Before we lost a lot of things.
"What happens now?" I heard my voice crack and knew that I was almost crying, almost pleading. My anger was gone, and in its wake rushed a wave of grief and terror so powerful that I could hardly breathe. I thought of Abby bleeding. I thought of Macey and Preston. And finally, I saw Zach as he hovered over me, as my mind whirled down a laundry chute, plummeting in a free fall that I feared might never end. "It's just…Mom…why?"
My mother held me. My headmistress smoothed my hair. And the greatest spy I've ever known whispered, "We'll find out. I promise we will find out."
Chapter Twenty-nine
Classes should have ended, but they didn't. Finals week should have been over, but it was still weeks away. And yet every girl at my school knew that my roommates and I had already been tested. I thought about Aunt Abby, and I knew we'd barely passed.
It took three weeks for it to happen, for Mr. Solomon to knock on the door of Madame Dabney's tearoom, for my roommates and me to get called downstairs.
Following our teacher through the hall that day, I didn't let my mind wander—I knew too many dark places where it might go, so I kept my focus on the footsteps, on the stairs and on the walls. Until Mr. Solomon opened my mother's office door—
And someone said, "Hey, squirt."
"Abby!" Bex and Liz called at the same time, rushing toward her, throwing their arms around her.
"Girls," my mother said, as if to remind them that (at
least in Bex's case) they don't know their own strength.
My aunt was paler than I remembered. And thinner, almost frail. Her right arm was held in a sling. But her eyes were the same—so that's where I looked as I stepped closer.
"How are you?" I asked, almost afraid of the answer, but asking the question anyway.
My aunt smiled. "Never better." I wondered if she might be lying—or if I would be a good enough operative to know. "Evidently, Langley needs someone with a recent gunshot wound to impersonate a known arms dealer in…well…somewhere." She looked up at the sky and cocked her hip, then held her sling out for us to see. "Is this the ultimate cover or what?"
But, amazingly, the four of us didn't agree.
"Do you really have to go?" Liz glanced at Abby's suitcase. "You could stay here, couldn't you? You could teach?"
"Awesome!" Bex exclaimed, but Abby was already shaking her head, pulling her bag onto her good shoulder. But that didn't stop Bex from saying, "Ooh, you could come home with me for Christmas. Cam's coming. Mom and Dad would love to see you."
"Thanks, Bex," Aunt Abby said, "but I'm afraid I have some…other things I've got to do."
For about the millionth time in the past month I thought about what was happening outside our walls, but then I remembered not to ask the questions that I didn't want answered.
"So I guess I'll see you later." Abby hugged my mother,
who whispered something in her ear.
As she stepped toward the door she looked to my roommates and me. "Sorry, gang, but I don't do good-byes."
But then she stopped. She dropped her bag and turned. "Oh, what the heck."
And I can honestly say that none of the spy training in the world prepared me for the sight of my aunt grabbing Joe Solomon by the shirt.
And kissing him.
On the mouth.
For eighty-seven seconds.
Liz gasped. Bex stood there with her jaw on the ground. And me—I just looked at my mother, who was staring at the two of them as if her world couldn't possibly get any weirder.
When it was over, Aunt Abby finally came up for air (Mr. Solomon, I noticed, didn't do much of anything). My aunt looked at her sister, cocked a hip, and said, "Well, someone had to do it."
And that was when she walked away.
Mom and Mr. Solomon were still pretty dumbfounded, given what had just transpired and all, but Bex, Macey, Liz, and I chased after her, watching the living legend who shares my name walk through the Hall of History, past the sword that had started it all, and then start down the Grand Staircase, away from us.
In that one final second, everyone I loved was warm and safe.
"Don't be a ghost this time." My voice sliced through the empty foyer. "Go do what you have to do, but don't be a ghost, okay?"
Abby turned to me, then pulled a jacket from the bag on her shoulder. "Here. I think someone gave this to you."
I didn't look to see if my aunt's blood still stained Zach's jacket. I didn't let myself think about that night. Instead, I just took it and tried to think about why he had given it to me and nothing else.
"Abby." It was Macey's voice, and by the look on her face, she was as shocked as anyone to hear it. "I never said…I mean, you should know … I guess what I'm trying to say is…"
Abby stopped. Her good hand was on the smooth banister. Her hair fell over one shoulder as she smiled, slipped on her regulation sunglasses, and said, "I told you I'd take a bullet for you."
And then she walked away.
I stood there for a long time, watching her go, because that's all that was left to do.
Bex and Macey went into the Grand Hall for lunch. Liz walked to the library. I stood alone, telling myself that my aunt would come back someday—that the world needed her outside the walls of my school, and for the time being, I was needed inside.