"Hey, Macey," he said, as if he fell out of ceilings and into the private chambers of the most highly protected girl in the country every day. "Sorry to drop in," he said with a look that told me he thought he was entirely too clever, "but Cammie just had to be alone with me. You know how she gets."
I smacked his arm.
He flinched. "You know, you're going to hurt me one of these days, and then you're going to feel really bad about it."
"Yeah," I started, "well, maybe if you would be honest with me for one—"
"Um, just so you know," Macey said, cutting me off as she leaned back, enjoying the show, "Abby will be back in approximately two minutes, so you lovebirds might want to make this quick."
I totally expected the boy in front of me to recoil at the word "lovebirds." But he didn't. Instead he grabbed the bag he'd been carrying and turned to Macey. "Thanks." He placed his knee on the bench and leaned toward the dark window, staring into the black as he said, "This is my stop anyway."
Well, from what I could tell, the train wasn't stopping. It wasn't even slowing down.
"Hey, McHenry, you mind?" He gestured to the door then stepped back as Macey opened it and checked the aisle.
"Oh, officer," she called to the sentry stationed in the hall outside. "Can I see your gun?"
As the man turned his back on us, Zach dashed out into the hall and to the door at the end of the car. I started to follow, but he stopped suddenly and turned to me. "Hey, Gallagher Girl," he said, looking at me more deeply than he ever had, "promise me something."
The train was faster now. Night streamed through the windows. And Zach stepped even closer.
"Be"—he reached up and gently touched the place where my bruise had been as if it were still fresh and swollen—"careful."
And then Zach stepped to the end of the car and slid open the door. The noise was overpowering for an instant. We were going over a great ravine, nothingness streaming on both sides as Zach spread his arms out wide. He looked back at me for one fleeting second.
And jumped into the night.
"So…" the voice behind me was strong and even. I turned to see a very sorry-looking Macey and a very impressed-looking Aunt Abby staring at me and the fading parachute that was Zach. "I take it that's the man in your life."
Chapter Twenty
When an operative is compromised mid-mission, there are a lot of things that have to be said. And done. For example, it's great if you have a legend or two you can whip out to distract the catcher from the catchee's actual intentions. Also, misdirection is always useful, so you can place blame on anyone but yourself. Or you can retreat.
But we were on a moving train.
And I didn't have a parachute.
And Aunt Abby was staring right at me.
I expected her to smile like she'd done when she pulled me out from under her bed, but instead she glared at me with a look that was equal parts fury and fear, as Macey and I darted back into compartment fourteen.
"Sit," my aunt commanded, and we each sat on the lower berth while my aunt began to pace. "Do you know what you've done?" she asked, but it wasn't really a question. "Do you know what could have happened tonight?"
Her voice shook. I feared for a second that the Secret Service might come through the door again, but the train was loud and the rain was hard and we kept barreling through the night. I glanced around the small space. It was no use. I, Cammie the Chameleon, had absolutely no place to hide.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous this all is? If the Secret Service caught you … If a member of the media caught a glimpse of what you can do … If there are two girls in the school—in the world—who should know better than to take chances like this, it should be the two of you!"
"I thought rules were made to be broken," I said, confused at first but growing angry. "I thought being a spy was rules-optional," I said, throwing her own words back at her.
"Being a spy means you never have the luxury of being careless!" The train rocked and the night grew darker as my aunt leaned closer and said, "Trust me, Cameron. That is one lesson you don't want to learn the hard way."
Maybe it was the sound of the rain, or the look in her eyes, but I couldn't stop thinking about the way she'd changed in my mother's office, morphed from the Abby I knew into a woman I had never seen before. And just that quickly I realized the smiling, laughing, dancing woman who had walked into my life after four and a half years was just another cover—a Gallagher Girl pretending to be something that she's not.
"Where were you, Aunt Abby?" I heard myself ask. "Dad died, and you weren't there," I said, remembering a time in my life that I'd done everything to forget. I heard my voice crack, felt my eyes blur. I told myself it was the steady rocking of the train that made me feel unsteady, but I knew better as I shouted, "He died and you didn't even come to the funeral. You didn't call. You didn't visit. Dad died, and ever since then you've been a ghost."
Abby turned her back to me. She started for the door, but those words had been alive in me for years, the doubts and questions stacked end to end, and I couldn't stop them if I'd tried.
"We needed you!" I thought about my mother, who still cried when she thought no one could see her, and before I even realized it, I was crying too. "Why weren't you there when we needed you?"
"Haven't you learned yet, Cam?" Abby's voice was softer now, as if she were being dragged back into a dream. "There are some things you don't want to know."