Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover (27 page)

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.

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.

In
the distance a siren wailed. Someone yelled, "United States Secret
Service!" And forty feet away my aunt lay on the ground. Not moving.

Macey
leaned over her. Zach's jacket had fallen from my shoulders, and Macey held it
to the wound in Abby's chest, trying to stop the blood that spilled onto the
dark asphalt, staining all it touched.

"Abby,"
I whispered, but Zach didn't let me pull away.

I
heard the van come to life behind us. Secret Service agents yelled. More shots
rang out, and yet I felt Zach stop. I ran into his shoulder, too busy looking
behind me to see the man who stood between us and the door.

I
saw the gun. I sensed the van as it rushed forward, seconds away and coming
faster. I heard the screams of the fight behind us. But nothing that night was
louder than the masked man's astonished whisper as he looked at the boy who
stood beside me and said, "You?"

We have
theories about what happened next—but no reasons. No
why.
Maybe it
was the sirens or the Secret Service, but the man ran instead of fought. He
fled into the darkness while my mother cried my name, but her voice was too
high. Her momentum was too strong as she hurled her body against mine, driving
me deep into the shadows.

A
wall of bodies went up around me—Secret Service agents, police officers, the
women who had escorted us from the van and into the hotel. The women who had
been waiting … on me.

I
tried to get up, but strong hands pushed me down, back against the building,
safe underneath the walls of my sisterhood, which had been transported somehow
from Roseville and were standing guard around me.

"Abby!"
I cried as one of the women shifted. I could see through their legs to where my
aunt lay on the ground, blood soaking her blouse, not moving. "Aunt
Abby!" I yelled again.

My
mind flashed back to Philadelphia. I saw an angel holding a fallen soldier,
flying from the fires of war. "No!" I started to crawl like a child,
weak and helpless, thinking about my father, who had died in a way I'll never
know, in a place I'll never see, wondering in that terrible moment what was
worse—not knowing, or watching the life seep out of someone you love before
your very eyes.

My
mother was screaming. She was falling to her knees at Abby's side. So I fought
harder.

"Keep
her down!" The voice was Mr. Solomon's. The tone was one I'd never heard
before and I never hope to hear again. "They could come back!" The
circle around me tightened. "They won't stop coming until they get
her."

Get her.

All of my fight left me then. I
fell against the wall while the sirens wailed and numbness came and the words
echoed in the night.
Get me.

2300
hours

"She's
hysterical!" one of the paramedics said. The lights and sirens were too
much for me. I yelled. I fought. I had to be heard.

"Give her something," a
woman said. "But—" the paramedic started. "I'm her mother! Do
it!"

0200
hours

"Doctors
have no comment about the condition of the Secret Service agent who was shot
last night in a reported drive-by shooting in downtown Washington, D.C. The
agent had been assigned to Macey McHenry's personal detail, but reports
indicate that, given the outcome of last night's election, Ms. McHenry will
have no more need for

protection from the Secret
Service, that life for Macey McHenry can and will return to normal." I
heard the TV click off.

I stirred and blinked and
recognized the room around me—the leather sofa, the shelves of books. But the
drugs were too strong. Or maybe I was too weak. I slept again.

0445
hours

"You girls should be in
bed."

"No thank you,
professor," Bex said. "Rebecca, your mother and father have
personally asked me to watch out for you, and I would like you to go to
bed."

"I'm fine where I am,
professor. Thank you."

"I had a feeling you might
say that. At least let Ms. Sutton get some sleep."

0520
hours

I knew
I wasn't alone. Bex's whispers were soft outside the door. Liz was mumbling
something, half-asleep. Then a shadow cut across the room, and I saw Mr.
Solomon standing in the moonlight, staring out across the grounds.

But it must have been the drugs—I
must have still been sleeping—because it looked like his shoulders were
shaking. I could have sworn his hand wiped across his face. It wasn't real.

I was asleep.

Joe Solomon does not cry.

0625
hours

"Cammie."
My mother's voice was high and scratchy, and I knew that she'd been crying. If
you want to know the truth, that scared me most of all. I thought that maybe I
was dead. I wondered if I was looking up from a coffin and not a leather couch.
And then I thought about Aunt Abby.

"She's
out of surgery," my mother said, answering my unasked question, reading my
mind. She drew a deep breath. "She's out of surgery."

I
pushed myself upright and a blanket fell from my lap to the floor. There were
bandages on my head and arm. It was far too familiar to be anything but a very
bad dream.