Where is my mother?”

“We don’t know exactly,” I told him. I wanted to keep the facts plain and straight and simple. He’d already heard too much to process any more. “We think she’s safe.”

“Are you sure?” Preston asked.

“The Circle is kind of a ‘by blood’ situation,” Zach explained. “It’s not the kind of thing you marry into.”

The wind blew and the cabin moaned, and the look in Preston’s eyes made my stomach churn. I thought I might throw up.

“I’m not surprised about my father.” Preston was tracing circles on the table. I doubt he even realized he was doing it, but he kept doing it again and again. “He was a member of the Circle,” he said as if trying the words on for size. “Should I be surprised?”

He looked at Macey, who shrugged. “Our dads are politicians, Preston. Of course we grew up thinking they might be evil.”

“Preston.” I risked moving a little closer, sat down at the table and reached for his hand. “When I saw your dad, he told me the Circle leaders are planning something. We think…we think they are trying to start World War Three. And he told me
you
can help stop it.”

“How?” Preston sounded genuinely confused. “How am I supposed to know how to stop World War Three? That’s ridiculous.”

“I know how it sounds. It’s just…have you heard anything? Seen anything? Did your dad give you something for safekeeping or—”

“I don’t know anything, Cammie.”

“You have to. He told me you did. He—it was his dying breath, Preston. Now, think!”

“Cam.” Zach’s hand was on my shoulder, but I pushed on.

“You know something!”

“No.” Preston was rising, shaking his head. “No. No. Just…no.”

Even though the sun was growing higher, none of us had slept the night before. Stress and fear mixed with exhaustion, and I could sense Preston starting to crack.

Zach must have seen it too, because before I could press again, Zach took his arm. “Come on, Preston. Let’s get you some sleep.”

I thought I was alone on the porch. Right up until the moment when I felt Zach’s arms go around me. There are many advantages to being romantically involved with a spy, and totally spontaneous and unexpected hugging has to be one of them. I leaned against him, felt the warmth of his body against mine.

“You’re shaking,” he told me. He turned me to face him, ran his hands quickly up and down my arms. “You shouldn’t be out here like this.”

But it wasn’t the cold that shook me. It was shock or fear or maybe just the sensation of adrenaline draining from my body, so I shook harder.

Through the window I saw Preston sitting at the rickety little table, rocking slightly.

“How many will they send?” I asked. “For him.” I nodded in Preston’s direction.

“You mean the good guys or the bad guys?” he asked.

“Either,” I said with a shrug. “Both.” Then I had to laugh. “It’s getting harder to tell the difference.”

Zach shook his head. “I know the feeling.” Then he turned, and the sunlight sliced across his face.

“You’re bleeding,” I said.

I brought my sleeve up to touch the scrape near his hairline, but Zach moved away.

“It’s nothing. I’m fine. It’s not mine.”

“Bex.” I exhaled the word.

“She’ll be fine,” he told me. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be fine again.”

“Hey.” Zach reached for me.

“What are we doing, Zach?” I asked, pulling away before he could surround me in his arms. “What is it all for? Are we really going to stop the Circle? Is that even possible?”

“Yes.” I’d never heard Zach’s voice so confident and full of strength. But I didn’t let myself believe it. I was too busy rambling on.

“What good will it do? What are we supposed to do if we stop them? We can’t trust the CIA. The FBI. Where are we supposed to go, Zach? Are there any good guys?”

“Yes.” He grabbed me, pulled me close. “You’re looking at one.”

And then he kissed me, hard and fast. He pulled back. “And when it’s over—”

“No.” I stopped him. “Let’s not think about the future.” I kissed him again. “Let’s just not think.”