I felt the blood flow out of my face. My hands tingled. My heart pounded. And I thought for just one second that I’d be sick. There was too much emotion inside of me, and I felt the bile in my gut come to a simmer and then a boil, and I wanted to explode.
“Cammie?” Amirah’s voice cut through the haze. “Who is that?”
“He’s no one, Amy,” I said, pushing her behind me. “Just someone I used to know.”
“He looks familiar,” she said.
“Don’t look at him,” I warned. “Don’t talk to him. And do not listen to him.”
“Come now, Cammie,” Dr. Steve said with a chuckle. “Is that any way to talk to an old friend?”
“I already have enough friends, thanks.”
“Where is she?” he demanded. “Where’s Catherine?”
“The school. She’s being held in one of the Sublevels.”
He knew to stay back a little, far enough away that I couldn’t kick or punch or wrestle the gun from his hands.
“Then we’d better start walking.”
“Let Amirah go, Dr. Steve. You don’t need her,” I told him.
He laughed. “They need her, Cammie.”
“I thought we were on the same side now,” I tried to tell him. “Catherine said you just wanted to stop the Circle leaders and their war. To do that, we have to keep Amirah safe. We have to—”
“I don’t have to do anything, Cammie!” He was shouting. It was like the rage and stress were too much for him, and he wanted it to end as much as I did. But then he stopped. There was a new light in his eyes—a realization that he had the power to change everything.
“The Inner Circle needs you to die,” he said. His gaze fell on the girl behind me.
“That’s why we have to get her back to school, Dr. Steve,” I tried to tell him.
“They’re going to assassinate you,” he said to Amirah, but she didn’t wince or speak. She just put her hand at the small of my back as I moved to shield her more.
“Yeah, but we’re not going to let that happen, are we, Dr. Steve?” I took a slow step forward, closing the space between us.
“No. They can’t kill her if she’s already dead.”
He raised the gun higher, aiming it over my shoulder, and I knew there were no words—no logic—that could change what he was thinking. So I stopped thinking. I stopped waiting. I stopped planning and fearing and hating the man with the gun. I stopped being afraid for me, and I started caring only about my sister.
Without a word, I lunged in Dr. Steve’s direction, faster than I ever knew I could move. It must have scared him because he fired. Once. Twice.
Blinding pain coursed through me, but I didn’t stop. I just kept running toward him, catching his gun hand in my arms and spinning.
Was it starting to rain or was I sweating? I didn’t know. All I was sure of was that a pair of headlights had appeared in the dark. The car was racing toward us.
Dr. Steve fired again, and I kicked, knocking him to his knees. The gun clattered to the ground and I spun, sending him into the street, right into the path of the speeding car.
I heard the crash.
I saw the blood.
And then there was nothing but the sight of Dr. Steve’s crumpled body and the sound of Agent Edwards saying, “Cammie? Is that you?”
I don’t know what I must have looked like, between the blood and the falling rain. My hair matted to my head and clung to my face, water dripping into my eyes as I squinted against the glare of the headlights. The windshield wipers of the car sloshed back and forth like a metronome.
“Cammie, you’ve been shot!” Agent Edwards looked from Amirah to Dr. Steve, lying bloody and broken on the ground. “Is he dead?”
“I…I don’t know,” I told him. Amirah was rushing toward me, terror in her eyes.
I watched Agent Edwards study her, almost as if she were a painting. “Amirah…it’s you. You’re safe. Thank goodness. Now, come on, you two. We’ve got to get you out of here.”
He threw open the back door of the car, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to go to him. Instead, I stooped to pick up Dr. Steve’s gun. It was heavy and cold in my hands.
“Cammie, you’re bleeding. Come on. We’ve got to get you girls back to school.” He looked up and down the dark streets like he was worried about who or what might be coming for us next. “Cammie, come on.”
My left arm felt useless at my side, but it didn’t hurt, and I didn’t move to get into the car. I couldn’t. So instead I just asked, “What are you doing here, Agent Edwards?” I shifted a little, putting Amirah at my back.
“Cammie, I’m scared,” she told me, but I kept my sights on the man in front of me.
“Ms. Morgan, come with me. Now!”
“Why did I wake up early?” I asked him. He looked at me as if I were as crazy as advertised. The girl who had been brainwashed, kidnapped. Broken. “In Alaska, I was supposed to sleep longer. And yet you came out early to check on me anyway. Was it an accident?”
“What are you talking about, Cammie? You’re in shock. We don’t have time for this.”
“Did you want me to wake up early? Did you want me in that room when Ambassador Winters died?” He was frozen as I spoke. “Did you want me to die too?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“There’s something that’s been bothering me all these weeks. Why did the CIA want Zach? Want me? We’re just kids.”
“Oh”—he laughed—“I think we both know you’re more than that.”