2.

"I'm happy for you," I told Leah.

She clutched the letter that she had received from the CIA. She hadn't put it down the whole time that she'd been here except for when she'd handed it over to let me read it. "I'm happy, too," she said. "It's what I've always wanted."

"So, you go to field training first?" I asked.

She nodded. "Just for six months. But if you didn't attend Gallagher or Blackthorne, then you have to go to training for two years."

I smiled. "Well, it's a good thing that you graduated from Gallagher, then."

She looked over at my daughter, who was peacefully sleeping on the couch beside me, her tiny fists curled around the blanket. "She's such a beautiful girl. I bet she'll grow up to be one of Gallagher's best."

"I hope so," I replied as I, too, looked down at little Josie. It was hard to imagine someone as tiny as her growing up and becoming hard and tough.

"How could she not?" Leah laughed. "With a last name like Solomon."

I laughed, too. When Leah finally left, I made myself a sandwich for supper and after I had eaten, I fed Josie from a bottle. I had just finished that when the door burst open. Panic shot through me and I desperately looked around for a place to hide Josie.

Oh no…

"Katelyn!"

I sighed in relief. It was just Zach.

I walked quickly out into the living room, ready to scold him. "Zach, goodness, you scared me to death!"

But when I saw the look on his face, I stopped. "Zach, what happened?"

In answer, he held a piece of paper out to me. "It's just a copy," he muttered.

I handed Josie over to him while I began to read.

Run. It's what people have been telling me to do all year, and now I think it's time I really listen.

This isn't something I've decided lightly. Believe me, I've been thinking about what I've got to do for weeks. I've weighed all the options, the angles, the risks. There's a chance that this won't work, of course, but the only person it can hurt is me, and that's why it must be done.

Zach was right.

They won't hurt me. It's the people around me who are being made to suffer. I won't drag this danger to Nebraska, no matter how many guards might go along. I can't stay here. This place I love has started to feel like a prison – like a tower. Besides, I'm a Gallagher Girl: I couldn't be a raven if I tried.

Zach was right.

Sometimes all an operative can do is run and not look back. Sometimes, when you're a chameleon, all you can do is hide. And so that's what I'm going to do. Starting now.

I'm going to leave this report in the Hall of History, on top of the case with Gilly's sword. Someone will find it there eventually, in the place where this all started. Please don't look for me. Please don't worry. And, most of all, please don't think of this as me running away, but of me running toward.

Toward answers. Toward hope. Toward wherever I have to go to finish my father's mission and stop this thing, once and for all.

Zach was right.

A year ago he told me that someone knows what happened to my father. Someone knows why the Circle is chasing me.

And now… well… now I am going to sneak out of this mansion by myself one more time. Now I'm going to leave here, and spend this summer trying to find them.

I'll be back. And when I am, I promise I'll have answers.

I looked at Zach for a long moment, stunned. When I could finally find my voice, I asked, "She'd really gone?"

He handed Josephine back to me and took the paper. "Yeah, she's really gone. Headmistress Morgan came and asked me if I knew anything. But I don't. I don't know anything. She didn't tell me."

He turned away and walked over to the window, where he looked out over the woods while he gripped the windowsill so hard that his knuckles turned white.

"It's not your fault, Zach," I told him. "It really isn't."

"She should have told me," he said.

I shrugged. "Maybe."

He turned around. "What do you mean, maybe?"

I pointed at the paper in his hands. "You read that, too, Zach. She doesn't want anyone else to get hurt. And I know that you would gladly die to protect her, but don't you see that that's exactly why she left? She doesn't want anyone else to get hurt because of her. I know the feeling. It's why I swallowed the stuff that erased my memory when my parents came for me. I didn't want Joe to get hurt."

"Do you regret it?" he asked me, staring at me intently.

"Sometimes," I admitted. "But I think that I did the right thing. I never would have forgiven myself if something had happened to him."

"Why didn't she run away with me?" he asked, turning back around to stare at the full moon. "I offered to go with her. Everything would have been just fine. We could have hidden somewhere…"

"She doesn't want to hide, Zach." I set Josie down on the couch and faced him again. "She wants to finish her father's mission. She wants to find answers."

He turned and faced me and his voice sounded so… broken. "I could have helped her."

"Could have," I nodded. "But would you have ever let her leave? Would you have let her put herself in danger?"

"No," he whispered. "I wouldn't have. I would have kept her safe. Far away from any danger. Away from the Circle."

I nodded. "That's why she had to leave."

"I'm going to look for her," he said, pleading with me to understand. "I have to."

I nodded and hugged him. "I know you do." Joe did the same for me.