Zach stopped. The bag swung back and forth, keeping time as he shook his head and said, "You're the Gallagher Girl. You figure it out."
Boys! Are they always this impossible? Do they always say cryptic, indecipherable things? (Note to self: work with Liz to adapt her boy-to-English translator into a more mobile form—like maybe a watch or necklace.)
"Besides," Zach said, "at my school, we learn how to keep a secret."
"Yeah. I know. I go to a school like yours."
He looked at me. "Do you?"
I've found a lot of secret passageways in my time as a Gallagher Girl. During my seventh grade year I was almost always covered in dust and cobwebs as I pulled levers and pushed stones until I unearthed a version of my school that probably hadn't been seen since Gilly herself had roamed our halls. But when I'd found the narrow tunnel that led to a hidden room outside my mother's office, I'd kind of made an unspoken promise to myself that I wouldn't use it—that I'd never eavesdrop. But that night felt like an exception.
Dust hung heavy in the tunnel. My shoulders grazed old stones and rough wooden beams. Light fell through gaps in the stones as the passageway widened, and soon I was looking for my mother through the cracks—but seeing Mr. Solomon. "Do you think any of the girls have guessed?" he asked.
"About Blackthorne?" Mom asked, and Mr. Solomon nodded.
"No. But if one of them knew the truth, then they'd all know the truth."
Mr. Solomon laughed. "You're probably right." He straightened out on the couch. "You still think this is a good idea?"
Mom walked to her desk. "It's what we have to do." She turned and looked into the distance. "For everyone."
On the way to our suite I avoided the busy staircases and crowded hallways—not because of the stares and whispers, but because I wanted to think about the way Zach looked during the Code Black; I wanted to remember the long, quiet ride from D.C. and my mother's worried face. And more than anything, I wanted to ask myself the question that had been looming in the back of my mind since I'd first seen Zach in D.C.: Who were those boys, really?
All we had was a picture of Mr. Solomon in a T-shirt and my mother's word that we needed to forge friendships for the future. That didn't change the fact that the Gallagher Academy hadn't had a Code Black since the end of the cold war—until they showed up. That didn't change the fact that Zach had looked Tina in the eye and lied.
Twenty-four hours before, I'd stood in that cold, empty corridor and thought that Zach knew me; but I didn't know him. I didn't know any of them. And I didn't like it. At all.
I pushed open the door to our suite and announced to my roommates, "We've got work to do."
Chapter Nineteen
I know what you're thinking. And the truth is, I might have thought it, too. I mean, it's not like we had a lot of free time on our hands and were looking for an extra project. It's not as if I enjoy getting summoned to D.C. and debriefed by the CIA. I don't go looking for trouble, but I couldn't shake the feeling that trouble might have found us—walked through our front gates and moved into the East Wing. So even though there were about a million reasons to forget the whole thing … we didn't. Instead we waited, and we watched, and a week later we were ready. Sort of.
"Tell me again why this isn't an incredibly bad idea," I muttered in the dark passageway. Cobwebs clung to every inch of me. My equipment belt was on too tight, and Liz kept stepping on my heels and making high-pitched squeaks (everyone knows she's afraid of spiders).
"Well, I think it's bloody brilliant," Bex replied. It was also bloody risky, and that, I knew, was part of its appeal for Bex.
I hadn't meant for it to come down to this. Seriously. I thought we might look up their birth certificates or do other least-intrusive-means-necessary things. But as I stood in the secret passageway that led to the East Wing, I couldn't help but feel pretty intrusive.
"Guys, maybe breaking about a dozen rules isn't a good way to … you know…prove I didn't break any rules," I suggested.
But Bex just smiled through the dusty dim light. "It is if we don't get caught." She stepped over one of the thin motion-sensing lasers that the security department must have installed over winter break. "And I don't plan on getting caught."
I stopped in the corridor, felt Liz, then Bex bang into me as I listened for something—anything—to give us an excuse to turn around.
"But what if they aren't really gone?" I asked.
"They are," Bex said.
"But shouldn't we wait? We've only had a week of prep work. We don't know their patterns of behavior yet. We don't—"
"Cam, I told you," Liz said. "Dr. Steve is making the boys do some kind of group-bonding thing. It has to be tonight."
And she was right, as usual—but that didn't make me feel better.
Summary of Surveillance The Operatives undertook a high-risk operation that could lead to answers … or expulsion … or both.
"Don't worry, Cam," Bex whispered. "It's not that different from when we broke into Josh's house."