Across the room, Zach had taken an old sword from the walls and was fighting two men at once. The steel blade made a sharp sound in the hollow space and the rhythmic clash of the blades was almost soothing - like a beat. A pulse.
"You know, Cammie, I do wish you and I could be friends. We have so much in common."
"Yeah I -" But then I couldn't finish, because I realized that the swords were no longer clashing. I turned to see that the two men Zach had been fighting were now on the ground, bleeding, struggling to their feet, while Zach dashed to Mr. Solomon, who was fighting on the other side of the room.
Zach was so focused on Mr. Solomon, so anxious to come to our teacher's aid, that he didn't see when one of the men on the ground pulled out a gun and took aim at Zach's back.
"No!" someone screamed, and only when the man stopped that I realized it hadn't been me. There was only one person in the cave with the power to save Zach - one person with the power to stop those dominoes from falling, and she was the person who turned from me and started toward her son.
I watched Zach's mother slam into the gunman - heard the weapon clatter across the floor. Even without turning, I knew that no one was behind me then - that there was absolutely nothing between me and one of the tunnels that spiraled off the main floor.
And yet I couldn't move.
Everything seemed to freeze for that one second, as Zach picked up the gun and yelled,
"Now! Run!"
But I couldn't leave him, couldn't run, couldn't do anything but shout "No!" as Zach took aim at the metal box marked WARNING: EXPLOSIVES, and mouthed the word, "Good-bye."
The shot echoed through the tombs. Sparks rained down, lighting up the cave like the Fourth of July. A red light sizzled past me while my arms started pumping at my sides, the journal rubbing against the small of my back. And even when the first crack of the explosion sounded through the tombs, I managed to stay ahead of it, one foot in front of the other through eerie, smoky haze.
I kept running.
I didn't look back.
No good would come from watching as the ghosts of Blackthorne burned.
Chapter Forty-One
Fire. I tried to forget about the fire, but the narrow tunnels felt like an oven. The water seeping through the walls turned to steam. I didn't let myself think about the caved-in passages that Zach and I had seen, and the chance that this unfamiliar tunnel was a dead end too. I just kept running until the smoke grew thinner and the air was fresher.
"Spread out!" the call echoed through the dark. "Find her!"
In my ear, the comms unit was beginning to crack and hum, and I spoke into the static,
"I'm in the tombs. I'm running . . . I don't know." But I did know. Mr. Solomon was dead, but his voice was still alive in my mind. "South. I'm running south. The Circle is behind me."
I heard my mother's voice shouting orders, but not to me. I ran faster. Toward the light.
Toward the woods. Towards fresh air and freedom and backup. It would be over soon.
All I had to do was keep running.
The sound of the river was louder. I could hear the falls and breathe the moist, fresh air.
"I'm almost clear," I yelled into my comms. "I'm almost -"
But then I turned the corner, skidded to a stop, and realized I wasn't near the falls - I was behind them.
The tunnel ended in a rocky cliff. Gushing, falling water was the only thing standing between me and sky.
"I'm behind the waterfall," I shouted. "I'm -"
"Trapped?"
The woman didn't look like Zach - not then, not really. Without the mask she'd worn in Boston, I could see that her hair was a dark red and her skin was as pale as Madame Dabney's finest china. Her eyes, though. She had the same dark eyes as her son. As she looked at me, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd never see his again.
"It's over," I told her. "I'm wearing a comms unit. Everyone knows -"
"It doesn't matter what your protection detail knows, Cammie dear. "It's too late. No one can help you."
I heard more sounds coming from behind her. People were coming. Her people.
"You can't beat us," I said. "Kill me, take me, it doesn't matter. The Gallagher Academy will just make more girls like me. If one of lives, we all live."
"Of course they will." She smiled. "They made me."
I didn't say anything - I swear I really didn't - but the look on my face must have spoken volumes, because in the next moment, the woman was laughing a terrible, joyless laugh.
"Oh, didn't Zach ever mention that his mother was a Gallagher Girl?" She cocked an eyebrow, then shrugged. "I guess not."
"No." I shook my head. "No. Gallagher Girls are -"
"We are whatever we want to be, Cammie." She stepped closer. I cringed at the word we.
" Anything we want to be."
I thought about what Abby and the Baxters had said that night in the castle - that the Circle had a knack for recruiting agents very young . . . Joe Solomon had grown up and seen the light and spent his life trying to right his wrongs. But most people - I looked at Zach's mother, at the dark depths of her eyes - most never left the tombs.
"So, see? We're sisters, Cammie. You really don't have to be afraid. What we need lives inside of you." She tapped her temple. "We only want to borrow it."
Mr. Solomon was dead.
Zach was dead.
"I won't go with you," I said, easing closer to the edge, remembering her promise and the fact that had haunted me for months: They wanted me alive.
"Come on, Cammie, step away from that nasty cliff. Don't be foolish."