By the time Maddie stepped into the elevator to Sublevel one, she was seriously regretting her decision not to wash her hair that morning. In that moment, it was difficult to imagine something more horrifying than finally sitting in a class of her peers with unwashed hair.
The Gallagher Academy had been reconstructed, at great expense, to match the original structure as closely as possible after the great fire, though Maddie suspected that additional security features, including, hopefully, a fire suppression system, had been added. While the majority of the mansion was a stately NeoGothic style, the sublevels were a modern blend of glass, tile and marble.
Maddie settled onto a stool in the second to last row of their glass-walled classroom and casually watched her classmates. Tiffany, Alice and Olivia sat grouped together at the front of the room, chatting quietly. Other girls grouped off in 2's or 3's. Including her, Maddie had determined, there were 24 sophomores. It was almost like the Gallagher Academy had been waiting for her to make a nice, even number. What were the chances of that, Maddie wondered. She was sure one of the girls in this room could have calculated the odds.
"This seat taken?" Casey asked brightly as she slid onto the stool beside Maddie, not waiting for a response. "Welcome to cove ops!"
"That's generally my job, Cassandra," a handsome man in his late forties said calmly as he stepped out from behind a partition.
"Hello, Ladies," the man said, but to Maddie, it sounded more like a warning than a welcome. "You've made it to your second semester of my class, apparently."
The man carried himself with the confidence of someone who'd spent his whole life in the field and lived to tell about it, and he had the injuries to match. A long burn scar ran down the side of Joe Solomon's face, and continued over his left hand. Maddie wondered if the scars were from the great fire, or if he'd acquired them long before. He also tried to hide a limp on his left leg, but Maddie could see the tentative manner in which he carried it.
"Let's see if we can keep you alive until the end of the year," he continued. "I don't want to be too optimistic."
In a normal school, a comment like that from a teacher might have solicited a laugh from the students, but no one in Joe Solomon's classroom laughed. Maybe it was because her classmates were all future spies, and living was never a guarantee. Maybe it was Joe Solomon's commanding presence. Or maybe it was just the fact that the chef had prepared a very heavy lunch that day, and all Maddie's classmates were drifting into a food coma like bears in the winter.
Maddie herself was intimidated. Really, anyone in their right mind should be. Maddie was still learning her Gallagher Academy history, but there was a rumor that Joe Solomon had once outrun the entirety of MI6, jumped off a London drawbridge and escaped using a team of highly trained carrier pigeons and a very large catfish. And of course, he had been a triple agent with the Circle of Cavan, ultimately helping the CIA to drive one of the most notorious terrorist groups to extinction, or at least deep, deep underground.
"You ladies will all know by now that Ms. Madeleine Manchester has joined our class," Joe Solomon continued, while writing a list of common exfiltration tactics on the white board at the front of the room. "She's a bit behind in her lessons, but I trust that all of you will help her to get up to speed."
"I heard she saved the President's Son from a Russian superspy in Alaska using only vaseline and a necklace." A girl whispered somewhere to Maddie's left. Maddie bit back a laugh. It was flattering, for sure, but she'd also had a flare gun, a real gun, some rope, and a home court advantage when it came to the Alaskan landscape.
Oh, and of course, ultimately, her father.
Maybe that was why Maddie's first few days at the Gallagher Academy had made her feel like she was having an out-of-body experience. No matter what had happened in Alaska, Maddie had always known her father would come back sometime in the next forty-eight hours. Of course, you could easily die in less than 48 hours in Alaska, but Maddie had generally tried not to think about that.
At least she had Logan, Maddie thought. But that was a whole complication all in itself. Maddie had kissed Logan in Alaska. Several times, actually. And then on the steps of the Gallagher Academy two days earlier. And ok, so maybe some of the kisses had been strategic decisions. And maybe the others had been fueled by the adrenaline of a near-death experience, or the fear of walking into a school of 143 hundred spies-in-training, but that didn't mean Maddie hadn't enjoyed them. That didn't mean Maddie didn't want to kiss Logan again.
Two days ago, she'd told Casey that they weren't dating, and she wondered now if it was possible to walk back her statement. It was the thought of being Logan's "girlfriend," really, that had triggered Maddie, and she wondered if she was destined to see Stefan's sneer in her head every time she thought it for the rest of her life. But maybe it was better to focus on her studies anyway.
If Maddie was truly being honest with herself, the only subject she was actually good at was Protection and Enforcement, and she breathed a huge sigh of relief as she left her mildly claustrophobic CoveOps class and stepped into the giant, cavernous P&E Barn. Over the next hour and a half, Maddie ran drills, climbed a sheer wall, and wrestled another sophomore to the ground. She found comfort in using her body, trusting her instincts. Alaska had taught Maddie to be confident in her own strength, and confidence was something Maddie desperately needed to regain in her present environment.
