Chapter 11

Zach POV

The four hour drive down to Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women was exceptionally quiet. Weird, considering there were thirty teenage boys in the van, driving closer and closer to girls.

Girls.

The word felt weird on my tongue. We never talked about them. We never had reason to. It was just about training. But now, we were training with…girls.

Grant nudged me and whispered in my ear. "You lookin' forward to seeing Cammie?"

But of course, being spies, everybody heard. I was immediately bombarded with questions.

"You know one of the girls?"

"When did you meet her?"

"How did you meet her?"

"How did you get out of Blackthorne to meet her?"

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks a lot, Grant." I turned back to the group. "I only knew her for a day and not very well."

But the boys looked around at each other and I heard one phrase being murmured around the van: "Zach has dibs on that Cammie girl."

Grant looked at me with an eyebrow raised. "You were saying?"

I tried to ignore the fact that Grant had made my personal mission a ton easier and just looked out the window. Two hours and sixteen minutes to go.

Cammie POV

The morning the boys were scheduled to arrive, the Grand Hall was about half as full as it usually was for breakfast. The teachers all looked baffled, but my roommates and I knew exactly what was going on. A lot of girls had skipped to primp for the boys.

When Macey and Bex and Liz had tried to drag me out of bed at 5:30 that morning, I had flat out refused to get up and relinquish sleep over some idiot boys that would soon look at me like Zach did. Like I a boring piece of drapery or something. I wasn't as supermodel-y as Macey, or as exotically beautiful as Bex, or as smart as Liz, but I didn't deserve that expression, either.

Macey hadn't spent any extra time on her appearance than she normally did, but she was still, as usual, flawless. She had gotten Bex and Liz to agree to put on some eye makeup. And while I was asleep, Liz had used one of her prototype inventions and modified all of our uniforms so they hugged us a little tighter. So we were all wearing that. Not that I was particularly happy about it.

"This is ridiculous," I complained. "Every girl knows the nutritional importance of breakfast to have a productive, functioning day. And yet they're all in fantasyland playing dress up."

"It'll wear off soon," Macey promised. "But until then, put your best face forward, okay?"

And Macey was the boy expert, so I didn't say anything. Even if I would've liked to ignore a certain one a lot more than 'put my best face forward' for him.

I was in COW making up the pop quiz I had missed on the first day of school when the PA system came on.

"If all girls could report down to the front foyer, please," my mother's voice came through. "Leave all materials in classrooms. This is not an emergency, but file down as quickly and quietly as possible."

"Let the crazy begin," I muttered to Macey as we walked out of the classroom.

We were on the second floor for COW, so instead of going down the stairs, our class just stood on the balcony overhanging the foyer. Macey, Bex, Liz, and I were all right in front so we could see what was happening.

In the center of the foyer, stood thirty boys. They all stood stiffy. Either they were all nervous, or they had had an extra long car ride here. From the smirk on one of the boys' face, I was going to guess the car ride. They were excited to be here, not nervous.

Uh oh. Smirk.

"It's him," I hissed at Macey and immediately ducked behind Bex.

"He's looking up here, but I don't know if he saw you," Liz said. She shifted uncomfortably. "He's staring at me."

"It's the hair," I said. "He's looking for my hair."

Liz visibly relaxed. "You're right. He looked away." She leaned back a little to see me and then poked my arm with a huge grin on his face. "He's looking for you."

"Macey?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Could mean anything. He could be looking for you to harass you more, as you put it, but personally I don't think he was harassing you at the hotel. He seemed concerned. So more likely, he's looking for you just to tease you with friendly intentions."

My mother interrupted our little conversation.

"Girls, please welcome the boys from the Blackthorne Institute. They will be staying with us for the semester."

But of course, every girl knew that, so half of them were sleep-deprived, food-deprived, and possibly in pain from being burned with curling and flat irons.

"I hope you will welcome them into your schedules with open arms," my mother continued, "and embrace the collaborative nature of this exchange."

Oh, they'll be embracing something all right, I thought. Bex must've been thinking along the same lines because she snorted. I love my friends.

"Cammie, did you hear that? You'll be embracing Zach soon," she laughed.

I take back what I said about loving my friends.

My mother started to speak again, trying to quell the noise that had broken out in the foyer. "Girls, back to your classes. Boys, follow me and we'll get you situated."

I heard Tina Walters say next to me, "I wouldn't mind being situated next to him," and I just internally sighed. I was so over this exchange.

Next period, in C&A, the boys arrived. I mean, they'd already arrived, but now they showed up in our classes.

A teacher led four boys into our room and I almost groaned to see Zach in the group.

"G'morning, Madame Dabney," the teacher said jovially. "I'm Dr. Steve, and these are four of my young charges." (I saw Zach roll his eyes at that) "They'll introduce themselves and then have a seat. We don't want to disrupt your class too much." He nudged the first of them forward.

"Hi," he said rather shyly. "My name's Jonas Anderson, and I'm on the research track."

Jonas hurried to the back of the room where four empty seats stood. Dr. Steve waved up the next boy.

"My name's Grant Newman, and I'm on the fieldwork track."

"Hi I'm Nick Allen, and I'm also on the fieldwork track."

And finally he stepped up. "I'm Zach Goode. And I'm in fieldwork, too."

Nothing special, nothing fancy. Except for the fact that he stared at me the whole time he was saying it.

I tried my best to look uninterested and indifferent.

Dinner that night was a free-for-all. It was like boys were being served and the girls just couldn't wait to get their hands on them. Like when chef cooks his world-famous, fresh Italian pizza. But they were boys.

I was sitting next to my friends and discussing the insane amount of work we suddenly had when a boy slid in next to me. I glanced over and was relieved to find it wasn't Zach. He stuck his hand out for me to shake.

"Hi. I'm Will."

I smiled. "Hi, nice to meet you, Will. I'm Cammie," I introduced. I wasn't flattered that he came over so much as relieved it wasn't Zach.

"So what's your clearance? Because you look like you're almost out of my league."

My heart dropped and Macey burst out laughing. So much for finding a nice, normal boy. I raised an eyebrow unamused. "Really?"

Will never lost his cool. "Oh totally," he answered, as if he was oblivious to the fact that I was questioning his judgment and sanity instead of asking him for confirmation. "You're one of the hottest girls here."

"Go away," I groaned.

"You heard the pretty lady," a voice came from behind me. Great. Just great. Get rid of one problem, and the next one is even larger. "She said to go away."

Will finally began to look embarrassed. "Sorry man. I didn't mean to disrespect the rule of dibs…" His voice trailed off when he realized he had said it in front of me. He ducked out quickly and walked away so fast he was creating a draft.

"Dibs? Are you kidding? You were going off on me about my stupidity just the other day, and now suddenly you have dibs on me?"

I stormed out of the Grand Hall as Liz called after me, "We'll bring your dinner up afterwards!"

I threw the okay sign over my shoulder as I walked out and slammed the door.

Zach POV

Will is so going to get it.