Chapter Five
Evie's Notes: Hope you enjoy the new chapter! Let me know your favorite part in the comments!✨
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in bold, only my OCs đź’•
"Can I get another volunteer to read?" asked Ginny, waving the book she had taken from Alyssa.
"Uh, I can read next I guess" offered Lucy hesitantly.
"Great!" chirped Ginny happily passing the book over to the tiny sophomore sitting beside her.
"Chapter Five" read Lucy "I know the sounds my school makes—the squeaky steps and creaking doors, the hushed voices during finals week, the noisy chaos of the Grand Hall before dinner. The first day of a new year has a sound all its own, as limos turn down the winding lane and car doors slam, suitcases bang against banisters, and girls squeal and hug hello. But the first semester of my junior year… That semester started with a whisper so quiet I almost didn't hear it. "Is Macey taking the semester off?" one senior asked another as they stood huddled in the hall outside the library.
"Wow… gossip much" snapped Macey defensively. Cammie and Bex each grabbed one of her hands knowing that the remark had come from her anxiety over the tumultuous future.
"I heard they had to amputate Macey's arm and replace it with a bionic limb that Dr. Fibs made in his lab," an eighth grader said when I passed by the door to their common room.
"Why would that be your go too?" Tessa asked Marissa. All of the seventh graders knew that Marissa would be the one to come up with a theory like that due to her comic book obsession.
"He could totally build her one" defended Marissa.
Gallagher Girls spend their free time scattered throughout the four corners of the world, but that year every girl who returned from summer break brought back the same questions. So I kept moving, roaming the quiet halls like a shadow, right up until the point when I turned the corner and ran into Tina Walters. /p
"It's me," laughed Tina excitedly, striking a fun pose.
"Cammie!" Tina cried, and in the newfound quiet of our school, the word echoed. She threw her arms around me. "You're okay!" she proclaimed, and then she reconsidered. "You are okay, aren't you?" "Yeah, Tina, I'm—" "Because I heard you killed one of them with a campaign button?"
"Really Tina?" sighed Cammie.
"If you can kill a boy with a piece of spaghetti, you could have killed the enemy agent with a button" Eva defended her friend and roommate.
Tina is a teenage girl, and a spy-in-training, and the only daughter of one of the country's premiere gossip columnists, so it's not surprising that she has crazy theories. A lot of them. All the time.
"I'm right most of the time" protested Tina. "Well… some of the time" corrected the girl after multiple incredulous looks were sent her way.
But in that second, my mind flashed back to the sunny roof. I saw the shadows of the spinning blades, felt the hands that gripped my shoulders, and then heard the pained cry as I jabbed the Winters-McHenry button into a hand wearing a ring that I was sure I'd seen before.
"Trust your memory Miss Morgan" encouraged Mr. Solomon. "If we figure out the symbol we can get ahead of this situation".
"Cam?" Tina asked, but I just nodded. "Yeah, Tina." My throat felt strange. as I said it. "Some-thing like that." And then I walked away.
When you're known as the Chameleon, sometimes it can feel like your whole life is just an elaborate game of hide-and-seek. Fortunately, I am very good at hiding. Unfortunately, my best friends are very good at seeking.
"Well how else are we supposed to ever spend any time with you. We had to get good at seeking, otherwise we wouldn't ever see you?" huffed Liz.
"Cam!" someone called through the shadows. "We know you're in here." The voice was soft and Southern, the footsteps so dainty that I knew there could only be one person tiny enough to creep over those particular floorboards without making a sound.
"Finally I'm in the story" cheered Lizzie
"Oh, Cammie," Liz practically sang, as she crept down the ancient corridor that (I think) had once been a pretty important part of the Underground Railroad, and had more recently served a far less noble covert purpose.
"And what purpose would that be, young lady?" asked Headmistress Morgan disapprovingly.
"I thought we'd find you here," another voice said. My second roommate pushed her way out of the shadows. If possible, I think Liz had gotten even tinier and Bex had gotten even prettier over the summer break.
"Awww! Thank you!" blushed Bex.
Liz's blond hair was almost totally white from spending all summer in the sun. Bex's accent was stronger, like it always is after spending months with her parents in England. (Of course, Bex swore that she'd spent a good portion of that time actually doing surveillance with MI6 in an African nation that shall remain nameless.) Her dark skin glowed and her hair was longer than it had been at the start of the summer.
"Isn't it a tad early in the semester for hiding, darling?" Bex tried to tease. I tried to smile.
"Thanks for trying to cheer me up, Bex" sighed Cammie, overwhelmed by everything her future self had gone through so far… but she was thankful that her friend always had her back.
"What gave me away?" I asked. "Irregular dust patterns outside the entrance," Bex said. "You're getting sloppy."
The whole hall sucked in a collective breath.
And then she stopped. Strong Bex, brave Bex, seemed to recoil when she realized what she'd said. "I didn't mean…" "It's okay, Bex," I told her. "You weren't sloppy!" Bex blurted again. Then Liz jumped in. "Everyone's talking about how great you were—about how, if you hadn't been there…" But she didn't finish, which was just as well. No one wanted to think about how that sentence had to end.
"I would have been dead," whispered Macey. The whole hall was so quiet that it didn't matter, they all heard her anyway and sadly agreed.
Bex eased onto one of the overturned crates and boxes that filled the room. "Have you seen her?" "Not since the day after. They brought us to Mr. Solomon's lake house, but then they took her back to her parents." "She is coming back," Liz asked. "Isn't she?" "I don't know," I said with a shrug. "I mean… they wouldn't want her to stay with them all the time, would they? They'd want her here, where she's safe?"
"Given that they don't know the true purpose of the school… probably not" reasoned Toni.
"I don't know, Liz," I said, sharper than I'd meant.
"I mean… I don't know if she's coming," I said, more softly. "I don't know who tried to do this or why or… I just don't know," I whispered again, then turned to look out the tiny circular window.
"It's not your fault Cam. You saved me" reminded Macey.
"She invited me." Bex's voice cut through the silence. "Before the convention, she called our flat and asked me to come, but my mum and dad were home, and I…" Bex trailed off, not knowing, I guess, that wanting to be with your parents isn't actually a sign of weakness. "I should have been there." She didn't sound envious about missing out on a good fight. Instead, she sounded guilty.
"Please dont feel guilty. If I had parents like yours I wouldn't trade time with them for the world"
"Me too," Liz said, sinking to the dusty floor. "When she called, my mom said I could go, but I only had a few days left with my parents, so I said no." I nodded. We all thought we'd have the better part of a year to spend together, but in any life—especially a spy's life—tomorrow is never guaranteed. And there you have it—the most important thing any of us had learned over our summer vacation.
"Unfortunately that is a lesson that all spies must learn eventually" sighed Mr. Smith
"Tina Walters says Macey's parents have hired an ex-Navy SEAL to pose as a Sherpa and hide Macey out in the Himalayas until the election is over," Liz offered. "Yeah, well Tina Walters says a lot of things. Tina Walters is usually wrong," Bex replied.
"Yeesh. Tell me how you really feel Rebecca" snapped Tina.
But I thought about how close Tina had been with her campaign button theory; I remembered that Tina had been saying for years that there was an elite boys' school for spies, and we'd all thought that was a crazy rumor until last semester when a delegation from the Blackthorne Institute had moved into the East Wing, just a few feet from where we now sat. So I looked around the empty dusty space and said, "Not always."
"Thank you Cameron," snapped Tina. "At least someone respects my intel". Eva rubbed the girl's shoulders comfortingly.
Last spring, finding out who those boys were and whether or not they could be trusted had seemed like the most important mission of our lives. Charts of surveillance summaries and patterns of behaviors still lined the walls of our former operation headquarters, but the tape was starting to lose its hold. The wires still ran to the East Wing, a reminder of the days when boys from the Blackthorne Institute had seemed like a mission—back when missions had been about getting us ready for the real world; before the real world cornered us on a rooftop in Massachusetts. Liz must have followed my gaze and read my mind, because I heard her say, "Have you heard from… you know… Zach?"
"Ooooooh" snickered the 7th graders.
thought back to the swirling images that had filled my mind before I'd blacked out, and almost asked, "Do hallucinations after a head injury count?"
"I don't think so!" drawled Mick,
But I didn't because A) I may very well have been going crazy. And B) for a Gallagher Girl, "Boy crazy" might be the most dangerous kind of crazy there is.
"Damn Straight" agreed Anna.
So instead I turned to look out the window and watched the long line of limousines winding down Highway 10, carrying my classmates back to the safety of our walls. It was the same scene I'd witnessed for years—the same cars, the same girls. But in the next instant the scene totally changed. Vans—dozens of them—sped down the highway, skidding into ditches on the side of the road.
"And that should be several reckless driving tickets" scoffed Tessa.
People bolted out and started adjusting satellite dishes and equipment. Helicopters swarmed around the school. "Oh. My. Gosh," I mumbled, still staring, feeling Bex and Liz crowd around the window on either side of me. I looked at my best friends as sirens began screeching through the still, quiet air: "CODE RED CODE RED CODE RED." "What does it mean?" Liz screamed. Bex and I just smiled. "Macey's coming home.""
"Finally!" relaxed Macey, happy that her future-self would finally be back with her sisters.
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