The space between us shrank, but as I took another step forward, Zach took a step back. Last spring, he'd teased me, he'd flirted with me—I'd been the one who was hard to get. But standing under those bright lights, I could see that somehow, in the last few months, Zach and I had changed places. I didn't like the game from that side of the field.
"Come on," he said, taking my hand (but not in a nice, romantic way). "We're taking Macey home."
"We're not doing anything."
"Fine," he said, starting away. "I'll go find Solomon, get his opinion."
"Zach," I started, cutting him off, but he wheeled on me.
"Do you even know who's out there?" he snapped louder now, and then just as quickly he stepped closer. "Do you even care?"
"The Circle of Cavan is after my sisterhood, Zach. Not yours. They're hunting my friends. They're sending Gallagher Girls down laundry chutes, so don't show up here and lecture me about what's at stake." He drew a breath as if to speak, but I knew better than to let him. "If Joseph Cavan's followers want to settle the score with Gillian Gallagher's great-great-grand- daughter, then they're going to deal with all of us, and that doesn't necessarily include you."
The announcer was talking over the loudspeaker, saying something about the homecoming queen and her deep love of puppies or something, but I just looked at Zach, trying to shake the feeling that I hadn't really seen him in months. If ever. "Why do I feel like I can't trust you anymore?"
I wanted him to lash out. I wanted him to fight, to protest, to argue—to do anything but look deeper into my eyes and say, "Because the Gallagher Academy doesn't admit fools."
Hundreds of people filled the stands around us. They were teachers and accountants, stay-at-home moms and men who worked at the toilet paper factory—regular people doing their best to live regular lives. They couldn't have been farther from Macey McHenry (both the spy and the girl) if they'd tried.
And yet she was right there beside them.
Beside us.
And she'd heard everything we'd said.
"The family tie to Roseville," Macey softly repeated what the man on the street had said.
"Macey," I said, stepping closer.
"Does this mean …" she started, and I knew there were a dozen ways that sentence could have ended. If I had just discovered that I was related to Gillian Gallagher, I would have been ecstatic. Bex would have thought it was the coolest thing ever. Liz might have decided to conduct some serious DNA experiments to determine if covertness was hereditary.
But it didn't matter what we would have done. What really mattered was what Macey did.
"You knew about this?" she asked me. Her voice was cracking. Her lip was shaking. "How long have you known about this?"
I could have lied, I guess. But I didn't. Maybe because Macey had lived with me for over a year and would see through it. Maybe because we hadn't covered lying to a trained operative yet in CoveOps. Or maybe I just thought Macey had the right to know that of the thousands of Gallagher Girls in the world, she was the only one who carried Gilly's blood in her veins.
"Yeah, my mom told us last—"
"Us!" Macey snapped. "Does the whole school know?"
"No! Just Bex and Liz and me. Mom explained all that after you got accepted. She—"
"So I'm Gillian Gallagher's descendant?" The fire seemed to be fading from her, so I reached out, still half afraid that when I touched her she would turn to ash. "So that's why they let me in."
"Macey, it's not—"
"True?" she said, staring at me, but for once in my life I couldn't lie—couldn't hide. I could only watch as she pushed away without another word, through the red-clad members of the Pride of Roseville Marching Band, who were exiting the field.
"Macey!" I called after her, but then Zach's hand was in mine.
"Cam—" he started.
"Not now, Zach." I jerked away. Maybe I wanted to find Macey. Or maybe I just wanted to be anywhere but there.
I set off through the crowd, pushing through the band and out into open space—seeing potential threats everywhere I turned.
Twenty feet to my right and up three rows, there was a guy in a red cap who jumped to his feet to cheer a split second too late, as if his attention had been elsewhere. On the track between the cheerleaders and the bleachers, two women stood together scanning the crowd while wearing