Maddie had never been hungover, but on Monday morning she wondered if the fallout from a bad argument could make you feel the same way.

Every step felt heavy as Maddie made her way toward her usual table in the dining hall. She hadn't seen Casey since their argument the night before, and she was dreading it. Because no matter what Casey had said, and no matter what Maddie wanted to believe, a niggling voice in the back of Maddie's head kept repeating her father. Trust no one.

"Wow, you really don't look where you're going," Tiffany laughed as she narrowly avoided colliding with Maddie. Maddie's cheeks turned red. "Mandatory roommate meeting at 2:30," Tiffany said. "I would have told you this morning, except that you're never actually, you know, in our room."

Maddie had been wondering how this day could get worse. Well, Tiffany had given her an answer.

"But Logan. . ." Maddie started.

"Will be in the safety of the freshman Culture & Assimilation class," Tiffany finished for her. "I'm pretty sure Madame Dabney can handle him."

Damn. Tiffany had clearly thought this through, and Maddie was out of excuses.

"If you insist," Maddie shrugged. "Then I'll be there."

"Great," Tiffany said. Then she turned and made her way toward the breakfast meats, leaving Maddie standing in the middle of the dining hall, alone.

There was only one thing left to do. Maddie placed her tray on the table across from Casey and sat down. Casey lifted an eyebrow in Maddie's general direction, but stayed silent.

"I'm sorry," Maddie said quietly. "About yesterday."

Casey nodded. "I get it," she mumbled. "You'd do anything to keep that idiot safe."

Maddie nodded.

"And I was egging you on."

"You kind of were," Maddie agreed.

"And I also probably should have told you about the Treehouse."

"That too," Maddie agreed. "Friends don't sneak off with other friends' boyfriends," Maddie said indignantly. "Or mock their post-traumatic stress."

Casey nodded, but stopped short of an actual apology. Maddie decided to let it slide.

"What was that about?" Casey asked, nodding at Tiffany.

"Nothing," Maddie shrugged. "Mandatory roommate meeting," she said, emphasizing the words with air quotes. "No doubt Olivia is upset about the world war three that's breaking out in our closet. Or someone borrowed Alice's pearl earrings without asking . . . It's always something inane. I should honestly be exempt since I spend approximately 3 minutes a day there."

Maddie made light of the situation in an attempt to shift her relationship with Casey back in a positive direction. It was a struggle, but fortunately, Maddie was pretty good at lying. Sometimes she could even convince herself.

"Oh good," Logan exclaimed, sliding a tray in beside Maddie. "The two of you made up."

Both Maddie and Casey nodded unconvincingly.

"In italiano, signor Mitchell," Dr. Fibbs reprimanded as he passed, and Logan fell silent, primarily due to his limited vocabulary.

Maddie wandered through her classes that morning in a haze, spouting Farsi and organic chemistry, and learning how to kill a person with headphones and a lipstick.

At 2:30, during her study break, she snuck back to her assigned room for the mystery meeting. She was the last to arrive; Tiffany, Alice, and Olivia were already waiting.

"Wait, who is this?" Olivia asked Tiffany as Maddie entered the room. "I've never seen her in here before."

Tiffany laughed, and chucked a pillow at Olivia, and for the first time, the thought crossed Maddie's mind that maybe she had been missing out on something.

Maddie sat on her assigned bed, and turned to Tiffany. "So what's this about?"

"This is an intervention," Tiffany said calmly.

Maddie tried to hide how ambushed she felt as she asked, "About what?"

Alice laughed. "Well, Casey for starters."

"Also, you have PTSD, girl," Olivia chimed in. "And everyone in school knows it except you."

"And then there's the whole Logan thing," Tiffany added.

"Your life is such a hot mess it's hard to even know where to begin," Olivia said.

Maddie was dumbstruck, but she knew they were all right about one thing. Her life was a "hot mess." She just wasn't sure why these three young women would want to help her fix it.

"Why are you doing this?" Maddie asked, gesturing to Alice and Olivia. "All the two of you have ever done is bully me."

Alice and Olivia looked a bit chagrined.

"Yeah," Alice admitted. "I was really mean to you when you first got here and that was super not ok. I'm sorry. I was really intimidated when I heard the rumors about you saving the president's son in Alaska."

"So what changed?" Maddie asked.

"Well, we met you," Olivia quipped.

Tiffany chucked another pillow at her and snapped "stop that," before turning to Maddie. "What Olivia's trying to say is that we remembered that Gallagher Girls are a team. A sisterhood. And you're one of us now."

"Besides," Alice chimed in. "We couldn't sit by and let Casey take out another member of our sisterhood."

Alice instantly had Maddie's full attention.

"I'm going to need you to clarify the phrase 'take out.'"

"You still don't know why we kicked her out of our group, do you?" Alice asked. Maddie shook her head in response.

"There used to be twenty -four sophomore Gallagher girls," Alice continued. "Until one of them dropped out at the end of last semester, conveniently leaving an open spot for you."

"People don't just drop out of the Gallagher Academy," Tiffany offered. "In fact, it's never actually happened before. On a rare occasion, someone has been kicked out. One girl died of Diphtheria in about 1893. But no one voluntarily leaves."

"We don't know all the facts," Olivia admitted. "But the girl who left, Casey was pretty much her only friend."

"Not at first," Tiffany chimed in. "At the beginning she had a whole group. But over time Casey isolated her from everyone else. And then I guess she turned on her. Rumor has it Casey manipulated her into believing she didn't belong here. And eventually she quit."

"Well what did she tell Headmistress Morgan?" Maddie asked.

"She said she missed her family and that she didn't want a clandestine life and that she didn't feel safe here," Tiffany explained.

Alice rolled her eyes. "All of which is bullshit, obviously."

"Ok," Maddie nodded. "So you kicked her out of your group because. . ."

"Because we couldn't trust her," Alice finished. "As I'm sure you know by now, most Gallagher rumors are 60-90% accurate."

"There's one other thing you need to know," Alice said firmly. "Her mother was with the Circle of Cavan before it fell."

"She told me that," Maddie said calmly. "What of it?"

"Well rumor has it, she was a double agent in the NSA when the Circle fell," Tiffany explained. "Apparently her mom went off the deep end and Casey ended up with her Mom's sister, who raised her. But she's still out there, and she's got a score to settle, if you know what I mean."

"How does this come back to me?" Maddie asked. "I'm not going to hold her responsible for her parents' mistakes."

"Well your sketch for one," Alice said calmly.

Maddie shrugged. "I showed it to her. She said it wasn't her, and that she hadn't seen or spoken to her mom in years."

The others stared at Maddie in silence. "What?" Maddie demanded.

"Well, first, that's exactly what someone who's in cahoots with her terrorist mother would say," Olivia commented, rolling her eyes.

"And second," Tiffany chimed in. "I'm fairly certain that's not true."

Tiffany turned to her nightstand and reached into the top drawer. She pulled out a postcard and silently handed it to Maddie.

C:

Excellent job this semester.

"Okay?" Maddie asked. "This is just a postcard? It's not even signed. How do you know it's not from her Aunt?"

"Alice found it right after Jessica left," Tiffany said. "I took it to Headmistress Morgan, but she didn't think much of it. So I asked her to move Casey out of our suite, and she allowed it."

"Which means that, no matter what she says, she kind of believed you," Olivia chimed in.

"What else have you got?" Maddie rolled her eyes, brushing them off, but doubt had already seeped into her mind, and she filed this new information right beside the other things she had learned.

"That's all," Alice admitted. "Yours to do as you like with."

"But Maddie," Tiffany continued. "Be careful. Especially with Logan."

Maddie nodded. "Anything else you'd like to cover?" She asked.

"Yeah," Olivia said. "You're not okay, and everyone knows it."

"I'm fine," Maddie said firmly.

"Oh sure," Olivia said sarcastically. "That's why your hands shake every time the lecture topic touches on anything that reminds you of your Alaskan adventure right? Yeah, I notice when you space out in class. How you spend all of Cove Ops looking like you're about to crawl out of your own skin."

Maddie was silent. There wasn't much she could say, because Olivia's words were true. The girls at the Gallagher Academy noticed everything.

"So what can we do to help?"

It wasn't the first time someone had offered to help her, but something about Olivia's expression, the genuine concern on her face, drew Maddie in and made her feel safe.

"I wish I knew," Maddie admitted. " I keep thinking it's going to get better, and it doesn't. It's the little things. They just . . . send me back there."

"I mean you killed someone," Alice said, matter of factly. "At least if the rumors are true, that is."

Maddie nodded silently.

"In here," Tiffany explained. "We get training on mental self-preservation. That's not what they call it, but that's what it is. It starts when you're really young, and they train you to think, to process, in a certain way. In a way that protects you. The things you're exposed to in this life, this job, they can really screw up your head."

"But you didn't have any of that," Olivia said. "So it's not a surprise that you're struggling so much."

"Olivia's mom is a high security clearance trauma psychiatrist," Alice reported. "She works out of Langley."

"If you want," Olivia offered. "We can ask Headmistress Morgan to arrange some phone sessions with her."

Maddie nodded. "Thank you."

"You'll get through this, girl," Olivia encouraged. "And you'll come out stronger for it."

"Which brings us to Logan," Tiffany said.

"Oh yeah," Alice chimed in. "Now we're at the fun part."

Maddie rolled her eyes. "What do you want to know?"

"Does Rachel Morgan know you sleep in his room every night?"

"Outside," Maddie corrected. "And yes."

Alice looked pointedly at Olivia. Olivia rolled her eyes, and passed Alice a $20 bill.

"Wow, okay," Tiffany said, surprised. "You two are just betting on people's lives now."

"Pretty much," Olivia smiled. She looked at Maddie as she explained "They're counterfeit."

"That doesn't make it better," Tiffany commented. She turned to Maddie. "I think you guys are cute together."

"Thanks," Maddie said. It sounded like a genuine compliment.

"You should hang around more," Tiffany continued. "We're not as bad as Casey makes us out to be."

Maddie nodded and stood to leave. "I'll take that under advisement. But right now I'm late for cryptology."

Maddie didn't stop thinking about the meeting with her roommates for the rest of the day, and when she finished her homework late that evening, she reached for her pad of evapopaper and began to write.

Dear Dad,

You've always said to trust no one. I think you taught me that lesson a bit too well. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if you hadn't. I'm sure you'd say that I'd probably be dead.

See? I don't even need your judgmental letters and condescending advice anymore. I can script your half of the conversation all by myself.

Thanks,

Maddie

Maddie rolled her eyes as she signed her name, and immediately threw the evapopaper into the fireplace, even though she knew she could have just eaten it. It was the gesture that counted, after all. And then she crushed her father's latest letter into a ball without opening it, and tossed that into the fire as well.