Number of check-ups in the week that followed: 8
Number of jokes Scout made about my bra: 17
Number of essays I tried to convince him to excuse me from: 4
Number of essays I was actually excused from: 0
Number of times Bill said my name in that same week: 27
Number of times he said Will's: 163
It had been nearly a year since my father had told me not to go back there again. It wasn't safe. It wasn't rational. It wasn't healthy. When I went back there, I was a fire, burning myself out, and that room was the kindling that kept me aflame. When I disappeared into that massive, freezing, secret room of mine, I burned.
So that night, as I pulled out the copy of Spymasters of the Ming Dynasty and watched the bookcase unfold, I knew that I wasn't going back to that room. I mean it. There was no part of me that wanted to go back there—not when I stepped into the secret passageway. Not when I took the torch from the wall or when I shuffled through the stench of burning dust. Not even when I stared at that brick wall and felt the breeze wisp across my neck, raising each of my hairs to their ends. Nope. Not even then.
There was a fleeting second when I thought about Luke Collins and wondered what he would say just then.
I let my burning palms fall against frozen stone, knowing that it would just take one push—one little push and I would have a few hours to myself. I'd be alone. I just wanted to be alone.
But I knew that if I stepped into that room, then I would remember what it all felt like. What it felt like to helplessly follow the wrong lead for months. What if felt like to have my mother leave for good. What if felt like to have my father hold me there, not daring to look around at the room his daughter ran away to when she was feeling particularly crazy.
And so I took a step back. And I left. And I knew that sometimes—just sometimes—fathers know better than their daughters.
Some part of me knew that I needed to go back to my bedroom. That people would start to worry about me soon. Still, I wandered, letting myself bask in the peace that came with absolute silence for just a few minutes longer.
But the silence was cut off when I heard my father's voice. "How's our guy in Rome doing?"
My heart clenched, thinking that I had been busted, but the voice wasn't coming from behind me. It was coming through the walls, more likely, through the slash of light that chiseled at brick. I stepped up to the source, peaking in through the crack in the wall to find my grandmother's office on the other side. There was an actual secret passageway entrance in Grandma's office.
Of course there was, I realized soon after. A headmistress at the world's foremost school for spies would surely need a second exit to her room. This passageway had been designed for speedy escapes and not snooping granddaughters, but I knew that I couldn't pass up hearing my father discuss classified information with his team.
Especially not when his team consisted of Rachel Morgan and Edward Townsend.
"Abby's on him," Grandma said. She was sitting forward against her desk in the same way she did when I was in trouble. She was firm. Focused. Determined to get the person on the other side of the desk to listen, and listen good. "But we've had eyes on him for weeks now and—"
"And we strongly suspect that he's clean," Townsend cut in. "Any affiliation he once had seems to have been wiped out."
Dad threw his head in his hands, raking his fingers through his hair. To this day, I still think of that look on his face anytime I hear someone talk about frustration. "No. No—that's impossible," he groaned. "He was the best lead we've had in weeks."
"To be perfectly honest," said Townsend, which was just redundant. Townsend was always perfectly honest, even, and possibly especially, when you didn't want him to be. "I think we allowed ourselves to be distracted by his location and assumed the worst. As far as I can tell, he is no longer a suspect in this case."
I wanted to leap through that crack in the wall—wanted to ask them what case they were talking about and why they were discussing it in the privacy of the Gallagher Academy instead of at Langley. I wanted to ask about their guy in Rome and why they had started tailing him. I wanted answers. I needed answers.
They'd never trust someone like you with information like that, hissed my mother. I glanced over my shoulder, thinking that she had joined me in that secret passageway of mine, but there was no one there except my own shadow.
"What about Duncan?" Dad asked. "Collins told Bex that someone named Duncan attacked them in Romania."
Romania. A vice tightened around my lungs and my legs turned to slosh. My mind was no longer in that slim passageway, but rather in that tiny broom closet, stuck up against the boy who had tried to keep me afloat. "Get the boy," she had said. Neither Collins nor myself had known that they were talking about my brother.
"There are twenty thousand people in the world with the name Duncan," said Townsend. "And those are just the ones registered with the censuses."
"Well we can narrow it down, right?" Dad asked. "Internet history, flight records—something."
"We're CIA, Zachary," Townsend said. "Not wizards."
Dad looked like he doubted that. "Get Liz on the case—she's pretty magical when it comes to that sort of thing."
"No." It was Grandma this time, still just as determined as before. I saw her glance towards the phone, but then her eyes landed on Dad and Townsend once again. A commanding officer and two soldiers. "Liz has enough on her plate. We've already got her running two worms through some of the most classified databases known to man and on top of that, she's got Ellie to worry about."
The two men in the room dropped their heads and, for a moment, I saw it. Father and son—two generations of the same movement. Shame. Like both of them had entirely forgotten that Ellie Sutton was even a factor. Maybe they had. Maybe both of them had the ability to forget that there was some sort of war on Goodes going on, and Eleanora Sutton had been caught in the crossfire. I envied them for that.
Grandma continued. "We're not adding anything else to her workload—"
The phone rang.
Grandma was like lightning, striking her phone with such speed and ferocity that I was surprised when she didn't leave any fire behind. "Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women," she greeted.
Silence, neither Townsend not Dad daring to take a breath until they saw the firm nod from my grandmother. "Matthew," she sighed. "Say hello to your father."
With the flick of a button, I could hear Matt laugh over the speaker. It took all the power within me to keep from joining in. Matt was okay. Matt was okay. "Hey Dad."
"Hey, kid," Dad said, a smile of his own shining through. "You're safe? Collins is safe?"
"We're both safe," he confirmed. "We're fine. We took a little detour through South Africa, but we made it back to Europe and we're fine."
Matt was safe. Collins had lived to fight another day. They had made their call-in. "Why the detour, Matthew?" Townsend wondered, asking the same question that was on my mind.
There was quiet on the line, but then Matt seemed to accept the fact that he couldn't lie to three of the world's best. "Collins thought he saw someone—nothing serious." He added that last part too fast, as if he could sense the worried glances they shot towards one another, even from Europe. "We aren't even sure it was them, but we figured we'd be better safe than sorry."
"That was a good call, kid," said Dad. It probably sounded sincere to anyone who couldn't see his face. "Do you have a safe house lined up? Your aunt will not be happy if she has to move again."
"Collins does," said Matt. "Try not to worry about us too much. We're being careful. I know this isn't your favorite option, but—"
"But it's our best option," Grandma finished for him. "You should get going. Call us the minute you find someone."
The words were a crisp, clear, direct order of a superior. Except, somehow, it was the unspoken words that felt louder. Not the commands of the taskforce leader, but rather the plea of a grandmother. Or the minute someone finds you.
But no one said them, and I think it was because no one could. "Love you," Dad said, so quiet that I wasn't sure Matt had heard him.
There was a pause on the line. "You too," Matt said, finally, just before hanging up.
All of them stared at the phone for a little while longer as if expecting Matt to keep talking. As if they could simply will him back into their presence if they just kept waiting. To tell you the truth, I was doing the same thing, looking through that slim crack in the wall and waiting for my brother to bust me—to say that he could hear me breathing or that there was a shadow giving me away.
But he didn't. Matt was on the other side of the world again, Luke Collins as his only backup. I made the decision, right then, right there, to trust the boy who only told truths. I knew I had to trust Collins, not with my own life, but with my brother's, and I knew I had to pretend that decision didn't terrify me.
Grandma pushed four more buttons on her phone and, for a moment, I thought that maybe she had cracked. That maybe she was calling Matt back and telling him to get his butt home. Except Rachel Morgan doesn't crack. She doesn't crumble. That evening was no exception.
"How are they?" It was Grandpa Joe and, judging by how quickly he had picked up, he too had been waiting by the phone.
"They're safe," she said. "Everyone's safe."
If you were expecting me to say that Grandpa Joe let out a sigh, I'm sorry to say that you're going to be disappointed. If you were expecting me to tell you about the relief in his voice or the smile in his tone, then you're just going to have to look elsewhere, because Joe Solomon didn't get to be the legend he is today by letting his emotions betray him. "Good," he said simply. "Any detours?"
"South Africa," Grandma told him.
"I figured. Safe house?"
"Taken care of," Grandma confirmed. "They're safe, Joe. Try to get some sleep."
Silence. Then a quick, "You too."
"Love you."
"Love you."
And then with a click, Grandpa Joe was the next to go, sent into the next phase of worry. That's the thing about call-ins. The only time they actually resolve your worry is when you're actually talking to someone. As soon as you hang up, it starts to build again—piling and piling until the next time they call, or worse. The next time they don't.
Grandma stood, resembling royalty. Power. This was the look of a woman with irrefutable control. I wished that I could look like that. "Don't stay up too late, boys," she said to the men in front of her.
Townsend scoffed, but Dad just wore the look of a man who had long ago grown accustomed to hearing Rachel Morgan tell him to go to bed. I had to remind myself that Grandma was, in fact, Mom's mother and not Dad's.
The door shut behind her with a subtle click and it was like someone had flipped a switch on my father. He sat forward, his eyes bright as he asked, "About this lead in Rome. I've been thinking that maybe—"
"Perhaps you should spend less time thinking about the dead end in Rome and spend more time thinking about your issues at home," Townsend said before Dad could get any farther.
There was a momentary halt in my father's train of thought. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that you have people sitting on your guy in Rome. You are needed here more than you are needed there." The words weren't meant to be comforting. They weren't intended to soothe. They were a fact. An analysis. "How is little Morgan doing?"
Well, I don't mean to sound like a brat or anything, but I had grown a whole one and three-quarter inches since Townsend had last seen me, so calling me little was inaccurate, if not just very, very rude. "Maggie's fine," Dad said. "Her shoulder is healing up well—"
"You know that I'm not talking about her shoulder, Zachary."
My head. He was talking about my head. Dad knew it. I knew it. Everyone knew it, but Dad just leaned back in his chair, sizing up the man in front of him. "Parenting advice?" He asked with a smirk. "Interesting choice."
"I'm not speaking to you as a parent," Townsend corrected. "I'm speaking to you as a friend. A professional. I think we can both agree that I've learned a lesson or two about balancing my work and family lives over the years."
Dad didn't say anything, which must have meant that Townsend was right.
"Fine," said Townsend. There was something warm about his tone that was so out of place against my father's cold glare. "You want to snub me, that's fine. You don't need to talk to me in order to listen, so listen to this: your little girl needs help."
There was no urgency in his tone. None of that concern that seemed to loom over everyone else. Right then, Townsend was an informant. An asset.
Dad leaned forward, immediately on the defense. "I am helping her."
"Not enough."
"Well, I've been around all sixteen years, which is more than some people can say."
Townsend nodded once, firm, like he'd expected those exact words at that exact moment. "You can hate me for that. That's fine. Hate me, glare at me—do whatever it takes. I'll probably never get what I deserve for that, but let me try to make amends."
"And why should I?"
"Because whether you let me or not, it won't change the fact that there are two people in this room who care deeply for your Morgan and only one of us can see the similarities between her and your mother."
Dad's mother. All I knew about her was that she died before I was born. That was it. To be honest, I had sort of forgotten all about her. It wasn't easy to remember things that no one talked about, so it had been a long time since I'd asked any questions about my paternal grandmother, out loud or in my head.
"Don't," Dad said, quietly. Dangerously. There were years of disgust packed into that one word and I suddenly understood why no one ever spoke about the grandmother I hadn't met. "Don't you dare compare Maggie to her."
Townsend just looked at Dad like he could only see a more naïve version of him. It was the kind of look that only fathers could give. "Oh, Zachary," he said, pity dripping off of each word. "The only thing she's missing is the red hair."
"Take that back."
"Just listen—"
"You take that back. Now. Or I'll put my training to good use."
Dad knew how to kill people, I was sure, but until that moment, his voice cold and his glare hot, I had never seriously considered that fact. Dad could kill people and if Townsend didn't start running, there was no doubt in my mind that he'd be next. "You didn't know your mother at this age," he told Dad, entirely too calm. "But I did. I knew her very well."
"That's sort of the impression I got twenty years ago when she told us—do you remember that? Do you remember how I went eighteen years without a father?"
It was just a topic change. A defense mechanism used to change the subject. Townsend was too good not to see that, which is probably why he ignored my father's jabs at his character. "I didn't know she was one of them for a long time—she was supposed to be one of the good guys, you know, but there was something odd about her. It was strange. I couldn't quite place it."
"Her homicidal tendencies?" Dad guessed. "Destructiveness? Insanity? Take your pick, Townsend. They're all right."
"Obsessiveness." The word struck me at my core, plucking at my heartstrings until I could feel a melody reverberating through my chest. Soft and eerie, but familiar all the same, trying to soothe and rile at the same time. Obsessive. How many times had that exact word been pinned to me? "She had this way of fixating on something. She became this—this flame. Ever burning and truly, truly powerful. I couldn't help it. I was like a moth drawn to the light and I burned." He looked back to Dad. "She had a real gift for setting people on fire."
Dad set his jaw and swallowed hard, trying to stand his ground, but it wasn't long before he broke, falling into a defeated slump. A pit formed in my stomach and I knew that this conversation was about to take a turn in a direction that I wouldn't like.
"You see it in her, too, don't you?" Townsend asked, but it was more statement than question. "You see that same thing in Morgan."
Dad didn't speak again. It was another very purposeful denial of Townsend's exactness. I wanted to reach through that slit in the wall and strangle him. I wanted to make him talk. He always had so much to say, but when the real information was being discussed, he was silent.
"It wasn't horrible at first," Townsend went on. "A few skipped meals here, a few tantrums there, a night or two alone—overall, it seemed relatively normal."
"My daughter will never be like her," Dad insisted again, but I could see the familiarity in his eyes. Sense the worry in his voice. He saw the similarities just as clearly as I did.
Townsend nodded, slowly, feeling the same things I did. With a sudden shift, he changed gears. "Have I ever told you what I see when I look at you? At your children?" he said, and I recognized his words for what they really were—and alternate route. A back door into the conversation that Dad had long ago locked up. "Your eyes. All of you have the same eyes—her eyes."
"What's your point?"
"My point is that her eyes might not be the only thing she's passed down to your children, Zachary."
That was enough for Dad. The words sent him bolting out of his seat, his voice testing the strength of the soundproofed walls surrounding him. "You think I don't know that?" he spat. "You think that I don't know she need's doctors and medicines and treatment? That I haven't spent every waking moment with the medical staff, telling them everything I know about my dead mother so that they can diagnose her—did you know that she was never diagnosed? Yeah. They have to find out what she had so that they can determine if my kids have it—do you even know how scary that is? Can you even imagine what it's like to relive the eighteen years I spent with her?"
"No," said Townsend.
But that didn't slow my father down. "No. You can't. Because it's a literal nightmare. I'm not kidding. Sometimes I go to bed at night and I see her—living out the same memory that I shared with the doctors that day. Christ, Scout Jasons knows more about my family history than the majority of Langley, but it doesn't matter, because they still haven't diagnosed her. They don't know if it's hereditary or if it was caused by an acute amount of stress. Are you aware of how many things could trigger paranoia and voices and anxiety? Because I sure as hell wasn't. Not until my daughter"—he slammed his fist on Grandma's desk, so full of fury that he had to let some of it go before it broke him—"told me that she was having heart attacks and that I completely missed it. I'm supposed to be the best, and I missed it, and I don't need you to tell me that this might be hereditary. I don't need you to remind me that I should have been looking for it all along, because I know, okay? I already know all of that."
Your fault, said my mother.
I didn't want to hear this—didn't want to watch. I didn't want to know about my father's sleepless nights and I didn't want to know about how much of a burden I really was.
But Townsend remained indifferent. He had come with a purpose and he would see it through. "You can't let her be alone," he said. "You can't allow her to be by herself, not just because she is being hunted, but because she will convince herself that she's more alone than she actually is."
I wanted to protest. I wanted to tell Townsend that being alone was the preferred option. That if I didn't get a second alone, I would burst. But I didn't dare interrupt this conversation, so I stayed back behind that wall, accepting the fact that you can either hear or be heard, but you can never do both.
"Her mind is working against her," Townsend went on, standing to match my pacing father. "Her biggest enemy isn't in Rome—it's in her head. That's how your mother came to be the woman she did, and that fate may extend to your daughter."
Finally, Dad started to run. "I don't have to listen to this."
Townsend stopped him, grabbing his arm. Keeping him there. Forcing him to stand still for just one second and examine his options. "No, but you should," he said. For the first time all night, emotion peeked through that shell of his. He didn't sound cool and calm, but rather, frantic and hopeless as he said, "Because if the day comes when Morgan Goode is on the wrong end of my gun, I won't hesitate to pull the trigger."
Then, it was Dad's turn to wear the poker face. "If Morgan Goode is ever on the wrong end of anyone's gun, you had better believe that they'll be on the wrong end of mine."
I tried telling myself that it was the chill of the passageway that sent a shiver up my spine, but I knew the truth. It was his words. It was the fact that Zachary Goode was equipped with the most extensive knowledge on how to kill someone and that he wouldn't think twice about applying what he knew.
"Yes," Townsend said, letting his hand fall. "Well, you get that from your mother. She always used to say the same thing about you."
Dad shook his head and started to leave again, so Townsend let out one single, fleeting call. "She needs you. And Matthew. Cameron, too, if you know where she is."
"Cam is dead," Dad said automatically.
"Your daughter seems to think otherwise," Townsend reminded him. "But then again, no one listened to your mother either, which, if you recall, worked out well for everyone involved."
But the remark was lost to the slam of the door as Dad pulled it behind him, leaving Townsend behind with his hands in his hair and more than a few swears on his lips.
They think you're crazy, said my mother's voice.
"Shut up!" I hissed.
Townsend made a sharp turn towards my voice, his eyes scanning over the bookshelf like maybe he thought he was the one who was losing it, so I took off before he could find me.
I sped out the wall that lead to the Hall of History, thinking that if secrets were gold, then my family would be the richest of them all. A name—I hadn't even gotten a name. I couldn't even search this mysterious, obsessive grandmother of mine. It was just another dead end. A dead end with people yelling about me and showing more pity than I wanted.
I shoved on the inside of the wall, exhausted and angry and scared, all at the same time. I just needed to get out of there. Needed to leave the conversation behind. But the passageway opened quicker than I expected and I fell to the floor, wondering if I would ever be able to get back up again.
Pathetic, she said.
I wanted to cry.
But instead, I locked my sights on a pair of long legs and a very unsurprised woman. She held open the apparently not-so-secret door and gave me a quick roll of the eyes. "You have no idea how alike you and your mother are," she said.
Macey was standing there, waiting for me to make my grand entrance, arms crossed and expressionless. I looked up, expecting some sort of lecture—that was what the adults did nowadays—but it didn't come. Instead, she just said, "Now's not the best time to practice your disappearing act, kid."
She stood me up, dusted off my shoulder, and ran a hand through my hair, all while muttering something about Morgans always having stains on their shirts. "Sorry," I said.
Macey just sighed and I knew she heard me. She knew I meant it. That I really was sorry—for everything. For disappearing on her and for Dad's sleepless nights. For Townsend's argument and for letting Will die. I was sorry. All the time.
She studied me through that moonlight, but I couldn't even guess what she was thinking. She had the perfect poker face. One that only came with years of practice and plenty of experience with liars. "Come on," she said. "Let's get you to bed."