“Yes, Father.”
“Study hard and…enjoy yourself.”
“Yes, Father.”
“And…good-bye.”
I waited for him to give her a hug, kiss her cheek. But Macey’s father just hunched low and walked back to the chopper. Once inside, he gave us a textbook politician’s wave, and then he was rising, disappearing into the sky over Virginia.
Three months before, when I had found my father’s grave, I’d tried to claw through the frozen earth with just my bare hands—I’d been willing to do anything just be closer to him. As the cold air whirled around us, I thought back to the way I’d felt then, and I looked at Macey, who hadn’t even watched as her own dad took flight.
“So, Macey,” Liz started slowly, “how was your—”
“Where is he?” Macey asked, cutting Liz off and spinning, looking at my mother.
“Who?” Mom asked, but I already knew the answer.
“Preston. He’s here, right?” There was a hopefulness about Macey, but a desperation too as she asked, “You did get him, didn’t you?”
“Macey,” my mother said, reaching for her, “you have to understand—”
“No,” Macey snapped. “I don’t have to do anything.” Her father’s helicopter looked like a wasp on the horizon.
“The US Embassy in Rome is one of the most secure buildings in Europe. Preston’s father is a powerful man. He’s safe,” Mom said, then repeated, “Preston is safe.”
“I heard Elias Crane the sixth had a car accident,” Macey said. “And Charlene Dubois and her kids disappeared? Her kids!” Macey had a point, and she knew it. It wasn’t just the leaders of the Circle who were getting hurt. Their kids were getting caught in the cross fire. Which meant Preston wasn’t as safe as any of us wanted to believe.
“I wasn’t living in a cave, you know,” Macey told us. “These things make the news. And every day I waited for the news that the American Embassy in Rome had been attacked.”
“That didn’t happen, Macey,” I told her.
“But it will.” Macey was so certain, and the worst part was that she was right. “So when are you going to get him?”
“When the time is right, Macey. And only when the time is right.” My mom sounded like a headmistress, a senior operative, someone who had lived most of her life on a need-to-know basis. And as far as she was concerned, we absolutely, positively did not need to know.
“But—” Liz started. She hadn’t had spies as parents. Unlike Bex and me, she still didn’t know the signs that a conversation was over.
“That is all, girls. You go settle in,” Mom told Macey. “I’ll see you all at the Welcome Back Dinner.”
And then she turned. A cold wind blew across the grounds. Her dark hair spiraled around her, and she walked so tall, so straight. And I knew Rachel Morgan wasn’t going to cave, not to the likes of us.
Macey must have known it too, because there was fire in her eyes when she said, “Tell me everything.”
Bex and I shared a look, then Bex lowered her voice. “We’d better go inside.”
The halls were starting to clear out as we made our way through the mansion. Loud music boomed out of a few rooms. There were showers running on almost every floor. It sounded like the start of a new semester, but when we reached the suite I shared with my three closest friends in the world, it hit me: this wasn’t a regular semester. It was our last semester.
“Okay. We’re inside. No eavesdropping freshmen here, so are you three going to tell me what’s going on or aren’t you?” Macey asked, spinning on us all and slamming the door. “Because I know Cam didn’t get that scratch on her cheek from shaving.”
Absentmindedly, I reached up and touched my face, the last remaining trace of Cambridge and Knight and our encounter with my boyfriend’s mother. I know childhood is supposed to scar you, but mine seemed to be going to extremes.
“I got this in England. Cambridge,” I said, clarifying.
“You were there?” Liz asked. “With Knight?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. Something about the memory sent a shiver down my spine. “We went to try to get him, bring him into custody, you know? But Zach’s mom was there, and we weren’t quite quick enough.”
“Why him?” Macey asked. She was bristling against even us. “Why did he get to be saved?” she demanded.