I know what a spy school looks like!
Or, at least, I thought I did. Until them.
Zach and I lay on our stomachs at the top of a low ridge, staring down at the Blackthorne Institute for Boys through the glare of a searchlight that swept across the grounds from the school's tallest tower. Most of the buildings were low and square with metal roofs and heavy grates on every window.
Despite the hour, a group of twenty boys was running across the open field that lay between the tree-covered hill and the big square buildings. They wore yellow jumpsuits and ran in perfect unison, marching, really, their chanting cries echoing through the valley in the dark.
"Night drills," Zach whispered, but drills for what, I didn't dare to ask.
A pair of headlights appeared at the gates, shining past the guard station and onto the gravel lane.
"Mom," I whispered.
"Right on time," Zach said.
When my mother began the drive toward the main building, I lifted my binoculars and carefully studied the sign that hung on the gate that swung open. BLACKTHORNE
INSTITUTE FOR BOYS, PRIVATE DETENTION FACILITY. DANGER. NO
TRESPASSING BEYOND THIS POINT.
The last year flooded back in bits and pieces - the perfectly made beds in the boys'
temporary quarters in the East Wing; the way the boys had twitched and squirmed as if they'd never worn a suit jacket or tie in their lives; and, most of all, the look is Zach's eyes as he'd warned me that I wouldn't like life at his school - wouldn't like it at all.
"You've got your cover, Gallagher Girl," Zach said quietly. "We've got ours."
Upon gaining access to the Blackthorne Institute for Boys, The Operatives were able to ascertain the following:
· The Blackthorne Institute's firewalls, according to Operative Sutton, were good.
But not quite good enough.
· As a part of their cover, the residents of the Blackthorne Institute were forced to wear jumpsuits in a shade of yellow that, according to Operative McHenry, doesn't look good on ANYONE.
· The guards at the Blackthorne Institute utilized a fairly aggressive form of perimeter patrol that was very effective except when an intruder knows the Bazinsky Method (which Operative Baxter did).
Zach had been right, of course. His school wasn't like my school. Blackthorne tried to look like a place for thugs, and the Gallagher Academy appeared to be a palace for princesses. My school was a half mile from Highway 10. Zach's school was hidden in the mountains, shielded from the outside world.
They had barbed wire, and we had stone walls.
Their school looked like a prison made to keep people in, and my school appeared to be a mansion built to keep people out.
But as I lay with Zach in the dark at the top of the ridge, I heard him breathing. His arm was arm against mine, and I feared I might sweat or fidget, that he might feel the blood that was pumping too fast through my body and guess the thoughts that were raging inside of me - all the things I didn't trust him to see or know.
I tried to pull away, but he put his hands on my shoulders and held me there. I knew that the Blackthorne Institute lay just beyond that ridge with its guards and teachers and little Joe-Solomons-in-training, and yet it felt like Zach and I were the only people on earth as he pressed his body against mine.
His hands moved to cup my face, and in the faint traces of light, I saw his eye perhaps more clearly than I ever had.
Zach saw me.
Zach knew me.
I was anything but invisible as we lay in the shadows, his face inches away from mine.
"Stay here," he whispered. I felt the words brush across my skin. "Pleas, Gallagher Girl, just stay here."
I wanted to pull away ,to remind him that I was a big girl, a highly trained operative, a spy - that I'd been training for this mission my entire life, and I wasn't going to be left on the sidelines. But in that dim space with Zach pressed tightly against me, only one thought came to mind. I kissed him - longer and deeper than I ever had before. The school was not watching us this time. There was nothing playful in his tone. We were just two people kissing as if for the first time, as if it might be the last.
And then I broke away. "So," I asked, as if I got kissed like that all the time (which, believe me, I don't), "where is it you're taking me again?"
"The tombs."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
In the next twenty minutes, I broke maybe a dozen rules of covert operations.
After all, I didn't know where we were going. I had no idea what we were going to find when we got there. I hadn't planned alternate entry strategies, exit strategies, or strategies for keeping my ponytail from blowing in my face. All I knew for certain was that Zach's hand was gripping mine (despite verifiable research that people are way stealthier when holding on to nothing), and that Bex's voice was the only familiar thing I could hear.
"Chameleon, what did he say again?" she asked through the comms unit in my ear as Zach and I covered the open ground beyond the ridge at a full run. "Because we're searching the database for 'tombs,' but -"
"It's not in the database," Zach cut in.
"Is it some kind of cemetery? We can't find an entrance on the -"
"There are no recorded entrances."
"Or references to it anywhere," Bex finished.
Zach looked at me. "It's not the kind of place that gets referenced."
"Cameras passing in three, two, drop!" Liz commanded from her watch post, and Zach and I fell to the ground like stones.
"Roll," Liz said, and I propelled myself down a steep incline and landed in a muddy ditch.
I heard voices coming from above us, footsteps as the Blackthorne Boys ran past in perfect unison, while Zach and I continued crawling through the mud.