On September 30th, the operative woke up in a convent on the Austrian border. High in the Alps, she had nothing, but a threadbare top and pants. At some point, the operative had lost her shoes, her late father's journal, and one very, vital thing.
It's October 1st, one of the nuns named Mary, let me use the satellite phone to contact the Academy and tell them where I was. I walked outside and suddenly heard this dull sound that rang through the air. I looked up through the swirling snow to the black shadow in the cloudless sky. A woman ran toward me, crouching beneath the chopper's spinning blades.
She didn't hesitate or slow down; 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 as she held me in a grasp I might never leave again. "Cammie, what happened?"
"I left," I said, despite how obvious and silly it must have sounded. "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. Yesterday I woke up here."
"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 this, "I just did."
-Gallagher Girls #5 by Ally Carter
