Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Page 28

"Jeez, Preston." Macey rolled her eyes. "Don't you have
a—"
"Macey," Preston said, cutting her off, "I came over to say that if our dads win, we're going to be seeing a lot of each other." Macey opened her mouth as if to protest, but Preston didn't let her draw a breath. "And if they lose … well, I think we still should see a lot of each other anyway. So there," he finished with a shrug. "That's all. You ladies enjoy the party."
And with that he walked away, and all Liz, Bex, Macey, and I could do was watch him go.
"Did he seem a little …" Macey started, but it was up to Bex and Liz to finish.
"Hot?" they said in unison.
Macey nodded like maybe it was true, maybe it was okay to admit it, maybe—just maybe—there might be an advantage to being the vice president's daughter after all. But then her gaze shifted and there was a sparkle in her eye. "And speaking of hot…" Macey said, "what's new with Zach?"
I thought about Preston, who had just done one of the bravest things I'd ever witnessed, and I realized that loving someone takes courage. It takes strength. But I'd never been brave when it came to Zach—I'd never taken the chance or said what I wanted to say. I thought of the way he'd looked at me at the football game, and it suddenly seemed too late.
"I don't think he likes me anymore. Maybe he never liked me. Maybe he just liked … a challenge?"
Macey shrugged. "It happens."
"No, Cam!" Liz protested. "Maybe he's just…" But she couldn't finish, because the only way that sentence could end was badly.
"Well, now's your chance to find out," Macey said as she pointed through the crowd at the boy who stood in its center with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slumped as if he were the most harmless guy on earth.
"I heard someone's playing hooky," Zach told me. He smiled. Standing there, it felt almost like nothing bad had ever happened—or would ever happen again.
"There's a boy in my life," I told him. "He's a very bad influence."
Then Zach 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 Zach leaned close to me and whispered, "Can I talk to you?"
As soon as I felt his hand in mine I forgot all about my mother's words. I didn't think about my promise. I wanted someplace quiet, someplace cool. And most of all, I wanted answers. So I let Zach lead me out a side door and onto a street that had somehow become an alley, thanks to Secret Service perimeters and D.C. blockades.
I shivered and wrapped my arms around my chest and wished I'd brought a winter coat. It suddenly seemed way too cold for the first Tuesday in November.
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 I was cold.
And Zach was taking his jacket off and draping it around my shoulders, which (according to Liz, who double-checked with Macey) is the single-sexiest thing a guy can do.
His hands stayed on my shoulders a second longer than they had to. The jacket was warm and smelled like him. The wind blew harder, catching 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.
After all, really cute boy? Check. Dramatic, romantic setting? Check. Close proximity without parental supervision? Double check.
But nothing about Zach is a regular boy, just like nothing about me is a regular girl, so instead, I looked at him and asked, "Why were you in Boston?"
Zach stepped back. He shook his head and looked down at the ground as he muttered, "There are things I can't tell you, Gallagher Girl."
"Can't?" I asked. "Or won't?"
But Zach didn't answer. He just looked at me as if to say, What's the difference.
"Tell me," I whispered, trying not to think about the fact that Zach wasn't chasing me anymore. Instead, he was staring down at me, and for the first time, I realized that he'd grown, that he was taller and stronger and not at all the boy who had kissed me last spring.
"There are some things you don't want to know."
I know it sounds crazy, but I believed him. After all, I've lived my whole life on a need-to-know basis, and right then I was willing to take Zach's word for it. I was willing to believe.
From the corner of my eye, I saw my roommates leave the hotel and step onto the street. I heard Macey call, "Cam!" But my gaze was locked with Zach's. Secrets and confetti lingered in the air around us until suddenly things grew dark and slow.
Until not knowing stopped being an option for me ever again.
Until I saw the van.
Chapter Twenty-seven
I know it only lasted a few minutes. They've told me that. I've seen the surveillance video, what little there is. Still, the only thing I'm sure of is that 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!" I yelled, knowing more in my heart than in my mind that something was seriously wrong.
I started running down the street, away from Zach and toward my 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 I actually stopped. I actually stared.
Macey. Macey had wandered closer to me and farther from Bex and Liz. She was there, standing alone in the headlights' glare, twenty yards from help of any kind.
"Run!" I yelled, rushing toward her, 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 by.
We do these tests in CoveOps sometimes where Mr. Solomon asks us four or five different questions at once— some that make you process, some that make you recall, some that test your instincts, some that test your skill. And that's what it felt like. I know it sounds crazy. I know you won't believe me. But it really did feel like one of those tests as I stood in the light of the Washington Monument and memorized everything about the van; as I noted the type of wristwatch the driver was wearing, and whether or not the man jumping out the side door was likely to hit me first with his right hand or his left. As I thought about Boston; as I heard the words "get her" one more time; as I realized that Macey hadn't been the only Gallagher Girl on the roof that day.
As I remembered that nothing is ever as it seems.
Tires screeched across the pavement as the van skidded past me, turning ninety degrees, blocking off the path from which I'd come.
"Cammie!" Zach's yell seemed far away, lost behind a mountain of rubber and steel.
To my right, I saw my 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. I dodged his blows and hooked my foot around the back of his knee as I pushed and he stumbled, pinning a second man against the van's door for a split second, and I started to run.
"Cammie!" Bex's voice rang through the night from the south.
"Macey!" I yelled in response. "Save Macey!"
But Macey didn't need saving. And I know now that that was the problem.
I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know where Zach had gone. All I knew was that I had to keep running— faster and faster until strong arms caught me around the waist. Before my feet even left the ground there was a rag over my mouth—a sick smell. I tried not to breathe as my arms flailed and the world began to spin.
And then falling.
I remember falling.
Through the eerie glow of the van's lights, I looked for Zach, but the figures were a blur as the pavement rushed up to meet me—too fast, too hard.
My head was on fire. My body was crushed beneath my attacker's weight. Someone or something must have knocked us both to the ground, because the rag was gone—the haze was parting just enough for me to see my roommates battling two men twice their size. Liz clung to the big man's back while Bex parried away his blows. Macey fought against the second man, and I wanted to yell for her to run, but my head throbbed as if there were simply too many facts—too many questions—for my mind to contain, and the words didn't come.
And then the crushing weight was gone. Clean air rushed into my lungs. But before I could push myself up, the rag was on my face again. The arms were gripping me tighter and the cloud over my eyes was growing thicker, so I summoned my last ounce of strength and crashed my head into my attacker's skull.
I heard a crack, felt the blood of a broken nose pouring over me as I stumbled to my feet. But the world was spinning too fast, my legs were too heavy. The arms found me again. I felt the van coming closer as my heels dragged against the pavement, and I searched the blurry darkness for help—for hope. And that's when I saw Macey.
She was running toward me. So strong. So fast. So beautiful.
"She's safe," I whispered, but no one heard the words— the lie.
I sensed the motion stop too late. I felt the right side of my body sinking, but I didn't fight to stand. Instead, I watched my roommate run faster, heard her call my name louder, but the one thought that filled my muddled mind was that the girl by the lake was no match for the girl in front of me then.
"No!" I heard the word but I didn't remember screaming. I saw the flash—heard the blast—but I hadn't seen the gun.
I lunged forward, but was too late. Not even the Gallagher Academy can teach someone to turn back time.
Yells filled the air. Panic spread on the wind as the gunshot echoed down the dark street and out into the night. And that's when I knew the voice I'd heard wasn't mine. Someone else was screaming. Someone else was running through the black. Someone else was 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 me back, but I spun and kicked, heard a sickening snap, and watched the masked figure fall.
I stepped, but my legs failed me. I fell to the ground and tried to crawl, but couldn't. Maybe it was the drugs from the rag, maybe it was the blow to my head, or maybe it was the sight of my roommate screaming over my aunt's broken body, but for some reason my arms forgot how to move.
"Get her out of here!" Mr. Solomon appeared as if from nowhere.
"Now!" My mother's voice echoed on the wind.
A hand grabbed my arm again, but this time I lashed out with more rage than I had ever felt, climbing to my knees, spinning, kicking, yelling, "Get…"
It was the eyes that made me stop. And the hands that were suddenly held toward me. And the words, "Gallagher Girl"
I wanted to sink to the pavement, to rest. To sleep. But
Zach's hand found mine again. He pulled me to my feet as my head swam and my throat burned and the world went on crumbling all around me.
"Run," he said, dragging me 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.