And that's how, two days later, I ended up in a grand hall on super Tuesday watching the girl I loved sit and talk with her bestfriends in the world. She looked happy and free. The McHenry's had lost the election and no doubt Cammie thought her friend was safe.
But her friend was never the girl who needed saving.
Suddenly they all stopped talking and looked at me. I placed my hands in my pockets and Cammie smiled.
"I heard someone's playing hooky," I told her. I smiled. Standing there, it felt almost like nothing bad had ever happened—or would ever happen again.
"There's a boy in my life," She told me "He's a very bad influence."
Then I nodded. "Bad boys have a way of doing that. But they're worth it."
The ballroom was too hot and crowded. I felt almost dizzy as I leaned close to her and whispered, "Can I talk to you?"
As soon as I felt her hand in mine I forgot all about my mother's words. I didn't think about how I was apart of the circle, or how the girl I loved might see me if I told her. I wanted someplace quiet, someplace cool. And most of all, I wanted to tell her the truth. So I led her out a side door and onto a street that had somehow become an alley, thanks to Secret Service perimeters and D.C. blockades.
She shivered and wrapped her arms around her chest.
Someone had propped open a door to the hotel, and I heard the band stop. Some other state must have been called, because a moan rang through the night, but I wasn't really listening. Not anymore.
Because it was dark.
And she was cold.
And so I took my jacket off and draped it around her shoulders.
My hands stayed on her shoulders a second longer than they had to. She looked beautiful, her hair catching in the wind, stray pieces of confetti in the breeze and whirling them around us like a patriotic snowstorm.
That was the moment when everything was supposed to be perfect. I would tell her, and she would understand
But nothing about Cammie is a regular girl just like nothing about me is a regular boy, so instead, she looked at me and asked, "Why were you in Boston?"
I stepped back. I couldn't do it. I shook my head and looked down at the ground muttering, "There are things I can't tell you, Gallagher Girl."
"Can't?" she asked. "Or won't?"
But I didn't answer. I just looked at me as if to say, What's the difference.
"Tell me," she whispered. I tried not to think about how much had changed between us since I kissed her in the springtime. I wondered if we could ever get that back.
"There are some things you don't want to know." And maybe she did, and maybe she didn't. But I didn't want her to know. I wanted her to love me as my cover, the cocky guy. The cool guy. Not the mess I've become these past few months.
From the corner of my eye, I saw her roommates leave the hotel and step onto the street. I heard Macey call, "Cam!" But my gaze was locked with Cammie's. Secrets and confetti lingered in the air around us until suddenly things grew dark and slow. I started to lean in, closing my eyes, trying to find truth in her kiss. But she wasn't looking at me anymore.
And that's when I saw the van.
One second we were standing in the shadows of the streetlamps, and the next, we were shrouded in black. Three city blocks were knocked out, and through the haze, only the Washington Monument kept shining.
"Macey!" she yelled running down the street, away from me and toward her friend, just as headlights pierced the darkness, just as the barriers were crushed against the van that careened so quickly down the empty street that she actually stopped. She actually stared.
Macey. Macey had wandered closer to her and farther from Bex and Liz. She was there, standing alone in the headlights' glare, twenty yards from help of any kind.
"Run!" she yelled, rushing toward her. I tried calling out to her, but I couldn't make my voice work. Part of me wanted to reverse time so I could tell her before she found out this way, but it was too late. The van was too close. Its side door was sliding open. Masked figures were leaning out. Everything was so slow that I wasn't sure my yell would even reach her as she stood dumbfounded in the glare.
And watched the van pass her friend by.
Tires screeched across the pavement as the van skidded past me, turning ninety degrees, blocking off the path from which I'd come.
"Cammie!"I yelled again, but she didn't look back. My yell was lost behind a mountain of rubber and steel.
To my right, I saw her roommates running closer, but the world was in slow motion. Help felt light-years away as a big man jumped from the back of the van. But he was too big— too slow. She dodged his blows and hooked her foot around the back of his knee as she pushed and he stumbled, pinning a second man against the van's door for a split second, and she started to run.
"Cammie!" Bex's voice rang through the night from the south.
"Macey!" she yelled in response. "Save Macey!"
But Macey didn't need saving.
I kept running. Faster and faster towards her. I didn't pay attention to my surroundings. All I knew was that I had to keep running— faster and faster until something made me stop in my tracks. Strong arms caught her around the waist. Before her feet even left the ground there was a rag over her mouth, and I knew she would collaspe in this man's arms and there would be no saving her .
And then falling.
She fell to the ground. Looking around her, until her eyes met mine and I knew her whole world had just faded to black.
Through the eerie glow of the van's lights, we all rushed for Cammie. Everyone was fighting hard for her to get to her.
She was crushed underneath her attacker, a man three times her size. Her roommates battled the men, and I took on my mother. Liz clung to the big man's back while Bex parried away his blows. Macey fought against the second man. Cammie didn't move, she just stared at us with a glassy reflection in her eyes.
I punched my mother, square in the gut, and she laid, doubled over as I rushed towards Cammie pushing the man off of her. But my mother yanked me back, and I watched as she summoned her last ounce of strength and crashed her head into my attacker's skull.
I heard a crack, and looked back to the sight of the blood of a broken nose pouring over her as she stumbled to her feet. But she wobbled and the arms found him again. The van came closer as her heels dragged against the pavement, and I ran towards her. And that's when I saw Macey.
She was running toward Cammie.
I saw Cammie's mouth moving, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. I was too distracted by the sight of the man in front of me, pulling a gun from the holster around his waist.
"No!" someone screamed.
And I stood there helpless as I watched Agent cameron rush past me, in front of Macey. Yells filled the air. Panic spread on the wind as the gunshot echoed down the dark street and out into the night. But Agent Cameron was running through the black, lunging through the air in front of Macey and then falling too hard to the dark ground.
The hand with the gun tried to pull Cammie back, but she spun and kicked,and the masked figure fell.
She stepped, but her legs failed her. She fell to the ground and tried to crawl, but couldn't. I ran to her, but Solomon beat me to it.
"Get her out of here!" Mr. Solomon appeared as if from nowhere.
"Now!" My mother's voice echoed on the wind.
I grabbed her arm again, but she lashed out with more rage than I'd had ever felt coming from her. Climbing to her knees, spinning, kicking, yelling, "Get…"
I looked at her, holding my hands out out to her. "Gallagher Girl"
And suddenly she looked so tired. All the adrenaline gone from her body.
My hand found her's again. I pulled her to her feet as Joe and headmistress Morgan took on the men, and her roommates fought the men.
"Run," I said, dragging her back the way we'd come— north, toward the door of the hotel. Away from the van. Away from the fight. Away from the gunshot that still echoed through the darkest parts of my mind.
In the distance a siren wailed. Someone yelled, "United States Secret Service!" And forty feet away Agent Morgan lay on the ground. Not moving.
Macey leaned over her. Macey held my jacket to the wound in Abby's chest, trying to stop the blood that spilled onto the dark asphalt, staining all it touched.
"Abby," she whispered, trying to pull away. But I wouldn't let her.
I heard the van come to life behind us. Secret Service agents yelled. More shots rang out, but I didn't move. she ran into my shoulder, too busy looking behind herself to see the man who stood between us and the door.
I saw the gun. I sensed the van as it rushed forward, seconds away and coming faster. I heard the screams of the fight behind us. But nothing that night was louder than the masked man's astonished whisper as he looked at me and said, "You?"
I remembered him from the circle meetings. I guess my mother didn't tell him about me.
So I merely looked at him. And it must have worked, I must have scared him because the man ran instead of fought. He fled into the darkness while her mother cried her name, but her voice was too high. Her momentum was too strong as she hurled her body against Cammie's, driving her deep into the shadows.
A wall of bodies blocked me from Cammie. I almost screamed, but instead I sat down against concrete, and buried my face into my knees.