Ally Carter - [Gallagher Girls 01] I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You

At least a dozen red images walked back and forth across the screen, but the majority of the red figures were huddled in the center.

"That's our package," Bex said.

"Doors are problematic," Liz said, reeling off options. "Windows are out. You'd better believe they're watching the heating ducts and—"

"You know what that leaves," Bex said, her voice like a dare.

Liz looked at us one by one, realizing what we were all thinking—what our only mission option was—and that we had twenty pounds on her.

"No!" Liz snapped. "I'll get tangled or decapitated or—"

"I'll do it." And that's when I turned to look at Anna Fetterman—Anna, who had clutched her class assignment slip just months before as if CoveOps was going to be the death of her, was stepping forward, saying, "I'm the right size, am I not?"

And that's when I knew that Dillon was going to see Anna again someday, and then he'd be the one who would need saving.

Beep.

What was that? I wondered.

Beep-beep.

"Is it a missile?" Anna snapped, looking to the sky.

Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.

"We're locked in as targets of a heat-seeking tranquillizer dart!" Eva yelled.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeep

"Okay, everybody, freeze!" a male voice behind us cried out.

Some of my classmates did as they were told. I did too, but for an entirely different reason. I'd never thought I'd hear that voice again, but there it was, saying, "I've…I've…already called nine-one-one. The cops are going to be here any—"

But the Gallagher Girls didn't let him finish. The nine-one-one thing had been the totally wrong thing to say, because in a flash, two of the girls were on him, and I had to cry, "Eva, Courtney, no!"

Everyone was staring at me—Josh, who was surprised I wasn't tied up or dead; and all of the sophomores (besides Bex and Liz), who couldn't imagine why I would have stopped them from neutralizing someone who had such obvious honeypotness.

"Josh!" I snapped in a harsh whisper as I turned off the power to the tracking device and headed toward him. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to rescue you." Then he glanced around at my black-clad classmates. "Who are they?' he whispered.

"We're here to rescue her, too," Bex said.

"Oh," he said, and then nodded blankly. "There was a van … I saw you … I…"

"That?" I said with a wave of my hands. "It's a school thing." I tried to sound as casual as possible when I said, "Kind of like… hazing."

Josh might have believed me if the entire sophomore class hadn't been standing on a warehouse roof, dressed in black and wearing equipment belts.

"Cammie," he said, stepping closer, "first I find out you go to that school, and then you tell me you're leaving, and then I see you kicking like a madwoman and getting kidnapped or something." He took another step, accidentally knocking over an old piece of metal that then skidded off the side of the roof and crashed to the ground below.

Sirens started wailing. Flashing lights streaked across the ground below us. Liz looked down, then cried, "He tripped the alarm!"

But that didn't matter, because I couldn't see anything but Josh. I couldn't hear anything but the fear in his voice when he said, "Cammie, tell me the truth."

The truth. I could hardly remember what it was. I'd been eluding it for so long that it took me a moment to remember what it was and what had brought me to that rooftop.

"I do go to the Gallagher Academy. These are my friends." Behind me, my classmates were moving, preparing for the next phase of the mission. "And we have to go now."

"I don't believe you." He didn't sound hurt then—the words were a dare.

"What do I have to say?" I snapped. "Do I have to tell you that my father's dead, and my mom can't cook, and that these girls are the closest thing I have to sisters?" He looked past me to the girls of every size, shape, and race. "Do I have to say that you and I can't ever see each other again? Because it's true. It's all true." He reached out to touch me, but I jerked away, saying, "Don't come looking for me, Josh. I can't ever see you again." And then I looked into his eyes for the first time. "And you'll be better for it."

Bex handed me a piece of gear, but before I took it, I turned to face him one last time. "Oh," I said, "and I don't have a cat."

I turned to hide my tears and stared into the deep expanse of night that lay before me. I didn't stop to think about all that lay behind. Free of my secrets, free of my lies, I told myself I was doing what I was put on this earth to do. I ran. I jumped. I stretched out my arms, and for ten blissful seconds, I could fly.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Okay, so it wasn't flying so much as skirting between two buildings on a zip line, but still, it felt good to be weightless.

Josh was behind me. I zoomed toward what lay ahead, and at that height and that speed, I didn't have a chance to look back. I touched down, and it felt natural to hear Eva tell Tina, "We're heading for the breaker boxes."

It was only right that Courtney should say, "Copy that," and drag Mick toward the fire escape on the west side.

We were Gallagher Girls on a mission—doing what we do best. So I didn't think about what had just happened, not even when Bex asked, "You okay?"

"I'm fine," I told her, and in that adrenaline-filled moment, it was true.

We ran to the south side, and Bex used a small tube that looks like a lipstick but really is a super-intense acidic cream. I totally don't recommend getting them mixed up, by the way, because, just as soon as Bex drew a big circle in the roof, the acid starting eating away, and thirty seconds later I was rappeling down into the warehouse below.

The building was a maze of tall metal shelves stacked with pallets. I imagined the beeping of forklifts as Bex and I crept through the south side of the building, trusting that our classmates were simultaneously creeping through the north.

"He's taller than I expected," Bex whispered as she waited for me to silently clear a corner.

"Yeah, whatev—"

But just then, a guy I recognized from the maintenance department jumped from a high shelf. He'd descended through the air like a big, black crow, but Bex and I had sensed him, felt his shadow. I stepped aside, and he landed with a thud against one of the shelves. He didn't even hesitate before spinning around to kick, but Bex was ready and slapped a Napotine patch right in the middle of his forehead. (I am really glad Dr. Fibs quit smoking, by the way, because, besides the obvious health benefits, the idea of putting tranquilizers on stickers is awesome.)

Bex and I were moving again through the dark maze when she said, "You're gonna find someone else. Someone even hotter. With even better hair!" Lie. But a nice one.

We crept farther down the aisle, carefully listening, sensing our surroundings (after all, if Mr. Solomon had called in favors from the maintenance department, then he was taking this finals thing seriously.)

"Beta team, how's it going?" I asked, but was met with static-y silence. Bex and I shared a worried glance. This is not good. "Charlie team?" Nothing from that end either.

I felt like a rat stuck in a maze, looking for a block of cheese. Every corner was dangerous. Every step could be a trap. So Bex and I looked at each other, recognition dawned, and we did what great spies always do: we looked up.

After climbing twenty feet to the top of the shelves, we could see men patrolling the paths beneath us as Bex and I moved stealthily above, drawing closer to the small office in the center of the building.

The office had interior walls that were probably twenty feet tall, far shorter than the warehouse roof that loomed, dark and cold, above us. We stopped and Bex held a pair of binocuglasses to her eyes, then handed them to me. "One guess who's sitting on the package?"