He unbuttoned "Art's" shirt and stood in front of us in a white T-shirt (the black trousers, however, he kept on). "Welcome to the science of disguise."
A full minute later, half the class was still staring at Joe Solomon, wondering how old, kinda-pitiful Art could have been the same totally hot guy we had seen every school day for more than a year.
But I was turning, staring at a chameleon's utter fantasy—a place with the sole purpose of making a girl disappear.
And then I saw Bex, and my joy was instantly replaced with unease.
Because she was smiling. And nodding. And whispering, "Plan B?"
Chapter Sixteen
Covert Operations Report
After learning that Operative McHenry was in danger from a person (or persons) knowing the real identity of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, Operatives Morgan, Baxter, and Sutton decided to implement a shadow operation to oversee Operative McHenry's security.
It also involved a lot of shadow of the eye variety.
Was it crazy? Yes.
Was it necessary? Maybe.
Was there any way to talk Bex out of it? Only if we agreed to go with the hog-tying option, so really, it seemed like our best bet.
We spent all of Friday afternoon researching, planning, and doing some seriously covert accessorizing, but by
Saturday morning all I could do was walk with Bex and Liz through the halls and fight the combination of nostalgia and nerves that seemed to be growing stronger with every step.
After all, I hadn't been outside the grounds (unofficially) in months; I hadn't opened any of the secret passageways; I hadn't broken any rules. (Okay, I hadn't broken any big rules.)
But as I reached for the statue of the Rozell sisters (two identical Gallagher Girls who had posed as double agents— literally—during World War I), I couldn't shake the feeling that I was about to trigger an opening into something much darker and deeper than any secret passageway I'd ever found before.
And that was before I heard Liz cry, "Ew!" and saw her jump back, stumble over Bex's foot, and slam against the wall, skinning her elbow in the process.
The Operatives brought the necessary equipment for a detailed deception-and-disguise operation.
They did not, however, bring the necessary equipment for killing spiders.
Dusty cobwebs hung between the low beams like nature's little surveillance detectors. The biggest spiders I'd ever seen scurried from the light, and I just stood there remembering that there are many, many reasons why a Gallagher Girl should keep in practice. One, you don't want to lose your edge. Two, you never know when you might have to call upon your training. And three, if you go too long without using your secret passages, other things tend to take over in your absence.
Even Bex took a big step back. (Because, while Bex is perfectly willing to take on three armed attackers at once, spiders are an entirely different thing.) But Liz was the person I was staring at. After all, there we were, locked inside the safest place in the country, and yet she was already bleeding.
"Hey, Liz, maybe you should stay here. You know … set up and run a comms center?"
"That's better if I'm on site," she argued back.
"And cover for us," I added, "if someone starts asking where we are."
"It's Saturday," she reminded me. "In a huge building. That you are notorious for disappearing inside."
"But—" I didn't know what was coming over me, but suddenly I felt like someone should change my nickname from Cammie the Chameleon to Cammie the Corrupter. I was about to break out of my school (again), to do something I wasn't supposed to be doing (again). But that wasn't what worried me as I looked at Liz, who barely weighed a hundred pounds, and then at the secret tunnel that might have been leading us to actual bad guys with actual guns. "Liz, it's just that—"
"Why aren't you telling Bex to stay behind?" Liz shot back, but we all knew the answer: the only way Bex would miss this would be if she were unconscious. And tied up. And locked in a concrete bunker. In Siberia.
Which was a thought that almost made me laugh. Almost. But when I heard Bex say, "Maybe you should sit this one out, Lizzie," I knew my best friend was thinking it too. That once we went forward, there might not be any coming back. In a lot of ways.
Liz is a genius—the kind of genius that puts the rest of us to shame. She no doubt knew the odds. She'd probably calculated the chances of us getting caught, of us getting hurt, and (if it wasn't too traumatic for her to think about) of us getting knocked down a full letter grade on our midterms. But still she turned defiantly and pushed through the cobwebs.
There was no hiding our tracks then—no turning back— so Bex swept her arm across the door, gesturing "after you."
I stepped into the darkness with nothing but my training and my cover and my friends who would follow me to the end of the earth, no matter what was waiting for us on the other side.
Well, it turned out what was waiting for us was a 1987 Dodge minivan.
And Liz had the keys.
"Liz," I said, walking toward her, praying that no one would come driving by and see us. (Partly because we totally weren't supposed to be there. Partly because…well … it was a really ugly minivan.)
But Liz just said, "Get in." Then she stopped. "Who's driving?"
Bex dove for the keys, but given her tendency to forget which side of the road we're supposed to be on, I snatched them out of her grasp.