"Josh—"
"No, I really want to know. Was it charity case week? Or date your local delivery boy month? Or—"
"Josh!"
"Or were you just bored?"
"YES!" I yelled at last, wanting it to stop. "Yes, okay. I was bored, and I wanted to see if I could get away with it, okay?"
Mr. Solomon was right—the worst kind of torture is watching someone you love get hurt.
Josh backed down, and his voice was almost a whisper as he said, "Okay." We'd both gone too far—said too much— but we both knew then that there are reasons Gallagher Girls don't date boys from Roseville. He just didn't know that the reasons are classified.
"Look, I'm leaving tomorrow," I said, knowing that I couldn't have Josh climbing the fence that night or any other. "I had to say good-bye." I reached into my pocket for the earrings. They glistened in my hand like fallen stars. "You should probably take these back."
"No," he said, waving them away. "They're yours."
"No." I forced them into his hand. "You take them. Give them to DeeDee." He looked shocked. "I think she'd really like them."
"Yeah, okay." He shoved the earrings into his pocket as I forced a smile.
"Hey, take care, okay?" I took a step, then remembered how he'd felt chained to one kind of life while I felt bound to another. "And you know free will?"
"Yeah?" he said, sounding surprised that I'd remembered.
"Good luck with that."
Free will. I used mine to walk away—back to the life I'd been bound to, the life I'd chosen—and away from the boy who had shown me exactly what I was giving up. I hoped he wasn't watching me go. In my mind, he had already turned a corner—hating me a little, allowing that to bridge the gap over his grief. I walked on through the darkness, but I didn't look back.
If I had, I probably would have seen the van.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Tires squealed across the pavement. I smelled burning rubber and heard shouting and the sound of metal against metal—a door, I think. Hands were around my eyes, covering my mouth, just like on another night, on another street, when another set of hands came from out of nowhere. Autopilot kicked on, and seconds later my attacker lay at my feet—but it wasn't Josh—not that time.
Another set of hands were on me. Fists were everywhere. I kicked—made contact—heard a familiar, "Oh, jeez that hurt."
But before I could process what I had heard, I was on my stomach in the van, and someone was commanding, "Drive!"
I lay there, motionless, really ticked off, because, even though Mr. Solomon had been hinting for weeks that our CoveOps semester final was going to be a practical exam, I hadn't realized how literally he'd meant it until Mr. Smith blindfolded me and bound my hands.
"Sorry, Mr. Mosckowitz," I muttered, feeling guilty about kicking him so hard. After all, it was only the second mission he'd ever been on, and I kicked him in the gut. Plus, I'm pretty sure he's a bruiser.
He wheezed a little before saying, "That's okay. I'll be … fine."
"Harvey …" Mr. Solomon warned.
"Right. Be quiet," Mr. Mosckowitz said, jabbing me softly in the ribs, sounding like he was having the time of his life.
Since it was a test and everything, I knew I'd better do as I was trained. I lay on the floor of the van, counting seconds (nine hundred eighty-seven, by the way), noting how we made a right-hand turn, two lefts, one U, and eased over some speed bumps that left me with the distinct impression that we'd detoured through the Piggly Wiggly parking lot.
As the van veered south, I was willing to bet my semester grade in CoveOps (which, technically, was exactly what I was betting) that we were heading to the industrial complex on the south edge of town.
Doors opened and slammed. People got out. Someone pulled me to my feet on a gravel parking lot, then two strong sets of hands dragged me onto a concrete floor and then into the artificial light and empty echo of a large, hollow space.
"Sit her down. Tie her up," Mr. Solomon commanded.
Do I fight now? Do I fight later? I wondered, then took a chance—I kicked and I made contact.
"You know, Ms. Morgan, that was your mother you just hammered," Mr. Solomon said.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" I cried, spinning around, as if I could see my mom through my blindfold.
"Good one, kiddo."
Someone pushed me into a chair, and I heard Mr. Solomon say, "Okay, Ms. Morgan, you know the drilclass="underline" there are no rules. You can hit as hard as you want to hit. You can run as fast as you want to run." His breath smelled like peppermint gum.
"Yes, sir."
"Your team was tasked with retrieving a disk with pertinent information. You were captured and are being held for interrogation. The retrieval team will be after two packages. Care to guess what they are?"
"The disk and me?"
"Bingo."
"You can't be certain that they can track you to this location." I heard him step away, his feet scraping across the concrete floor.
"Are they Gallagher Girls?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Then they'll be here."
Fifteen minutes later, I was locked in a room. I was blindfolded and tied to a chair and thanking my lucky stars that they'd made it so easy on me.
They'd left me with Mr. Mosckowitz.
"I really do feel bad, Mr. M," I said. "Really."
"Um, Cammie, I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to be talking."
"Oh, right. Sorry." I shut up for about twelve seconds. "It's just that if I'd known it was a test, I never would have used one of the forbidden moves—I swear!"
"Oh." A heavy silence filled the room as I waited for Mr. Mosckowitz's inevitable, "Forbidden?"
"Don't worry. I'm sure you're okay. It's not like you're light-headed or seeing spots or anything."
"Oh, dear."
For the world's foremost authority on data encryption, Harvey Mosckowitz was pretty much an open book.
"Hey, Mr. M, don't worry," I said, trying to sound all fake-calm. "It's only a problem if the red splotches appear on the small of your back. You don't have red splotches. Do you?"
That's when I heard the sounds of a certified genius spinning around in circles like a dog chasing its tail.
"I can't…Oh, the light-headedness is getting worse." (I didn't doubt it—he'd been spinning pretty fast.) "Here." He ripped the blindfold off. "You look."
Sadly, it was just that easy, and it would have been a lot easier if I hadn't been afraid to use any of the actual forbidden moves (mainly because I like Mr. Mosckowitz, and I didn't have written permission from the Secretary of Defense and all). Still, Mr. Mosckowitz was a pretty good sport about it.
"Oh, you girls," he said in a very awshucks way, once I had him tied to the chair.
"Just sit tight, Mr. M. It'll be over soon."
"Um, Cammie?" he asked as I headed for the door. "I wasn't too bad, was I?"
"You were awesome."
The first thing I had to do was get out of that room. The disk wasn't there—if it was, no way would Mr. Solomon have left only Mr. Mosckowitz to guard it, so I darted through the empty warehouse to an exit door, checked it for sensors and alarms, then rushed out into the shadows of the complex.
Outside, I felt my eyes adjust to the black. A little light escaped from the building I'd just left, but otherwise I was surrounded by nothing but old rusty steel, and dark, cracked windows. A cold wind blew through the maze, whistling between the buildings, blowing dead leaves and plumes of dust along the gravel lot. I squinted through the night, trying to sense movement of any kind, but if it hadn't been for the glistening new wire of a tall chain fence and some very well-hidden surveillance cameras, I would have sworn the place was a ghost town.