I thought of the way my mother had sat for days at his bedside, holding his bandaged hands. Everyone he loves.
“Who knows that he’s…”
“Not dead? Or not really a double agent working for the Circle of Cavan?” Abby guessed, but then she seemed to realize that the two questions would have the exact same answer. “As few people as possible. The academy faculty, of course. Bex’s parents. Agent Townsend—you know he had the nerve to send me a class syllabus?” She gave a short, mocking laugh. “He gave me notes for a proper course of study for young ladies in the clandestine services,” she said in a spot-on English accent.
It sounded just like the man I’d met last spring, and I had to laugh. Then, just that quickly, I had to stop. It felt wrong, there, in Joe Solomon’s hospital room, with my missing summer looming like a shadow in the back of my mind.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Abby. I’m sorry for…everything.”
“I’m not.” She reached for the dead flowers in the vase by the bed and threw them in the trash. “Oh, I could have killed you if I’d gotten my hands on you a week ago, but now…”
“You’re glad to see me?” I tried to guess, but my aunt gave a shake of her head.
“Now we’re just glad you’re home.”
Maybe it was the medicinal properties of a good night’s sleep, or the power radiating off of my aunt, but I felt stronger, surer. And I forgot all about my mother’s warning from the day before.
“Don’t worry, Abby. I’ll take all the tests and do all the exercises. I’ll do the work—I’ll do…anything. And I’ll remember. I’ll get my memory back and I’ll—”
“Don’t, Cammie.” Abby was turning, shaking her head. “Just don’t…push it.”
“I’m ready to push it. I’m ready to work and…What?” There was something in her expression, a sort of hopeful peace as she gripped my hands and searched my eyes.
“Don’t you see, Cammie? The Circle might have had you.”
I heard my voice crack. “I know.”
“So maybe they got what they wanted.”
For almost a year I’d lived with the knowledge that the Circle getting what they wanted was a bad thing. But right then Abby was looking at me as if she didn’t care about that.
“My mom said…” I choked and tried again. “Mom said I shouldn’t try to remember.”
“You shouldn’t,” Abby said.
“Why?”
“Cam, look at this.” She gently turned my hand so that I had no choice but to see the long bandages that covered the gashes on my arm. “Do you know what makes marks like this?”
I wanted to scream that that was the point, but I stayed speechless.
Abby let my arm fall. “Do you really want to know?”
I thought about the marks and the words and the terror in my mother’s eyes as she told me there are some things we don’t want to remember.
“Torture?” I said, but it wasn’t really a question. The answer was already there—in Abby’s eyes and on my skin. They thought I’d been tortured.
“Whatever it was, Cam. Whatever you lived through, it’s over. So maybe now the whole thing is over.”
“You mean maybe the Circle doesn’t want me anymore?”
Abby nodded slowly. She gripped my hands tighter. “Maybe now things can go back to normal.”
Normal. I liked the sound of that. Sure, as the daughter of two secret agents, a student at a top secret and highly dangerous school (not to mention someone who’d spent more than a year as the target of an ancient terrorist organization), I didn’t really know what normal meant, but that didn’t matter. Normal was my new mission. Normal was the goal within my sights.
Unfortunately, as soon as I reached the Grand Hall, I realized that normal was also a moving target.
“Hi,” Zach said, because, oh yeah, evidently Zach now had a regular place at our table in the Grand Hall. Then I looked up and down the crowded benches and realized that his new place was my old place.
“Hi,” I said back to him, because, honestly, what else can you say in that situation? You can’t really yell at your boyfriend for stealing your seat and your best friend. You also can’t yell at your best friend for stealing your boyfriend. Or…you can…but Hi seemed like a much easier way to start the morning.
“Welcome back, Cam,” Tina Walters said, after what seemed like forever.
“So what did you…” Eva Alvarez started, then stopped herself as if she’d already said the wrong thing. “I mean, did you have…Or…It’s good to see you,” she finally blurted.
“It’s good to see you too, Eva.” I forced a smile. “It’s good to be back,” I said, even though it totally felt like I had just left.
“Here.” Liz pressed closer to Macey. Together, the two of them were about as wide as a regular person, so I was able to squeeze onto the bench.
“Thanks,” I told her, pushing a few of her books aside, skimming over words like neurosurgery and cognition.
“Doing some light reading?” I asked.
Liz grabbed the books and shoved them into her backpack.
“You know, the brain is totally fascinating. Of course, it’s a myth that we only use ten percent of our brain function.”
“Of course you use more,” Zach and Bex said at the same time. They gave almost identical laughs, and I flashed back to what I’d heard the night before. I saw the way Bex and Zach sat together on the other side of the table, and my head hurt for reasons that had nothing to do with blunt force trauma.
“So where were you?” Macey asked, looking at me over the top of Liz’s head.
“Macey!” Liz hissed. “You know we’re not supposed to bother Cam with questions. Her memory will return if and when she’s ready.” She sounded like she was quoting someone or something verbatim.
“Last night,” Macey clarified, with a smirk in Liz’s direction. “Where were you last night?”
“Hospital,” I said, and risked a look at Zach and Bex—wondered what it would have been like to return to our suite after overhearing the two of them together. “I had to spend the night in a hospital room.” (Totally not a lie.)