My hands went rigid, forming fists around his collar.
"We? Who's 'we'? Where is my mother?" I yelled, but Townsend was drifting. His eyelids fluttered. He stared out the wavy glass as if he'd never seen a window before.
"It is beautiful here," he said, then closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.
I released my grasp, watched him land against the pillows. He looked as peaceful as a baby.
And then Liz slapped him. Ys, actual slappage.
He shuddered awake, his eyes clear for one brief second.
"No!" Liz yelled, slapping him again. "You're wrong!" she snapped.
"Liz . . ." Bex reached for her, but Liz lashed out again.
"You're wrong!" she yelled. "Mrs. Morgan is going to come back, and we're going to clear Mr. Solomon's name, and then this school will have a real teacher again."
"Oh now, I doubt that." There was something of the man from London creeping back into his voice. He smiled. "I don't think Rachel Morgan would want to work beside the man who killed her husband.
Chapter Sixteen
It was too hot inside the mansion. I remember passing roaring fires and foggy windows -
pushing through crowed hallways as if I might never breathe fresh air again. Fire. It felt like the world was on fire.
"Cammie!" Bex called behind me, but I didn't stop until I was across the foyer and pushing against the heavy doors.
I didn't have a coat. The sky above me heavy, dark, and gray as I crossed the field that stretched from the mansion to the woods.
"Cammie," Bex called again. Behind her, I saw Liz and Macey running closer.
"Cam, are you okay?" Liz called, and I whirled.
"No!" I didn't know I was shouting. I only knew the word had been trapped inside of me, boiling. "No! I'm not okay."
My roommates stopped, frozen. They seemed afraid to get too close.
"We don't know what he meant by that," Liz told me. "We don't know where he got his information or if his sources are secure. We don't know what that meant."
"No." I shook my head. "That's just it. We don't know anything. I know bombs and antidotes and how to say 'parakeet' in Portuguese, but I don't know where my father is buried."
Liz's eyes were red as they stared into mine. "Cammie, it's okay. It's going to be okay."
"Mr. Solomon killed my dad. Mr. Solomon . . ."
As I trailed off, Bex stepped closer. She reached for me, but I jerked away.
"They want me . . . alive." Hot tears stung inside my eyes. My throat burned. "They need me alive!" I screamed, unable to stop the words. "How am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to feel?"
"I know how you feel, Cam," Macey said.
"You don't -"
"Cammie!" I'll never forget the tone of Macey's voice in that moment. "Cam," she said slowly, moving toward me, "I know how it feels to be watched every second of every day. I know what it's like to rust fewer and fewer people until you feel like you are completely alone in the world. I know you think that the only things that are left in your life are the bad things. I know what you're feeling, Cam." Her hands were on my shoulders. Her blue eyes were staring into mine. "I know."
For two months I'd lived with the knowledge that the Circle of Cavan was after me, thinking that no one could possibly know what that felt like. Like no matter where you were or who you were with, you were never safe. But I was wrong . . . someone dad. And she was standing right in front of me.
"He won't tell me where my mother is," I said softly. "Agent Townsend knows - he knows! And he won't -"
"We'll find her, Cam," Bex said, reaching for me. "We will."
"Yeah," Liz said, joining us.
"We'll track your mom down - track her to the end of the earth if we have to - and then we'll ask her . . ."
The air felt warmer with my friends there around me. I felt my heartbeat start to slow as I heard a voice behind me say, "Ask me what?"
Chapter Seventeen
She was there. My mother was there. It felt so strange to see her - to hear her voice, watch the way she walked with us to the front doors and up the Grand Staircase - as if nothing at all had happened since putting me in a limo with the Baxters in December and waving good-bye.
"Mom, I -"
"It's good to see you, kiddo." She put her arm around me and held me tightly as we reached the Hall of History. "Did you and Bex have nice break?"
She hadn't called on Christmas morning. She hadn't come to London after what happened on the bridge. She had been absent from our school for almost a month, and yet as I watched her unlock her office door, there was only one question I wanted answered.
"Is it true?"
The Baxters and Aunt Abby and even Agent Townsend had told me the facts, but only my mom could make me believe them. "Is Mr. Solomon really part of the Circle?"
I heard chatter coming the halls, but my classmates felt a million miles away as my mother stepped into the dark room and softly whispered, "Yes."
She stared toward her desk. Inside her office, I felt brave enough to ask, "Did he kill Dad?"
"The Circle has a long history of recruiting agents very young, Cammie. When Mr.
Solomon joined, he would have been -"
"Did he kill my father?"
"Cammie, sweetheart . . ."
My lips began to tremble. The pressure I'd been feeling for months rose and swelled, and then I couldn't stop it. The world was blurry and my cheeks were wet, and no matter how hard I tried, it was like I'd forgotten how to breathe.
"I'm so sorry, Cammie. I'm so sorry."