“Trust me, Cam, you don’t need to worry about my sister and Agent Townsend,” Mom said, but I was still rambling on.
“Zach’s mother is going around killing people. She’s killing people—and their kids—and I can’t do anything but worry.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” Mom sounded like she meant it, and I think she really did. “I have to go.”
I didn’t ask where. I didn’t ask why. I knew better than to beg for answers. She was never going to give them.
“Are you going to get Preston?” Macey called from the end of the hall.
Mom shook her head. “No.”
“But you’re leaving, aren’t you? To track down one of them…one of the Inner Circle?” I asked, but my mother’s silence was her answer.
I watched her turn and walk steadily to the end of the hall, no hesitation. No fear.
“Mom,” I yelled, and she glanced back, dark hair falling across her shoulders. “Be careful.”
It was cold as we walked from the P&E barn and back to the mansion that night. We shivered in our uniforms and thin sweaters. Overhead, there was a blanket of clouds hanging between us and a starry sky. I thought about Zach and Mr. Solomon, my mom and Aunt Abby. I wondered where in the world they might be. Was it cold there too? Or were they someplace where it was summer and the middle of the day? There were about a million things I didn’t know, so I gave up trying to guess the answers. Instead, I wondered what they would do if they were the ones being left behind, treated like they were helpless.
The Circle of Cavan wasn’t my own private mission, no matter how personal it felt. It hadn’t started with me. But somehow I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was going to end with me. Eventually.
And right then I couldn’t take it anymore. The waiting. The helplessness. I didn’t want to go back in time anymore. I was ready for my future when I stopped and asked, “Okay. What can we do?”
It wasn’t a rhetorical question. Very few questions at our school ever are.
“What do you mean, Cam?” Liz asked.
“I mean, we don’t know what the Inner Circle is planning and, aside from Ambassador Winters, we don’t know where any of them are.” I shrugged at the irony. “I don’t even know where my boyfriend is. Still, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to go crazy if I don’t do something.”
Macey rolled her eyes. “I know. Let’s stand around talking about it some more.” Then she started toward the doors with new fire, new purpose. “No. I’m through talking.”
“What are you doing, Mace?” Bex asked, blocking her way; but Macey didn’t even look at her.
“What do you think I’m doing? I’m going to do what someone should have done weeks ago. I’m getting Preston out of there.”
“Come on, Macey,” Liz said. “Let’s think about this.”
“I’m through thinking.”
“They said we shouldn’t go, Macey.” I took her arm, held her there. “They said he’s not in any danger.”
Macey gave a knowing—almost spiteful—smile. “And they’d never lie, would they?”
It only took a second for the words to seep in, and yet it seemed like it took forever. Of course my mother would lie. To keep me safe. To protect the mission. To stop the Circle and its leaders once and for all.
“I’m going to Rome,” Macey told us. “Now, you can stay here or you can come with me. I’m not giving you a third option.”
She turned and started inside, but in a flash, Bex’s hand was on her arm, gently tugging her back as if pulling her away from a cliff.
Macey whirled on her. I wasn’t sure if she was going to strike or just pull away; but she didn’t have to do either because Bex was smiling, saying, “Then I guess we’re going to miss some classes.”
Chapter Seven
HOW TO SNEAK OUT OF YOUR SCHOOL AND CROSS THE ATLANTIC WITHOUT A WHOLE BUNCH OF SPIES BEING THE WISER:
(A list by Cameron Morgan)
Secret passageways. I know I’ve mentioned these before, but seriously. My academic experience would have been extremely different without them.
Roommates with private jets. Again, this makes things a lot easier. I’m not saying that we couldn’t have stowed away on a cargo ship (that was Bex’s original idea), but when Macey made a phone call and said, “The jet will be here in twenty,” we didn’t exactly protest.
Don’t go where you’re going. No. Really. So you want to go to Rome to break out your roommate’s boyfriend…the last thing you do is fly to Rome. Too obvious. Too easy to track. And, besides, we were in Macey’s mom’s private jet. There were going to be flight plans and manifests and stuff. So Rome was absolutely not our destination.
Pack carefully (because even a rolling bag can be inconvenient in a high-speed chase, especially one involving cobblestones).
Be careful.
The shoreline of Marseille was beautiful, I had to give it that much. I stood on the deck of the tiny boat that Macey had hired to take us across the Mediterranean, watching the lights disappear in the distance. Ocean spray slapped me in the face, and I had to keep hold of the railing to stay on my feet. Big swells rocked against the hull. A storm was moving in. That’s when I felt the dark figure that came to stand beside me.
“Have you talked to Preston?” I asked Macey.
“Before we left for break your mother absolutely forbade me to speak to him. Remember?” she asked me.
“I do remember. So”—I looked at her from the corner of my eye—“what did he say?”
Another big wave crashed against the boat. Liz was down below, curled up in a little ball, eating green apples and every kind of anti-nausea medication we were able to smuggle out of the school’s medical wing. Bex wasn’t going to leave her, so that meant Macey and I were alone.
“He doesn’t have a clue, Cam.” She leaned her arms against the rail and stared out at the water, which was as blue as her eyes. “I called him on New Year’s Eve. He was going to a party. He was…fine. That same day, Zach’s mom was murdering a man and blowing up Cambridge, and Preston was talking about spring break. He asked me to come visit.” Macey looked down at the water. “I think he really likes me.”