I didn't trust Cammie would be the good little girl staying dutifully inside her mansion walls.

Because she wasn't a good girl. She was a Gallagher Girl. And that always means trouble.

So I tailed Joe. I don't know if he saw me, or if he knew what I was doing but I used every technique in the book.

And that's how I ended up at the Roseville Highschool homecoming game.

The Roseville football stadium was on the far side of town, nestled against the tall hills that rose from the valley just fifty yards behind me. In the distance, the band started playing. The sound echoed through the hills. The cheering crowd grew louder as I walked toward the chain-link fence, joining the stream of people that flowed inside the gates. Steel beams framed the stands. Specks of dust and debris would fall sometimes like a faint snowfall as I stood beneath the bleachers, staring out onto the field. There were uniformed officials holding big orange markers. A coach paced back and forth, yelling orders no one seemed to hear. Cheerleaders moved in perfect unison, their red pleated skirts flipping as they yelled and kicked. And behind them sat a small stage with five girls in crowns and fancy dresses.

It was the strangest thing I'd ever seen. Formal wear and football in the same area. Spies have to be comfortable in all kinds of social situations, but I don't think I'd ever been anywhere where some people were wearing tiaras and others were wearing sweatshirts.

And there she was. Cammie. Even wearing a black wig and blue color contacts she was gorgeous. She stood next to a girl with big red hair and glasses. A girl who (judging by the way she held herself up) could only be Macey McHenry. Cammie was looking through the crowds, surveying it for friends and foes alike (because she totally wasn't supposed to be there!) But something made her stop. Something made her eyes go big and worry crossed over her face. I followed her graze to something that made my blood boil.

It was Josh.

"Did she really sneak out to a football game to see a boy?" I asked myself, watching her follow him. I rush up towards her putting myself between her and the boy.

"What are you doing here, Gallagher Girl?" I said, my voice quiet. I gripped her forearm and ushered her out of the way of a convertible that was driving the freshman homecoming attendant around the track.

"CoveOps assignment," she lied. "You?"

"I thought you weren't supposed to leave school," I told her.

"Yeah, because you're so into sticking around campus these days. Seriously, Zach, do you ever stay at Blackthorne?"

But I didn't answer. I couldn't tell her what I was doing there and I was too angry to anyway.

"I had a feeling you might try something like this." I practically spat at her "Just tell me …" I started, and for the first time my anger seemed to fade. "Just tell me you didn't do this to see Jimmy."

Perhaps it wasn't all anger. It was jealous.

"Josh," she corrected me for about the millionth time, but I didn't smile, the joke was long since over. "No," she said, and I didn't doubt that she meant it. "I'm just…here."

Josh was standing with a group of friends ten feet away. Cammie was right in front of me, but she didn't look for him. There I was, caught between the girl I loved, and would protect with my life and her past. And I didn't know what I'd do.

"Why were you in Boston, Zach?" The air was crisp and cool around us. Soft music started on the loudspeaker as the homecoming court made their way to the center of the field. She looked at me, really looked at me"Why are you here, Zach?"

She stepped closer to me. Expectant. But I had nothing to say.

The space between us shrank, but as she took another step forward, I took a step back. I felt if she stepped any closer, there wouldn't be space for my secrets. And that was more than I could handle. Last spring, we teased. We flirted. But that game was over. It wasn't about how much I loved Cammie when it was her life on the line.

"Come on," I said, taking the hand of the girl I loved so much, but wouldn't let myself have. Her hand felt cold in mine."We're taking Macey home."

"We're not doing anything."

I almost stomped my foot in frustration. Girls! Were they always so difficult?

"Fine," I said, starting away. "I'll go find Solomon, get his opinion."

"Zach," she started, cutting me off, but I wheeled on her, all the anger, frustration, and fear I've felt for the past months gaining momentum, snowballing down. I couldn't control it any longer.

"Do you even know who's out there?" I snapped louder now, and then just as quickly I stepped closer. "Do you even care?"

"The Circle of Cavan is after my sisterhood, Zach. Not yours. They're hunting my friends. They're sending Gallagher Girls down laundry chutes, so don't show up here and lecture me about what's at stake." I drew a breath to tell her the danger she was in, but she continued on her rant. "If Joseph Cavan's followers want to settle the score with Gillian Gallagher's great-great-grand- daughter, then they're going to deal with all of us, and that doesn't necessarily include you."

The announcer was talking over the loudspeaker, saying something about the homecoming queen and her deep love of puppies or something, but she just looked at me. "Why do I feel like I can't trust you anymore?"

I looked at her in the eyes. It was the only true perception she'd ever had of me. She saw me without a cover then, and she knew. She couldn't trust me. "Because the Gallagher Academy doesn't admit fools."

"The family tie to Roseville," Macey softly repeated what the man on the street had said.

Hundreds of people filled the stands around us. They were teachers and accountants, stay-at-home moms and men who worked at the toilet paper factory—regular people doing their best to live regular lives. They couldn't have been farther from Macey McHenry (both the spy and the girl) if they'd tried.

And yet she was right there beside them.

Beside us.

And she'd heard everything we'd said.

"Macey," she said, stepping closer to her, further from me.

"Does this mean …" she started, and I knew there were a dozen ways that sentence could have ended.

"You knew about this?" she asked. Her voice was cracking. Her lip was shaking. "How long have you known about this?"

She could have lied, I would have lied. But Cammie didn't. Maybe because Macey had lived with her for over a year and would see through it. Maybe because they hadn't covered lying to a trained operative yet in CoveOps. Or maybe she was just a better person than I'd ever be.

"Yeah, my mom told us last—" said Cammie

"Us!" Macey snapped. "Does the whole school know?"

"No! Just Bex and Liz and me. Mom explained all that after you got accepted. She—"

"So I'm Gillian Gallagher's descendant?" The fire seemed to be fading from her, so she reached out, but Macey pulled away. "So that's why they let me in."

"Macey, it's not—"

"True?" she said, staring at Cammie, but she stayed silent. She pushed away without another word, through the red-clad members of the Pride of Roseville Marching Band, who were exiting the field.

"Macey!" I called after her, but then I grabbed her hand tight. I needed to tell her what was going on and fast. Macey would be okay.

"Cam—" I started.

"Not now, Zach." She jerked away. Maybe she wanted to find Macey. Or maybe she just wanted to be anywhere but there, with me.

She set off through the crowd, pushing through the band and out into open space and I looked around seeing potential threats everywhere I turned.

thirty feet to my right and up three rows, there was a guy in a red cap who jumped to his feet to cheer a split second too late, as if his attention had been elsewhere. On the track between the cheerleaders and the bleachers, two women stood together scanning the crowd while wearing shoes that no small-town housewife would be caught dead in.

I ran, as fast as I could trying to find Joe Solomon.