MY OTHER LIFE GETS COMPLICATED


(Cammie's Pov.)


I let out an exhausted huff as I let my bags drop to my bed. Christmas break was over and I had just returned to Gallagher for the second semester. After Grover told us about Pan's message, Percy and I high tailed it out of camp. Figuring another quest was brewing, we left as soon as possible, wanting to be home for Christmas. So we packed our things and called our mom for a ride. Josh was at camp (Roe was with her brother), having wanted to make sure I got back in one piece. He waited with us at the top of the hill for his ride. When mom did finally show up, Josh dragged me aside, and pulled me in for a soft kiss. It was sweet, and gentle, and tasted like bubblegum. It was dreamy.

Until Percy coughed loudly, queuing us to step apart. Josh pecked me one last time on the cheek, and I stumbled away, blushing. Percy had a deep, angry frown on his face as we walked to the car.

"Shut up," I had said.

"Boys are gross," he informed me. "Really gross. They don't wash their hands, and they pick their nose, and wrestle in mud. You know that, right?"

"You're a dummy," I scoffed, rolling my eyes.

He let it drop, surprisingly. There was still a frown on his face, but he didn't seem very worried.

I glared at him suspiciously. "You let that go too easily," I said.

"I have bigger things to worry about," he sighed to himself.

"Like Pan?"

His eyes widened like he'd just remembered. "Uh…yeah."

Coming back to the present, I sigh, going to sit down by the window. I stared through the wavy glass, wrapping my arms around my knees. The red velvet curtains were drawn around the tiny alcove, and I was enveloped by an odd sense of peace, knowing that in twenty minutes, the halls were going to be crowded; music was going to be blaring; and I was going to go from being an orphaned girl (my cover here at Gallagher. I liked to keep my family out of this world) to one of a hundred sisters, so I knew to savor the silence while it lasted. Then, as if to prove my point, a loud blast and the smell of burning hair came floating up the main stairs from the second-floor Hall of History, followed by Professor Buckingham's distinguished voice crying, "Girls! I told you in the beginning of the year! Don't touch that!" The smell got worse, and one of the eighth graders was probably still on fire, because Professor Buckingham yelled, "Stand still. Stand still, I say!"

Then Professor Buckingham said some French swear words that the eighth graders probably didn't understand, and wouldn't for three semesters, and I remembered when I had first tried to grab Gillian Gallagher's sword, the one used to slay the guy who was going to kill Abraham Lincoln—the first guy, that is. The one you never hear about.

But what the newbies aren't told on their campus tour is that Gilly's sword is charged with enough electricity to…well…light your hair on fire. It was a sensation I never wanted to feel again.

But seriously, I just love this school.


I think our room used to be an attic, once upon a time. It has these cool dormers and oddly shaped windows and lots of little nooks and crannies, where a girl can sit with her back against the wall and listen to the thundering feet and squeals of hello that you normally hear at a boarding school when break is over and the students return (maybe a little less standard when the hellos are spoken in Portuguese and Farsi). Out in the hall, Kim Lee was talking about her holiday in Singapore; and Tina Walters was declaring that "Cairo was super cool. Johannesburg—not so much," which is exactly what Rachel Morgan—the headmistress—had said when I'd sort of complained to her about how Tina's parents were taking her somewhere cool over Christmas break, where as I was going to be doing nothing—how wrong was I?

"Hey, where's Cammie?" Tina asked, but I wasn't about to leave my room until I could finish my cover story and sow it into my brain, memorizing every detail. Seventy percent of these girls were daughters of current or former government operatives—aka, spies. Lying to them wouldn't be easy.

I was just putting the finishing details on my story (spent break with a former friend of my deceased mother, experimenting with average household items that can be used as weapons and accidentally decapitated a snowman—"who knew knitting needles could do that kind of damage?" I'd say) when I heard the distinctive thud of luggage crashing into a wall and a soft, Southern, "Oh, Cammie…come out, come out, wherever you are."

I pulled the curtain away from the alcove, peering out at Liz posing in the doorway, trying to look like Miss Alabama, but bearing a greater resemblance to a toothpick in capri pants and flip-flops.

She smiled and said, "Did you miss me?"

I did miss her, and I would have ran over to hug her, had she not tried to fling her suitcase onto the bed, but missed and ended up knocking over a bookcase, demolishing my stereo and flattening a perfectly-scaled replica of DNA that she'd made out of papier-mache in kindergarten.

"Oopsy daisy," Liz said, throwing her hand to her mouth.

Sure, she knows cuss words in fourteen different languages, but when faced with a minor catastrophe, Liz says oopsy daisy.

I laughed, not even upset about my broken stereo mom had gotten for my birthday. Getting up, and went to hug my friend. "Yes, Lizzy, I missed you."


At six thirty exactly, we were in our uniforms, sliding our hands over the smooth mahogany banisters, and descending down the staircases that spiral gracefully to the foyer floor. Everyone was laughing (turns out my knitting needle story was a big hit), but Liz and I kept looking toward the door in the center of the atrium below.

"Maybe there was trouble with the plane?" Liz whispered. "Or customs? Or…I'm sure she's just late."

I nodded and continued glancing down at the foyer as if, on cue, Bex was going to burst through the doors. But they stayed closed, and Liz's voice got squeakier as she asked, "Did you hear from her? I mean, I did, but something could have changed, couldn't it?"

"I heard from her once," I told her. "She's fine Lizzy, don't worry."

"Oh my gosh, what if she dropped out?" Liz cranked up the worry in her voice. "Did she get kicked out?"

"Why would you think that?"

"Well…" she said, stumbling over the obvious, "Bex always has been kind of rules-optional." Liz shrugged, and, sadly, I couldn't disagree. "And why else would she be late? Gallagher Girls are never late! Cammie, you know something, don't you? You've got to know something!"

Times like this are when it's no fun being the headmistress's favorite, because A) it's totally annoying when people think I'm in a loop I'm not in, and B) people always assume I'm in partnership with the staff, which really I'm not. Sure, I have private dinners with Rachel on Sunday nights, and sometimes she leaves me alone in her office for five seconds, but that's it.

To be honest, though, I love the way Rachel kind of treats me differently. She was always momming me, making sure I ate enough, asking about my grades in a non-headmistress way, sometimes getting me little presents, just to make me feel better when I looked down. Being without mom and Percy was hard. But Rachel made it easier.

I looked back down at the front doors, then turned to Liz. "I bet she's just late," I said, praying that there would be a pop quiz over supper (nothing distracts Liz faster than a pop quiz.)

As we approached the massive, open doors of the grand Hall, where Gilly Gallagher supposedly poisoned a man at her own cotillion, I involuntarily glanced up at the electronic screen that read "English—American" even though I knew we always talked in our own language and accents when we got back from break. Our mealtime conversations wouldn't be taking place in "Chinese—Mandarin" for at least a week, I hoped.

We settled at our usual table in the Grand Hall, the one Vanessa (the demigod who got me this gig) had snuck to, and as I sat, a feeling of home settled in me. Even if New York was my home, and Camp Half-Blood too, Gallagher was just as much so.

Anna Fetterman squeezed onto the bench next to Liz and asked, "Have you seen it? Did you look?"

Anna was holding a blue slip of paper that instantly dissolves when you put it in your mouth. (Even though it looks like it will taste like cotton candy, it doesn't—trust me!) I don't know why they always put our class schedules on Evapopaper—probably so we can use up our stash of the bad-tasting kind and move on to the good stuff, like mint chocolate chip.

But Anna wasn't thinking about the Evapopaper flavor when she yelled, "We have Covert Operations this semester!" She sounded absolutely terrified, and I remembered that she was probably the only Gallagher Girl Liz could take in a fist fight. I looked at Liz, and even she rolled her eyes at Anna's hysterics. After all, everyone knows sophomore year is the first time we get to do anything that even approaches actual fieldwork. It's our first exposure to real spy stuff, but Anna seemed to be forgetting that the class itself was, sadly, kind of a cakewalk.

"I'm pretty sure we can handle it," Liz soothed, prying the paper from Anna's frail hands. "All Buckingham does is tell horror stories about all the stuff she saw in World War Two and show slides, remember? Ever since she broke her hip she's—"

"But Buckingham is out!" Anna exclaimed, and this got my attention.

I'm sure I stared at her for a second or two before saying, "Professor Buckingham is still here, Anna," not adding that I'd spent half the morning coaxing Onyx, her cat, down from the top shelf of the staff library. "That's got to be just a after-break rumor." There were always plenty of those—like how some girl got kidnapped by terrorists, or one of the staff members won a hundred grand on Wheel of Fortune. (Though, now that I think of it, that one was actually true.)

"No," Anna said. "You don't understand. Buckingham's doing some kind of semiretirement thing. She's going to do orientation and acclimation for the newbies—but that's it. She's not teaching anymore."

"In the middle of the year?" Liz asked. "But the newbies are all settled in. Why now?"

Anna shrugged. "I don't know."

All our heads turned towards the staff table. Sure enough, there was an extra chair.

"Then who's teaching CoveOps?" I asked.

Just then a loud murmur rippled through the enormous room as Rachel strolled through the doors at the back of the hall, followed by all the usual suspects—the twenty teachers I'd been looking at and learning from for the past three years. Twenty teachers. Twenty-one chairs. I know I'm the genius, but you do the math.

Liz, Anna, and I all looked at each other, then back at the staff table as we ran through the faces, trying to comprehend that extra chair.

One face was new, but we were expecting that, because Professor Smith always returns from any vacation we had with a whole new look—literally. His nose was larger, his ears more prominent, and a small mole had been added to his left temple, disguising what he claimed with the most wanted face on three continents. Rumor has it he's wanted by gun smugglers in the Middle East, ex-KGB hit men in Eastern Europe, and a very upset ex-wife somewhere in Brazil. Sure, all this experience makes him a great Countries of the World (COW) professor, but the best thing Professor Smith brings to the Gallagher Academy is the annual anticipation of guessing what face he will assume in order to enjoy his break. He hasn't come back as a woman yet, but it's probably just a matter of time.

I waved shortly at Madam Dabney, the only person currently at Gallagher who knew my real identity. She nodded back, a small smile playing on her lips, her eyes revealing a little of her concern. She seemed to know exactly how difficult my winter break had been just by glancing at me. I knew she'd pull the tale from me later.

The teachers took their seats, but the chair stayed empty as Rachel took her place at the podium in the center of the long head table.

"Women of the Gallagher Academy, who comes here?" she asked.

Just then, every girl at every table stood and said in unison, "We are the sisters of Gillian."

"Why do you come?" Rachel asked.

"To learn her skills. Honor her sword. And keep her secrets."

"To what end do you work?"

"To the cause of justice and light."

"How long will you strive?"

"For all the days of our lives." We finished, and I felt like my break was finally over.

We sat down, but Rachel Morgan remained standing. "Welcome back, students," she said, beaming. "This is going to be a wonderful second semester at the Gallagher Academy. I would just like to say, this semester will mark many changes." She glanced at her colleagues and seemed to ponder something before turning back to face us. "We have come to a time when—" But before she could finish, the door flew open, and not even two and a half years of training at spy school prepared me for what I saw.

It was the man. The gunman from earlier, the one who rescued me from those kidnappers only to point a gun in my face. The one who insisted I knew about Mathew Morgan. A man so terrifying, he could stop to trained, soulless spies in an SUV in their tracks. Only this time, instead of an AK-47, he wore a leather jacket, with more scruff on his face then last I saw him, walking to where Rachel—Mathew's wife—stood and then winked at her.

"Sorry I'm late," he said as he slid into the empty chair.

His presence was so unprecedented, so frightening for me, that I didn't even realize Bex had squeezed onto the bench between Liz and Anna, and I had I not been so unbelievably terrified in that moment, I would have questioned her on why she was late.

"Trouble, ladies?" she asked.

"Where have you been?" Liz demanded.

"Forget that," Anna cut in. "Who is he?"

But Bex was a natural-born spy. She just raised her eyebrows and said, "You'll see."


"You have a good holiday, then?" Throughout the hall, girls were beginning to eat, but Bex just blew a bubble with her gum and grinned, daring us to ask her for the story.

"Bex, if you know something, you've got to tell us," Liz demanded, even though it was totally pointless. No one can make Bex do anything she doesn't want to do. I may be the daughter of Poseidon, Lord of stubbornness, but Bex has even me beat.

She smirked. "New teacher," she said. "We gave him a ride from London this morning. He's an old pal of my father's."

Oh gods… Maybe—maybe he was one of the good guys? But pointing a gun at fourteen year old didn't seem like good guy behavior.

"Name?" Liz asked, probably already planning how she was going to hack into the CIA headquarters at Langley for details as soon as we were free to go back to our rooms.

"Solomon," Bex said, eying us. "Joe Solomon." She sounded eerily like the black, teenage, female James Bond.

I turned to look at this Joe Solomon, only to find him looking back at me. Our eyes met, and they looked just as angry and murderous as when we had first met. I quickly looked down, almost unable to breath.

This was going to be one long semester.


After dinner, Bex, Liz and I started walking back towards our dorm room. Liz suddenly remembered she had a paper to turn in to Mr. Moscowitz's (yeah, she's that girl) and ran off, leaving me along with Bex.

"I'm mad at you, just so you know," my British best friend told me loftily.

"Mad? At me?" I squawked. "Why?"

"You're unreachable, all month, except for five minutes," she said, "and in those five minutes you ask me for an unreasonable favor that got me grounded for all of break!"

"…Are you talking about the dam?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes. "It's not like we talked about anything else in the last month. My parents were furious. I had to stay at the hotel while they were on their mission."

"Not that you actually stayed there."

"Well, of course not, but that's not the point! The point is, you're horrible at communication, and you're insane, and I need to reconsider who I want as my best friend!"

I stared down at my toes in shame. "I'm really sorry, Bex, I was really busy—"

"With what!" she exclaimed, spinning on me. "What on earth were you busy with? Every time you're out of school you're busy. But you never say what keeps you so busy. I'm starting to get really worried, Cam, and I don't like this. This secrecy. It's like you don't trust me!"

"I do," I assured her. "It's just…it's complicated."

Her face turned red with anger. "I get that answer much too often, Cammie. I'm getting tired of those words. 'It's complicated'" She scoffed. "I feel it's uncomplicated, and you just don't feel like taking the time to explain it."

"Bex—"

"Cameron Morgan!" At the sound of my false name, both me and Bex turned around to face Professor Buckngham. She was rushing down the hall, and I couldn't imagine what would make the genteel British lady speak in such a way, when, above us, a red light began to whirl, and a screaming buzzer pierced our ears so that we could barely hear the cries of the electronic voice that pulsed with the light, "CODE RED. CODE RED. CODE RED."

"Cameron Morgan!" Buckingham bellowed again, grabbing Bex and me by our arms. "The Headmistress needs to see you. NOW!"


Instantly, the corridors went from empty to overflowing as girls ran and staff members hurried and the red lights continued to pulse off and on.

A shelf of trophies spun around, sending the plaques and ribbons commemorating winners in the annual hand-to-hand combat and team code-breaking competitions to the hidden compartment behind the wall, leaving a row of awards from swim meets and debate contests in its place.

Above us, in the upper story of the foyer, three gold-and-burgundy Learn Her Skills, Honor Her Sword, and Keep her Secrets banners rolled miraculously up and were replaced by handmade posters supporting someone named Emily for student council president.

Buckingham dragged Bes and me up the sweeping staircase as a flock of newbies ran down, screeching at the top of their lung. I remembered what those sirens had sounded like the first time I'd heard them. It was no wonder the girls were acting like it was the end of the world. Buckingham yelled, "Girls!" and silenced them. "Follow Madame Dabney. She's going to take you to the stables for the afternoon. And ladies"—she snapped at a pair of dark-haired twins who seemed to be especially frantic—"composure!"

And then Buckingham whirled and raced up the staircase to the second-story landing, where Mr. Mosckowitz and Mr. Smith were trying to wheel a statue of Eleanor Everett (the Gallagher girl who had once disabled a bomb in the White House with her teeth) into a broom closet. We swept through the Hall of History, where Gillian's sword slid smoothly into the Vault beneath its case like Excalibur returning to the Lady of the Lake, and was replaced by a bust of a man with enormous ears who was supposedly the school's first headmaster.

The entire school was in a state of organized chaos. Bex and I shared a questioning look, because we were supposed to be downstairs, helping the other sophomores check the main level for anything spy-related that someone might have left lying around, but Buckingham turned and snapped, "Girls hurry!" She sounded less like the soft, elderly teacher we knew, and more like the woman who had single-handedly taken out a Nazi machine gun on D-day.

The first thought that came to mind was that I had been found out, probably by this Joe Solomon making winky eyes at Rachel, and was going to be taken away to some remote prison in the middle of some secret desert (they exist) where no one will ever be able to find me, let alone get me out. But at the end of the Hall of History, I saw Rachel leaning against the double doors of her office, dropping and M&M into her mouth as calmly as if she were waiting for a movie to start, acting like it was just an ordinary day. Not the day the young girl you had treated like a daughter was going to be turned in for being a big fat liar.

"Hey, Cam, Rebecca," she said before turning to Buckingham. "Thanks for bringing them, Patricia. Come inside a sec."

Inside her office, thanks to its soundproofed walls, the mayhem of the rest of the school completely faded away. Lights streamed through leaded windows and flashed upon mahogany paneling and floor-to-ceiling bookcases that were, even as we spoke, spinning around to hide tomes like Poisons Through the Ages and A Praetorian's Guide to an Honorable Death, replacing them with a flip side of volumes like Educating the Upper Echelon and Private Education Monthly. There was a photo on her desk of her and Mathew Morgan in Russia, and I watched in awe as the background of the Kremlin was replaced by Cinderella's Castle at Disney World.

"Holographic, radio-synthesized photo paper," Rachel said, when she saw my gaping mouth. "Dr. Fibs whipped up a batch in his lab over the summer. Hungry?" She held her cupped hand toward Bex and me. I took a few blue ones on instinct.

"Girls, I need you to do a tour."

"But…we're sophomores!" Bex exclaimed, as if Rachel had forgotten.

Rachel's mouth was full of chocolate, so Buckingham explained, "The juniors are beginning their semester with interrogation tactics, so they are all under the influence of sodium pentothal at the moment, and the seniors are being fitted with their night-vision contacts, and they won't un-dilate for at least two hours. This is most unfortunate timing, but Code Reds are such for a reason. We don't know when they'll happen and, well, one is happening now."

"What do you say?" Rachel asked, smiling. "Can you help us out?"


There are three things a person has to be before they show up uninvited on the doorstep of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women: persistent, powerful, and completely out of other options. After all, most potential students never make it past the "We are not accepting applications at this time" speech they get whenever they call or write; you have to be turned down by every prep school in the country before you actually drive all the way to Roseville, hoping that an in-person visit will change our minds. But no amount of persistence or desperation can get you through the gates. No, for that, it takes real power.

That's why Bex and I were standing on the front steps, waiting on the black stretch limousine that carried the McHenry family (yes, those McHenrys—the ones on the cover of last December's Newsweek) to drive down the winding line. They were the kind of people who aren't easily turned away, and we learned a long time ago that the best place to hide is in plain sight, so Bex and I were there to welcome them to Gallagher Academy for exceptional Youth Women. Our mission: make sure they never how just how exceptional we really are.

The man who stepped out of the limo wore a charcoal gray suit jacket and power tie; the woman looked like the cosmetics heiress she was-not a hair or lash out of place. All I could do was think about how she must have come out of the Aphrodite cabin.

"Senator," Bex said, extending her hand toward the man, sounding as American as apple pie and loving the charade. "Welcome to the Gallagher Academy. It's an honor to have you with us today." I thought she was laying it on a little thick until Senator McHenry smiled and said, "Thank you. It's wonderful to be here," as if he didn't realize she couldn't vote.

"I'm Rebecca," Bex said. "This is Cameron." The senator glanced at me then looked quickly back to Bex, who looked like a picture-perfect model of an elite education. "We're happy to show you and…" And that's when Bex and I both realized that their daughter hadn't appeared. "Is your daughter going to be…"

But just then, a black combat boot emerged from the limousine.

"Darling," the senator said, pointing toward the stables, "come look. They have horses."

"Oh, is that what I smell?" Mrs. McHenry said with a shudder. (For the record, our school smells just fine, unless of course your smelling ability has been irreparably damaged by a lifetime of sniffing perfume samples."

But the senator glared at his wife and said, "Macey loves horses."

"No, Macey hates horses," Mrs. McHenry said, narrowing her eyes and glancing toward Bex and me as if to remind the senator not to contradict her in front of the help. "She fell of one and broke her arm."

I was thinking about disrupting this little display of domestic bliss to tell them both that there weren't any horses in the stables—just freaked-out seventh graders and a former French spy who had invented a way of sending coded messages in cheese, when a voice said, "They, they make great glue."

Now, I don't know this for a fact, but I'm pretty sure Macey McHenry had never touched a horse in her life. Her legs were long and athletic; her clothes, though punk and rebellious, were definitely high-end and the diamond in her nose was at least a carat and a half. Her hair might have been stark black and bluntly cut, but it was also thick and shiny, and it framed a face that belonged on the cover of a magazine. In all honesty, she reminded me of Thalia, only more uptight and less daughter of Zeus.

I've seen enough TV and movies to know that if a girl like Macey McHenry can't survive high school, then someone like me would probably get eaten alive (my chances being a little more literal). And yet, something had driven her to our gates—making us her last resort. Or so her parents thought.

"We're really happy to have you here," I said, trying not to sound too stiff. I'd seen her kind before. Rich, with powerful parents, no plans on working after high school. Her facial expression told it all. She thought this was a waste of time, making me giving her a tour of the school a waste of my time.

"Then why did you keep us sitting," Mrs. McHenry cocked her head toward the iron gates—"out there for over and hour?"

"I'm afraid that's standard protocol for people who come without appointments," Bex said in her most honor-student-y voice. "Security is a top concern here at Gallagher Academy. If your daughter were to go here, you could expect that same level of protection."

But Mrs. McHenry's hands were on her hips when she snapped, "Don't you know who he is? Do you know—"

"We were on our way back to D.C.," the senator stepped in, cutting his wife off. "And we just couldn't resist bringing Macey by for a visit." He sent his wife a this is our last chance, don't blow it look as he added, "And the security is more impressive."

Bex opened the front doors and welcomed them inside, but all I could do was watch them go and think, Senator, you have no idea.


Bex and I got to sit in Rachel's office as she went through her standard speech about the school's "history". Really, it's not all that different from the truth, just abridged. A lot.

"We have graduates working all over the world," Headmistress Morgan said, and I thought, Yeah, as spies. "We focus on languages, math, science, and culture. Those are the things our graduates tell us they've needed the most in their lives." As spies. "By admitting only young women, our students develop a sense of empowerment, which enables them to be highly successful." As spies.

I was just starting to enjoy my little game, when Rachel turned to Bex and said, "Rebecca, why don't you and Cammie show Macey around?" and I knew it was showtime.

Bex glowed, but all I could do was think about how this could all go wrong. I mean, I'm a great liar, but this Macey girl was certainly no different from Nancy Bobofit, and I couldn't guarantee that I wasn't going to hit her. Thankfully, Bex just likes to act. Period. So I could leave most the work to her.

"Senator," Bex said, gripping his hand, "it was an honor meeting you, sir. And you, too, ma'am." She smiled at Mrs. McHenry. "So glad that you both—"

"Thank you, Rebecca," Rachel cut Bex off with her don't overdo-it voice.

Macey stood and, with a flurry of her ultra-miniskirt, was through the door and into the Hall of History without even a glance at her parents.

Macey was leaning against a cabinet that normally chronicled the history of the gas mask (a device on which the Gallagher Academy holds the patent, thank you very much), lighting up a cigarette, when we caught up. She took a long confident drag and then blew smoke toward a ceiling that probably held a dozen different kinds of sensors, the least of which was for smoke.

"You've got to put that out," Bex said, entering the make-sure-she-knows-she'd-be-miserable-here phase of the operation. "At the Gallagher Academy, we value personal health and safety."

Macey looked at Bex as if she'd been speaking Chinese. I had to think for a moment to make sure she hadn't.

"No smoking," I translated as I pulled an empty aluminum can from a recycling bin at the top of the stairs and held it toward her.

She took another drag and then looked at me as if to say she'd stub out her cigarette when I forced her. Which I could, and most certainly did, snatching it quicker then she'd be able to pull away.

"Excuse you?!" she hissed.

"Sorry," I shrugged, not at all sorry. "Rules apply to everyone in the building. Even guests."

Not to mention it gave me a great deal of satisfaction to rip it out of her hands. Bex and I started to lead her down the stairs as a wave of girls pushed past us.

"It's lunchtime," I explained, realized that the blue M&M's I stole just weren't enough. "We can go eat if you want—"

"I don't think so!" Macey cried with a roll of her eyes.

But stupid me jumped to say, "Really, the food here is great," which totally didn't serve our mission objective, since gross food is usually a pretty good turnoff. But our chef is amazing. He actually worked in the White House before this incident involving Fluffy (the First Poodle), a gastronomical chemical agent, and some very questionable cheese. Luckily, a Gallagher Girl saved poor Fluffy's live, so to show his appreciation, Chef Louis came to us and brought his awesome crème brulee with him.

I started to mention the crème brulee, but then Macey exclaimed, "I eat eight hundred calories a day."

Bex and I looked at each other, amazed. We probably burned that many calories during one session of P&E (Protection and Enforcement) class.

Macey studies us skeptically, then added, "Food is so yesterday."

We reached the foyer, and I said, "This is the Grand Hall," because that sounded like a school tour-y thing to say, but Macey acted like I wasn't even there as she turned to Bex (her physical equal) and said, "So everyone wears those uniforms?"

I found this to be particularly offensive, having been on the uniform selection committee, but Bex just fingered her knee-length navy plaid skirt and matching white blouse and said, "We even wear them during gym class." Good one, I thought, taking in the horror on Macey's face as Bex stepped toward the east corridor and said, "Here we have the library—"

But Macey was heading down another hallway. "What's down here?" And just like that she was gone, passing classrooms and hidden passageways with every step. Bex and I jogged to keep up with her, throwing out pieces of made-up trivia like 'That painting was a gift from the Duke of Edinburgh' or 'Oh, yes, the Wizenhouse Memorial chandelier", or my personal favorite, 'This is the Washington memorial Chalkboard.' (It really is a nice chalkboard.)

Bex was in the middle of a pretty believable story about how, if a girl gets a perfect score on her test, she's allowed to watch one whole hour of television that week, when Macey plopped down in one of my favorite window seats, pulled out a cell phone, and proceeded to make a call right in front of us without so much as an excuse me. The joke was on her though, since, after dialing in the number, she had the device out in front of her in bewilderment.

Bex and I glanced at each other, and then I tried to sound all sympathetic as I said, "Yeah, cell phones don't work here." TRUE.

"We're too far from a tower," Bex added. FALSE. We'd actually have great cell reception if it weren't for the monster jammer that blocks any and all foreign transmissions from campus, but Macey McHenry and her Capitol Hill father certainly didn't need to know that.

"No cell phones?" Macey said as if we'd just told her all students were required to shave their heads and live on bread and water. "That's it. I'm so out of here." And then she turned and stormed back towards the Headmistress's office.

At least she thought that was the way to her office. She was nearing the doors that lead down to the Research and Development department in the basement. I was pretty sure Dr. Fibs would have everything in Code Red form, but in the tradition of mad scientist everywhere, Dr. Fibs had a tendency to be a little, shall we say, accident prone. Sure enough, as we turned the corner, we saw Mr. Mosckowitz, who happens to be the world's foremost authority on data encryption, but he didn't look like a mega-genius just then. No. He looked like the resident alcoholic. His eyes were bloodshot and watering, his face was pale, and he was totally stumbling and slurring his words as he said, "Hello!"

Macey stared at him in disgust, which was actually a good thing, because that way she didn't notice the thick fog of purple smoke that was seeping beneath the stairwell doors behind him. Professor Buckingham was shoving towels in the cracks, but every time she got near the purple fog she'd start sneezing uncontrollably. She kicked the towel with her foot. Dr. Fibs appeared with a roll of duct tape and started trying to seal the cracks around the doors. (How's that for superspy technology?)

Mr. Mosckowitz kept swaying back and forth, maybe because the purple stuff had messed with his sense of balance or maybe because he was trying to block Macey's view, which would have been tough, considering he can't be an inch taller than five foot five. He said, "I understand you're a potential student."

But just then, Dr. Fib's tall, lanky frame crashed onto the floor. He was out cold, and the purple smoke was getting thicker.

Bex and I looked at each other. This is seriously NOT GOOD!

Buckingham hauled Dr. Fibs into a teacher's chair and started rolling him away, but I didn't have a clue what to do. Bex grabbed Macey's arm. "Come on, Macey. I know a short—"

But Macey only wrenched her arm out of Bex's grasp and said, "Don't touch me, b—" (Yeah, that's right, she called Bex the B word.)

Bex stepped forward, shaking off her happy schoolgirl persona and putting on her superspy face.

This is SERIOUSLY not good, I thought again, just as a white shirt and khaki pants appeared in my peripheral vision.

"Hello."

I stopped breathing, stopped pumping blood through my veins, stopped everything the moment I heard that voice. I did look up, just to make sure, and yep, Joe Solomon was standing right there, smiling at Macey. And she was staring, convincing me that he might be one of the more gorgeous mortal men to ever live. (I won't put him on the same spectrum as gods. I mean, have you seen Apollo?)

"Welcome to the Gallagher Academy. I hope you're considering joining us," he said. "Are you enjoying your tour?" Macey just batted her eyelashes and went all seductive in a way that didn't go with her combat boots.

Maybe it was the cloud of purple smoke wafting toward me, but I thought I might barf. Or maybe it was because a man who had tried to kill me this winter was standing two feet away. Or just the flirting. Or all three. Probably all three.

"Do you have a second?" Mr. Solomon asked, but didn't wait for her to respond before he said, "There's something on the second floor I'd love to show you."

He pointed her toward a circular stone staircase that had once been a fixture in the Gallagher family chapel. Stained-glass windows stood two stories tall and colored the light that landed on Mr. Solomon's white shirt as we climbed. When we reached the second floor, he held his arms out at the grand, high-ceilinged corridor that was awash in a kaleidoscope of color.

He finished the tour for us, walking us back to Rachel's office. There were probably other words being said, but I kept spacing out, to focused on making sure this guy wasn't going to wheel on me and stick a knife in my throat or something.

Are you okay? Percy's voice said in my head. You feel stressed.

I forced myself to calm down, suddenly able to make out that Mr. Solomon had started walking away, and Bex and Macey were getting at it with each other (something about the hot new teacher being a distraction.).

I'm okay, I told him. I trying to unwind after all the stress from break. I'll be alright.

I don't believe you.

Trust me when I say I'll be fine. I just need to process.

I didn't hear back from him, but I could feel his acceptance to my last statement.

I was getting much better at lying.


It was only a day later I had my first CoveOp's lesson with the man who tried to kill me, and learned the girls and I were to have a new roommate.

I could feel the gods laughing at me. As if my life couldn't get any more difficult.


So that's the last chapter. I'll have another chapter to alert you when the next instalment is up and ready to go, but as usual I'll be taking a fairly long break to get that ready and to work on other projects. I will try and keep up with the one-shots series (that's going to get renamed soon, so watch out!) which will deal with the first and second books in the Gallagher Girl's series. So watch out for that! If there are any parts in these two books that you really loved and want me to rewrite for the one-shot series, put in requests soon, via comments or PM!

Now for thank you's! (for the last couple of chapter's reviews)

Engineer4Ever: Thank you for the constant love and support. I would not have made it so far without you. Everyone give them some love because they are literally the best!

Guest1234567890: I cried when Zoe died too. I'm pretty sure everyone did, you are not alone. I really did grow fond of her.

FireGoddess101: I'm glad you like how I'm going about this story! I'm always second guessing if it's even worth it because of how close to the books it is, but it's nice to know someone enjoys that.

Lalaland: I know! Zachhhhhhhhhh! Just so everyone knows, I've been planning on him making some cameo appearances in the next instalment, because Zach.

Drama1211: Last update for a while, I'm sorry :( I hope you say with for a couple of months while I regain my sanity.

Okay, everyone, I love you all, and I will be back! see you all soon my nerdletts.

-DJRocks out