My head smacked the mat and for a moment, everything was black. “Wee bit of revenge serves you right,” he said, not even offering a hand out to help me up.
I don’t know how Finn O’Reilly fights so well. He shouldn’t be able to know where I’m going to hit next. He shouldn’t be able to feel it coming, but he does and, more often than not, it ends with me getting knocked on my butt.
My ability to trash-talk, however, still remains in very good health. “Come on, Finny,” I teased, wiping the blood from my fat lip. “What’s that the Irish say? All’s fair in love and war?”
“Americans say that too, idiot,” he said, looking straight ahead. To his credit, he waited until I got back up before he started hitting me again—the truly honorable thing to do—but he didn’t hesitate once I was on my feet, taking another strike at me before my guard was up.
I blocked him, catching his wrist and twisting. “You know what else we Americans say?” I tried buckling his arm behind his back, but he spun on me, turning my own move against me until he hand be bent over backwards from my waist out. I let out a yell and the words came out as a groan. “Get the hell over it.”
“Has anyone ever told you how charming you are?”
Somewhere in between my cries of agony, I managed a laugh. “I can honestly say that you’d be the first.”
He pulled back harder and I felt my shoulder stretching, dangerously close to popping. “How’s that even possible?” he said. “Someone like you.”
“I know,” I said through gritted teeth, trying and failing to gain the upper hand. “Some might say it’s because of my abrasive”—yank. Scream—“personality.”
“Wow,” Finn said, sounding honestly impressed. “Alice was right about you. I could actually pull your arm outta its socket and you’d still be running your mouth.”
“She said that?”
“She did.”
“How sweet—wait. When were you talking to Alice?”
I turned against his hold, freeing myself for one, liberating second, but he was too fast. It was like he knew what I would do before I did. He tripped me and pinned me down on my stomach. “Oh, you know. Here and there. Usually when she’s escorting me back to the vans after someone tries to kill me.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill you.”
“I was in the infirmary for two days!” I rolled, trying to pin him down, but he saw it coming. He fell where I wanted, but instead of letting himself get pinned, he stuck his feet under my gut and shoved me, sending me flying through the air until I landed yards away, every breath leaving my body.
I didn’t catch my breath again until he was there, standing above me. He stuck his hand out to me and continued with his failing guilt trip. “You know, the doc said you could’ve blinded me.”
I took his hand, but instead of letting him pull me up, I tried to take him down. He fell with a graceful roll and before I knew it, I was back on my back, shoulders stuck to the mat. “What a tragedy that would have been,” I managed.
“Don’t know what I would’ve done.”
Will cut off our fight with a single call. “Alright guys,” he said, acting like the leader he was supposed to be. “Let’s call it a night—and remember, Hughes gets back tonight, so we’ll have practice like normal next week.”
The words probably could have brought upon world peace. As soon as he said them, boys unlocked arms and froze mid-hit. All of a sudden boys were smiling again, helping their brothers up from the ground. Finn helped me up and this time I didn’t pull him down, no matter how much I wanted to.
Most of the boys hit the showers, carrying their bags over their shoulders and into the locker room. Some of them skipped the showers altogether and just ran to dinner. I stayed behind and wrapped some tape over my hands. “Whatcha doin’ there, Cap?” Bill asked me. “You comin’ to dinner with us?”
I shook my head, testing the stickiness of the wrap. Not bad. It’d probably get me through a few hours. “I’ll catch up with you in a while. I think I’m going to stay behind and get a few more minutes in.”
Bill nodded like he thought it sounded good to him. Will, on the other hand, stayed still. “You sure?” said the leaner of the two boys. “I’m pretty sure the meat in the cafeteria is identifiable tonight.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be salad,” Bill mutter, not sounding very convinced.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. They could always make me laugh. “I’m sure, guys,” I said. “Just a few more minutes.”
Will studied me for a moment longer, but then his stomach growled. “Alright, Cap. We’ll save you a seat—nice work today.”
He was speaking as a Captain, not as a friend. If he were speaking as a friend, he would have told me just how much I’d sucked.
But he didn’t have time, because Bill as already running off towards the Mess Hall and the two of them are practically attached at the hip. Wherever one went, the other wasn’t far behind.
But I was behind. I was really behind.
I jumped up to grab the bar on the far wall. It was a sleek metal rod, resting horizontally on its supports. If a person were big enough, they might get stuck in the space between the rod and the wall, which might be why I liked this pull-up bar more than I liked all the others. None of the boys fit on this one. It was all my own.
I like to count in groups of ten. It’s easier to break up a workout that way. Sometimes, when I’m really tired, I keep track with fives. That night, I used fifties. I was already through three groups by the time someone came to check on me. “That’s funny,” he said. “I don’t recall assigning any extra workout time.”
Mr. Hughes walked into his training room in the same way he had so many times before—coffee in hand and looking like some sort of dream. It was nice to have him back. Will makes a good Captain and all, but I can only take so much of student leadership before I want to punch someone (which, at my school, is a dangerous thing to want to do, because other people punch you back really, really hard).
I pulled up on the bar, my arms turning to flame as I lifted myself. “Finn O’Reilly kicked my ass today,” I explained, letting myself down again.
Hughes smiled. “Finn O’Reilly kicks your ass every day, Virgo.”
“It was different today,” I said.
He set his coffee down on the first-aid station, walking over to me. He must’ve decided that my pull-ups looked too easy, because he grabbed my ankles, adding a bit of resistance. He always did this when I did pull-ups. The way he saw it, if he couldn’t get me to stop, then he would make it harder to keep going and maybe make me just a little bit stronger in the process. “And why is that?”
I pulled up against his extra weight. “He knew what he was doing,” I said. “He guessed every one of my moves—what kind of Junior Captain am I if someone can guess all of my moves?”
“You have gotten a bit set in your ways,” he admitted. Great. Even Mr. Hughes knew what my next move was going to be. Why hadn’t he told me? I would’ve switched things up if I’d know that I’d gotten predictable. “But that doesn’t make you inadequate.”
“That’s exactly what it makes me,” I snapped. My arms were screaming, but somehow, the pull-ups came easier. Mr. Hughes added more resistance. “When I’m halfway around the world running ops, I can’t afford to be predictable. And now Finn’s kicking my ass and Will’s been beating me at Running Rats every time. Charles can sprint faster than me and Eddie can run more distance and I’m just…” The words didn’t come. I couldn’t quite find the right one.
“Just what, Virgo?”
“A girl!” I hollered at him, letting myself fall far too quickly. My shoulders stretched as they caught my weight. “I’m just a stupid little girl. A girl who lost at Running Rats and Capture the Flag and… and… I’m always losing.”
I don’t know how many pull-ups I did in that moment, but if the pain shooting through my arms was any indication, it was a lot. “Hop down, Goode.”
“What?”
“Hop. Down.”
I wasn’t going to, but then Mr. Hughes pulled me down, so I tried to act cool as if it had been my idea from the very start. He crossed the room, grabbing a water bottle from the first-aid station and tossing it to me. The water seemed to sparkle as it arched across the room, a powerful snap echoing off the walls as it hit my hand. It occurred to me that we were completely alone in that room. Completely free to say whatever we wanted.
The bottle crackled and popped as I twisted it open, extinguishing the flames in my throat as I took a gulp. Then another. I drank too much water, but I couldn’t stop. How long had it been since I stopped for a drink?
“Have a seat, Virgo,” Mr. Hughes said, finding a spot among the mats. He slapped the spot next to him and I followed his orders, my grandfather’s warning strong in my mind. Other people stop. “Let’s have a chat.”
I took another glug of water as I sat. The bottle was nearly empty already. “Look Mr. Hughes. This is nice and all, but—”
“Sit down, Goode.”
“Yes sir.”
He pulled his knew up to his chest, wrapping his arms around it. He looked like he belonged on the cover of a magazine somewhere and yet, he was still so easy to talk to. He always had been. “What’s this nonsense about being a girl?” he asked.
I recalled my stats. How it felt being at the bottom of the list day after day, my best only making up the worst. “My whole life, I’ve been told that girls are just as capable as boys and I believed it. I believed it because the only boy that was ever around was Matt and I always just assumed that whatever advantage he had was because he was two years older than me, but that’s not the truth, is it?” I shook my head, not daring to look him in the eye. “Boys are stronger and faster. I see it in the stats every day. I see it in the way Finn O’Reilly knocks me down—they’re better.”
“Finn is an exceptional fighter,” he assured me. “You can’t compare yourself to him.”
“Okay, but what about Will or Bill?” I asked, every single name ranked above me coming back to me.
“They’ve both had years of extra practice. Virgo, I assure you that whatever disadvantage you’re at, it’s because of your status in the Gathering and not your status as an agent.”
“Listen Mr. Hughes—”
“You’re frustrated,” he cut me off. I saw him look down at the ground as if maybe an answer would be waiting down there and he could simply scoop it up and give it to me. But it wasn’t that easy. We both knew it. “I’ve asked you to take on a big challenge. Some of these boys have years on you and it’s going to take practice to catch up with them—this has nothing to do with your ability to grow facial hair.”
“But girls—”
“Have played a crucial role in history,” he said, refusing to let me finish my argument. “Women have gotten the short end of the stick as far as history is concerned. Surely you know this. Surely you know who writes the history books.”
“Men,” I said, repeating the answer I had been hearing for years.
“Men have been writing history since man could write—usually a very specific type of man.” He looked down at me now, and I couldn’t stop myself from matching his gaze. “The people who write history, decided what history means and, more often than not, those people are wrong. Women get erased. Stories go untold.”
“Name one story that you know isn’t written down in the history book,” I dared. “Name one where a woman hasn’t gotten her due credit.”
“How about your Gillian Gallagher?” he said. Instantly my mind jumped back to the Hall of History. To the one of hundreds of times that I had passed the sword of my sisterhood.
The story of Gillian Gallagher was one I knew well. All of us Gallagher Girls did. All of us knew that she saved President Lincoln from the first assassination attempt. All of us knew that she honed the skills of the trade—that she had been quicker and wiser than any one of the men who had actually been assigned to the president’s security staff. Gillian Gallagher was a success story. A story of triumph. A story which had not appeared in the history books until I reached the Gallagher Academy.
But it had occurred so long ago that it felt distant and surreal. Sometimes I had to wonder if that was all it was—a story. Who were we to say what had really happened all of those years ago?
“Gillian Gallagher is an outlier,” I said, unwilling to admit my doubts about the basis of my sisterhood. “One point doesn’t make a pattern.”
He nodded, his whole body in on the action. He was all there. Every bit of him was locked in to this conversation. That was what I liked most about talking to him. He drew me in. Made me want to say more. When I was with him, I could say anything and he would listen to me. Always. “Well, then, how about I tell you the story of another Gallagher Girl I knew.”
“Who?”
He cut me a glance. “Now, Virgo. You and I both know that’s classified.”
I nodded. Of course it was classified. Everything was these days. “What did your Gallagher Girl do?”
He looked right at me then, a smile more genuine than I’d ever seen crossing his lips. “She stopped World War III.”
I let the weight of the words fall on me, each hitting me with a new swing. World. War. III. Whoa.
I didn’t know I’d said anything out loud until Mr. Hughes laughed. “Whoa, indeed,” he agreed. “It was quite an impressive feat during a very impressive time in history, but you don’t know about it because, at the time, she was considered a fugitive. A rebel.”
I scoffed. Women who went against the status quo were so often labeled as such. Gillian Gallagher herself had been for a long time, according to the stories, and the number one way to get glossed over in a history book, is to do things against protocol. “What did she…?” I paused, trying to get a feel for which questions I was allowed to ask. “How did she do it?”
He watched me as I spoke, perhaps trying to get a read on me. “Well,” he said finally. “The world is constantly unstable,” he explained. “There are a lot of people in power who probably shouldn’t be and this can cause tensions to rise.”
He looked forward, seeming to watch his words as they left his mouth, just in case he slipped up and had to take one back. “This Gallagher Girl found out about a plan to start World War III from one of these people and decided that a World War wasn’t in anyone’s best interest—especially not hers.”
He laughed like there was a joke and I realized that there probably was. Just not one that I was in on. “Wars don’t just happen,” he went on. “You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded because, sure. In theory, I did know that wars didn’t just drop in out of nowhere, but actually talking about it—actually imagining it happen? That was a whole new game that I didn’t know if I was ready to play.
“It takes a series of events—carefully planned events,” he continued. “At this point, a few of those events had already happened. Some dominos had already fallen, you see. And so the world was more unstable than it usually was. We truly were on the brink of catastrophe.”
He was a natural storyteller, weaving the words around me until I felt completely enclosed within them. “What happened next?”
He looked at me like he was remembering that I was there. “Our Gallagher Girl figured out what the next domino would be, and so she gathered a team—got the good guys on the case.”
“And it worked?” I asked.
He nodded once, firmly. “It did. The last of the conspirators was killed and World War III was brought to a massive halt.”
“Whoa.”
He laughed again. “Yes. Very impressive.”
“But then what happened? Like, to her? Was she still a fugitive?”
Something glistened in his eyes as he looked down at me. That happened sometimes with the adults that surrounded me. Sometimes they could see things that I couldn’t. Ghosts of a past I didn’t know. “There is a great amount of debate about what happened next. Some say she went into hiding. Others think that she’s been laying low, keeping up with small jobs, building up task forces and alliances.”
“What do you think?” I asked.
This time, he looked away. I got the feeling that he had to. “I believe that Gallagher Girl to be dead.”
Dead. Of course. They always end up dead.
“But one thing’s for sure,” he said, unwilling to dwell on such a somber subject, per usual. “The events surrounding our Gallagher Girl wreaked havoc on one of the most powerful organizations to ever attempt a World War. She took down family businesses that, until then, had been impenetrable and led the world into a new era of stability. None of it could have happened without her.” He looked down on me one last time. “Her, Virgo. Not a him.”
Her. Not a him. It wasn’t a story. It was history and there was a woman leading it.
Another voice joined in on our conversation. “That’s a nice story,” said my father from the doorway.
Mr. Hughes cleared his throat, standing as if my father were his commanding officer and a salute was in order. “Yes, well. It’s always been one of my favorites.”
Dad smirked. “Yeah. Mine too—are we doing dinner tonight?” he asked me.
I looked back to my pull-up bar and then to my father. I’d wanted to get an hour in on the bar, but somehow, dinner sounded better. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, let’s get some dinner.”