And I saw the woman from the roof.
There was no mistaking her this time, because there, in the tombs, everything was louder, sharper, my senses were more alive than they had ever been before as I lay staring at the woman who had found me on a rooftop in Boston. And she was not alone.
Mr. Solomon's hands were bound. One of his eyes was bruised and swollen so badly it was completely shut, and as he limped forward I saw a massive gash in his leg. Five men stood guard around him.
"Okay," the woman said, turning to Mr. Solomon. "Now where is it?"
"What?"
The woman struck Mr. Solomon's face so hard that blood sprayed across the room.
"I'm only going to ask you one more time." The woman moved closer. In the hollow stone room, her whisper seemed to echo. "where is the log book that belonged to Matthew Morgan?"
My dad's journal. They were looking for Dad's journal.
But Dad's journal wasn't here, and Mr. Solomon knew that - Mr. Solomon knew everything about this place and yet he'd brought them into the depths of the mountain.
Into Blackthorne's version of Sublevel Two.
Beside me, I could feel the tension in Zach's arms. I could sense the gears working in his mind as we both asked a single question: What would Joe Solomon do?
"No," Zach gasped. I followed his gaze.
Cable lined the ceiling and walls, disappearing behind the shelves and filing cabinets, connecting everything in the room to a box labeled WARNING: EXPLOSIVES, and I couldn't help thinking, Just like Sublevel Two . . . .
I didn't know Joe Solomon - after all I'd learned about him, I wondered if I ever really would. But I knew that he would never willingly give in to the Circle again. I knew he would trade his life to bring the Circle to its end.
I looked at the explosives that filled the room - the burn bag they were locked inside of -
and knew that Mr. Solomon hadn't come here to save his life but to end it, and hopefully, take as many of them out as possible.
Zach started to stand, but I grabbed him.
"Think, Zach." I held him there. "We only have one chance."
I watched as fury faded into fear, and Zach stared into my eyes. "Cammie, you have to take this." He pressed the plastic-covered notebook into my hands. "You have to run."
"No. I have to help him."
He squeezed my hands tighter. "You have to live. Now go, and don't look back for anything."
"But, Zach -"
"They won't hurt me."
I wanted to ask why, but I knew he wouldn't say. I wanted to ask how, but I knew it didn't matter. Despite my training and good sense, I wanted to argue, but I knew we were out of time. Because A) There's very little use in arguing with a spy who has made up his or her mind. And B) Three armed men stood blocking the tunnel behind us, and there was absolutely no way out.
When the woman saw us, she laughed. It was a haunting, echoing sound there in the middle of the mountain.
"Found them on a sweep," The guard said, dragging me down the stairs. I tried to pull free, but the man was holding me to tightly. The woman walked closer, staring at me.
Appraising me. It was the dirtiest I'd ever felt in my life.
"Oh, this is a surprise." She smiled at me teacher. "Joe, you clever boy, why didn't you tell me you were bringing me a present?"
I looked at Mr. Solomon - tried to say that I was sorry. That I had followed the pigeons, but I'd failed. I expected to see disappointment in my teacher's remaining good eye, but instead what I saw was rage.
"They go or I give you nothing!'
"Now why would I do that?" the woman asked. "Break up this touching reunion?"
She reached out her hand, and I thought for a second that she was going to stroke my hair, but at the last minute she shifted, reaching for Zach's cheek, and said, "Hello, sweetheart. Aren't you going to introduce your little girlfriend to your mother?"
Chapter Forty
The mind is a powerful thing. I've read the research. I've seen it in action. My whole life had taught me those simple facts, and yet, in that moment, there was one thing my mind couldn't start to comprehend: the woman from the roof in Boston was Zach's mother.
I wanted to be sick.
"She's your mother," I stated plainly. It wasn't a question - it was a data point, and Zach was slowly somehow, making sense.
He reached for me. "Gallagher Girl -"
"Don't touch me." I pulled away, but not before his fingers grazed my skin, before I felt a spark, and I swore it would be the last thing I'd feel for him ever again.
In my ear, the comms unit was silent. We'd searched for too loch, gone too far, and now there was entirely too much mountain between me and any kind of help.
"It's very nice to finally meet you, Cammie. I've heard so much about you." When Zach's mother spoke, she sounded serene. "I hope you're not afraid. I'm sure Joe here would gladly confirm that we don't want to kill you."
My heart was racing, and yet somehow I knew that it was true - they really didn't want to hurt me. Which meant they wanted something far, far worse.
"Cammie, I -" Again, Zach reached me for. Again, I pulled away.
"Oh, sweetheart, I can see why you like her." Her mother laughed. "But now, everyone spread out and look for Morgan's diary." She eyed her son and me. "And someone search the two of them."
A guard was still holding me. Another man was moving closer. Through the light of the dim bulb that hung in the middle of the tall ceiling, I saw Zach's eyes go wide, and I thought of all the times he'd looked at me before - on an elevator in D.C., in the town square in Roseville, and in a tiny compartment on a train barreling through the night.
But as the guard reached me, and entirely new face was staring at me, whispering,
"Now!"
Believe it or now, there are some advantages to fighting two attackers instead of one. It was so much easier to throw my weigh back against the man who held me and kick the guard who was walking forward with his hands outstretched.
From the corner of my eyes, I saw Zach was spinning, kicking one of the ancient filing cabinets in the direction of his mother. It crashed against her, knocking her to the floor, paper falling all around her, while the guard at my back pushed me aside as if I were nothing, and ran to his boss's aid.
"What are you doing?" the woman yelled. "Get her!"
I heard the words. Felt my vision go blurry with rage. And in the next second, a dozen things seemed to happen at once.
Mr. Solomon lunged toward one of the men near the entrance of another tunnel. My teacher threw his bound hands over the man's head and strangled him, while I ran with all my might in their direction.
Someone move to block my path, but I jumped onto the bookcase, used my momentum to flip midair and catch the man's chin with my foot, before dropping lightly to the ground.
But someone else appeared in the corner of my eye, and I moved just as Zach's mother place a kick inches from my ear.
I stepped back as she circled me. Like I was prey. Above us, that lone light bulb swayed, casting a moving shadow over everything it touched as the woman who'd been haunting my dreams for months moved closer to me and smiled.
"You're far prettier up close, you know."
I parried away another of her blows, and when I countered, I landed I swift punch to her kidney and another to her face.
"Oh yes," she said, wiping at the blood that trickled from the side of her mouth. "I can certainly see the appeal."
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.