It was as good a guess as any.
Standing there among the trees and mountains, the river and snow, I knew that I’d climbed almost to the top of the earth. The bruises and blood, however, told me I’d had a long, long fall.
“Who are you, Cammie?” Mary asked me. “Who are you really?”
And then I said maybe the most honest thing I’d ever uttered. “I’m just a girl who’s ready to go home.”
No sooner had I spoken the words than a dull sound rang through the air, drowning out the rushing of the river below. It was a rhythmic, pulsing noise, and Mary asked, “What is that?”
I looked up through the swirling snow to the black shadow in the cloudless sky.
“That’s my ride.”
Chapter Three
I know most girls think their mothers are the most beautiful women in the world. Most girls think that, but I’m the only one who’s right. And yet there was something different about the woman who ran toward me, crouching beneath the chopper’s spinning blades. Snow swirled, and the Alps seemed to shudder, but Rachel Morgan wasn’t just my mom in that moment. She wasn’t just my headmistress. She was a spy on a mission, and that mission…was me.
She didn’t hesitate or slow; she just threw her arms around me and said, “You’re alive.” She squeezed tighter. “Thank God, you’re alive.” Her hands were strong and warm, and it felt like I might never leave her grasp again. “Cammie, what happened?”
“I left,” I said, despite how obvious and silly it must have sounded.
Mary was gone, standing with the rest of the sisters, watching the chopper and the reunion from afar. My mother and I were alone as I explained, “People were getting hurt because of me, so I left to find out what the Circle wants from me. I had to find out what happened to Dad—what he knew. What they think I know. So I left.” I gripped my mother’s arms tighter, searched her eyes.
“Yesterday I woke up here.”
Mom’s hands were wrapped around the back of my neck—her fingers tangled in my hair—holding me steady.
“I know, sweetheart. I know. But now I need you to tell me everything you remember.”
The chopper blades were spinning, but the whole world was standing still as I told her, “I just did.”
Number of hours I slept on the trip back to Virginia: 7
Number of hours the trip actually took: 9
Number of croissants my mother tried to get me to eat: 6
Number of croissants I actually ate: 2 (The rest I wrapped in a napkin and saved for later.)
Number of questions anyone asked me: 1 Number of dirty looks my mother gave to prevent the question-asking: 37*
*estimated number, due to the aforementioned sleepiness
“Cam.” My mother shook my shoulder, and I felt myself sinking lower in the sky. “We’re here.”
I would have known that sight anywhere—the black asphalt of Highway 10, the huge stone building on the horizon, surrounded by the high walls and electrified gates that served to shield my sisterhood from prying eyes. I knew that place and those things better than anything else in the world, and yet something felt strange as the helicopter flew across the forest. The trees were ablaze with bright reds and vivid yellows—colors that had no place at the beginning of summer.
“What is it, kiddo?”
“Nothing.” I forced a smile. “It’s nothing.”
Of course, if you’re reading this, you probably already know a lot about the Gallagher Academy; but there’s a fact about my sisterhood that never makes it into the briefings. The truth of the matter is that, yes, we have been training covert operatives since 1865, but the thing that no one realizes until they’ve seen our school for themselves is this: we are a school for girls.
Seriously. In so many ways, we are just girls. We laugh with our friends and worry about our hair and wonder what boys are thinking. Sure, we do some of that wondering in Portuguese, but we’re still girls just the same. In that way, the people in the town of Roseville understand us better than almost all the people at the CIA.
And believe me, it wasn’t the spies-in-training I was nervous to see—it was the girls. But as the chopper landed and my mother opened the door, I knew it wasn’t possible to avoid them.
Most of the freshman class stood halfway between the side doors and the Protection and Enforcement barn. An entire class of girls I’d never seen before stood huddled around Madame Dabney, who, I could have sworn, wiped a tear from an eye when I stepped onto the lawn. For a second, it felt as if my entire sisterhood were there, watching. And then the crowd parted to reveal a narrow path and three faces I knew better than my own.