My head was on fire. My body was crushed beneath my attacker's weight. Someone or something must have knocked us both to the ground, because the rag was gone—the haze was parting just enough for me to see my roommates battling two men twice their size. Liz clung to the big man's back while Bex parried away his blows. Macey fought against the second man, and I wanted to yell for her to run, but my head throbbed as if there were simply too many facts—too many questions—for my mind to contain, and the words didn't come.
And then the crushing weight was gone. Clean air rushed into my lungs. But before I could push myself up, the rag was on my face again. The arms were gripping me tighter and the cloud over my eyes was growing thicker, so I summoned my last ounce of strength and crashed my head into my attacker's skull.
I heard a crack, felt the blood of a broken nose pouring over me as I stumbled to my feet. But the world was spinning too fast, my legs were too heavy. The arms found me again. I felt the van coming closer as my heels dragged against the pavement, and I searched the blurry darkness for help—for hope. And that's when I saw Macey.
She was running toward me. So strong. So fast. So beautiful.
"She's safe," I whispered, but no one heard the words— the lie.
I sensed the motion stop too late. I felt the right side of my body sinking, but I didn't fight to stand. Instead, I watched my roommate run faster, heard her call my name louder, but the one thought that filled my muddled mind was that the girl by the lake was no match for the girl in front of me then.
"No!" I heard the word but I didn't remember screaming. I saw the flash—heard the blast—but I hadn't seen the gun.
I lunged forward, but was too late. Not even the Gallagher Academy can teach someone to turn back time.
Yells filled the air. Panic spread on the wind as the gunshot echoed down the dark street and out into the night. And that's when I knew the voice I'd heard wasn't mine. Someone else was screaming. Someone else was running through the black. Someone else was lunging through the air in front of Macey and then falling too hard to the dark ground.
The hand with the gun tried to pull me back, but I spun and kicked, heard a sickening snap, and watched the masked figure fall.
I stepped, but my legs failed me. I fell to the ground and tried to crawl, but couldn't. Maybe it was the drugs from the rag, maybe it was the blow to my head, or maybe it was the sight of my roommate screaming over my aunt's broken body, but for some reason my arms forgot how to move.
"Get her out of here!" Mr. Solomon appeared as if from nowhere.
"Now!" My mother's voice echoed on the wind.
A hand grabbed my arm again, but this time I lashed out with more rage than I had ever felt, climbing to my knees, spinning, kicking, yelling, "Get…"
It was the eyes that made me stop. And the hands that were suddenly held toward me. And the words, "Gallagher Girl"
I wanted to sink to the pavement, to rest. To sleep. But
Zach's hand found mine again. He pulled me to my feet as my head swam and my throat burned and the world went on crumbling all around me.
"Run," he said, dragging me back the way we'd come— north, toward the door of the hotel. Away from the van. Away from the fight. Away from the gunshot that still echoed through the darkest parts of my mind.
In the distance a siren wailed. Someone yelled, "United States Secret Service!" And forty feet away my aunt lay on the ground. Not moving.
Macey leaned over her. Zach's jacket had fallen from my shoulders, and Macey held it to the wound in Abby's chest, trying to stop the blood that spilled onto the dark asphalt, staining all it touched.
"Abby," I whispered, but Zach didn't let me pull away.
I heard the van come to life behind us. Secret Service agents yelled. More shots rang out, and yet I felt Zach stop. I ran into his shoulder, too busy looking behind me to see the man who stood between us and the door.
I saw the gun. I sensed the van as it rushed forward, seconds away and coming faster. I heard the screams of the fight behind us. But nothing that night was louder than the masked man's astonished whisper as he looked at the boy who stood beside me and said, "You?"
We have theories about what happened next—but no reasons. No why. Maybe it was the sirens or the Secret Service, but the man ran instead of fought. He fled into the darkness while my mother cried my name, but her voice was too high. Her momentum was too strong as she hurled her body against mine, driving me deep into the shadows.
A wall of bodies went up around me—Secret Service agents, police officers, the women who had escorted us from the van and into the hotel. The women who had been waiting … on me.
I tried to get up, but strong hands pushed me down, back against the building, safe underneath the walls of my sisterhood, which had been transported somehow from Roseville and were standing guard around me.
"Abby!" I cried as one of the women shifted. I could see through their legs to where my aunt lay on the ground, blood soaking her blouse, not moving. "Aunt Abby!" I yelled again.
My mind flashed back to Philadelphia. I saw an angel holding a fallen soldier, flying from the fires of war. "No!" I started to crawl like a child, weak and helpless, thinking about my father, who had died in a way I'll never know, in a place I'll never see, wondering in that terrible moment what was worse—not knowing, or watching the life seep out of someone you love before your very eyes.
My mother was screaming. She was falling to her knees at Abby's side. So I fought harder.