“Today our friends at the FBI have asked for a baseline assessment of your proficiency in the following technical maneuvers.” She handed a stack of folders to the first girl in every row, and slowly they passed the rest back. “So if you will follow me outside, we will begin…Yes, Cameron?” Buckingham said when I raised my hand.
“I don’t have one,” I said, looking down at the stack in my hands. Our names were written at the top in bold, black letters, but my name was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m afraid the medical staff has not cleared you for this particular exercise. You will have to sit this one out, dear.”
“But I don’t want to sit anything out.”
“Cameron, I will not be responsible for you re-injuring yourself.”
Not twenty-four hours before, I’d been fighting for my life in the woods around Joe Solomon’s cabin. No one had cleared me for that, I started to say, but thought better of it at the last minute.
“In the meantime,” Professor Buckingham went on, “I believe Dr. Steve has requested a word with you.”
My classmates went still, and I felt like the least chameleony girl in the world as I gathered my things and walked outside.
“Oh, Cammie, come in. Come in.”
Whatever pain meds Dr. Steve was taking for his shoulder, they must have been the strong ones. I mean the really strong ones, because he had gotten two of his shirt buttons in the wrong holes, spilled coffee all over his sling, and he was grinning like he was six years old and someone had just given him a puppy.
“So good to see you, Cammie. So good to see you,” he said over and over, each time emphasizing a different word.
“Uh…how are you, Dr. Steve?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m fine, my dear. Perfectly fine. Just a scratch, you know.”
I did know, but all I could hear were Zach’s words coming back, echoing in my ears: You could have died. You could have died. You could have—
“Cammie,” Dr. Steve said, jarring me back. “Well, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you just took a little trip.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s perfectly natural for—”
“No, I don’t mean sorry for ignoring you. I mean sorry for…” I trailed off, but pointed to his sling. “I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be sorry, Cammie,” Dr. Steve said. “I don’t know what I would have done if you’d been hurt.” A darkness covered his face. He shivered as if the thought were simply too much, and then he forced himself to smile. “Now, tell me, how do you feel?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, Cammie”—he shook his head slowly—“how do you feel?” And then I knew he wasn’t talking about my bruises or my scars or even the knot that was growing steadily smaller on my head. He was the one who’d been shot, but Dr. Steve knew that I might have been the one seriously wounded on that hillside.
“I killed a man,” I said.
“Yes, you did.”
“He was going to stab Bex, so…I killed him.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
It was an excellent question—one the Gallagher Academy had never really taught me how to answer. I was tired and confused, guilty and relieved. But most of all, I felt nothing. And nothing, as it turns out, is one of the scariest feelings of all.
When I finally got back to the suite that night, I was greeted by a single sentence and three scorching looks.
“Where were you?”
“Why?” I asked, closing the door and dropping my books on the bed. I sat down and tried to pull off my shoes, but Macey was looming over me.
“It’s almost ten,” she explained.