A/N: Who doesn't like Zach? I mean, come on, he's so amazing. So this is Zach.
Disclaimer: I'm not Ally Carter and I don't own the Gallagher Girl series.
We'd known. All the Blackthorne Boys had known for years that there was a girls' school for spies. A school in Roseville, Virginia called the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women.
But they'd never known about us. Our cover made us invisible to press. It made us invisible to everyone. People knew about us, but they didn't want to. We were the kids not one wanted. The boys who ran away, or whose parents wanted to get rid of them for most of the year, or who were like me.
Who didn't have parents.
If Cammie and her sisters were the over-privileged, we were on the opposite end of the spectrum. They were hated and talked about, even if it was only insults. We were pitied and ignored.
More proof of the social class system. Even the town nearby only talked about use when all the other talk had died down.
Even inside, we were entirely disciplined. Dr. Steve might've seemed laid back, but at home everything had to be perfect. Image was important.
I was fine with it. I had nowhere else to go. We were allowed to leave and go wherever during the evenings, so long as we were back in time for classes. Image was important, learning was important, real-life experience was important. A lot of us had jobs after class, so we made our own money. This was encouraged. It was all CoveOps training. Undercover surveillance.
Anything that could make me a better spy, I did it. My parents had died working for the CIA. Unlike Cammie's dad, their bodies had been found. My parents weren't just MIA. They were dead.
As far as the CIA was concerned, missing translated automatically to murdered. But in my mind, Cammie still had hope. She had something to believe in, even if the agency had insisted there was nothing to wait for. Cammie was bitter the she might never know what happened because she'd given up hope.
I would've traded places with her in a heartbeat. I had absolutely nothing to hope for. A lot of people say that it's not good to hope for the best in my chosen profession. They say nothing good comes of it.
I don't think like that. I believe in hope. Sometimes it's the only thing that you can really do.
Sometimes hope is the only thing left to live for.