Over and Run With - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter One

It's a scary thing, running—inherently so. It doesn't matter if you're running for fun, running for fitness, or running for your life. It's scary. Always. Your heart starts beating too fast and your lungs shrivel up. You're forced to ask yourself if your throat really is on fire. When you run, the world comes at you faster, stronger, harder than it usually does and that's scary. I wish it weren't so scary.

And hard. Running is so hard, and it's even harder when there's something on the line. Your life. Your family. Your pride. It makes everything seem more immediate, more dire. There's no room for a single mistake, otherwise the whole thing comes tumbling down and all you get are scraped knees and scarred elbows.

I'm a runner. I'm told it's hereditary.

I must spend the majority of my life running, because it's hard for me to sit still. When something is wrong, I have to fix it. When something is right, I have to help it. There's always some place I have to be that isn't the same place I am, and maybe that doesn't make sense to a lot of people, but it's just how I work. I'm starting to accept that. I'm starting to realize that I'm always going to be moving.

"Your grandmother made breakfast."

Grandpa Joe had his jacket on, hands in his pocket, and the smoke on his breath was enough to remind me how cold it really was. Running always made it feel so much hotter, face flushed, throat scratching, but the sun was just barely up, peeking through frosty branches with bold, golden glares. "If that's your best attempt at getting me inside," I huffed, "you're in trouble."

He didn't smile, but it was close. "They're waffles. She's not bad at waffles."

"She's not great at waffles," I muttered.

He shrugged. "Better than her pancakes."

"Well that's just because waffles are objectively better than pancakes. Always."

"It's a texture thing?"

"Totally a texture thing."

"Yeah," he said, like he'd heard it all before. Then, abruptly, "You know, Morgan Ann, if you're going to try and cover up the fact that you've stolen my vests for a four AM run, you should wear a thicker jacket."

You might think that when your family is made up of the world's greatest minds in spycraft, you get used to the feeling of getting busted. But you don't. Ever. "How did you know—?"

"It's too big on you," he said, sliding two fingers underneath a stretch of fabric where the vest puffed up, showing under my jacket. "Spotted it from the house. Not to mention the fact that I was missing a vest when I counted this morning. That was a pretty big clue."

I shrugged at him, and I could feel the world on my shoulders. "I just wanted to get used to the weight," I told him. "Graduation's coming up. CIA makes you wear vests."

Grandpa Joe eyed me. "Is that right?" he said. "Because if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to make sure nothing happened to you on your morning run."

But that was the thing about Grandpa Joe. He did know better. One long look in my direction and he knew I'd been exposed. He sighed. "Do you really think someone's going to shoot at you back here?"

I didn't retreat from my stance. "Right," I said. "Because no one's ever gotten shot at their safe house before."

He crossed his arms. It was a teacher, not a grandfather, who spoke to me next. "The kind of people who get shot at their own safe houses are also the kind of people who are not careful with their safe houses," he said. "But this? There's not a secret in the world more closely guarded than the location of this place. This house is safe, Morgan."