"And there's something I want to say," Macey went on, even stronger now. "There's nothing we can't do if we stick together. There's nothing we can't overcome if we try. I learned that from the people who love me. The people who know…the real me." This time I knew Macey was looking straight at us.
Beside me, I heard Bex whisper, "That's our girl."
"Ms. Baxter." Mr. Solomon's voice brought us back to the moment, to the mission. "There's a man thirty feet behind you in a denim jacket. Get his fingerprints without his knowledge." With a wink, Bex was gone.
There were more speeches, more cheering, but eventually Macey walked down the steps on the left side of the stage and through a gap in the bleachers that led to a secure area behind the stands. As soon as she disappeared, I heard my aunt's voice saying, "Peacock is secure and holding in the yellow tent," and I took my first deep breath since Sunday night.
The crowd was staring at the stage while Governor Winters said, "Our opponents have had four years to talk the talk, but now it's time to walk the walk!" People clapped. People laughed. It was like he was a puppet master and two thousand people jumped every time he pulled the strings.
But I didn't clap. I didn't laugh. I just kept hearing Mr. Solomon's voice—not in my ear—in my head. I remembered something he'd said in the helicopter. "Protection is ten
percent protocol and ninety percent instinct."
And just then my instincts were telling me to turn around. Maybe it was the way the buildings lined the grassy lawn, maybe it was the crowd of people that passed by me, but something made me think about last semester and Washington, D.C. So while The Senator and Governor Winters stood with their hands locked together above their heads, and the band started playing, I turned and watched the crowd clapping and dancing. The candidates pushed toward the barriers, and the crowd rushed closer, but one guy slipped away.
Farther from the bulletproof banner.
Farther from everything.
Except the bleachers and the yellow tent that stood behind them.
Another banner hung from the side of the bleachers, advertising www.winters-mchenry.com, and I watched it blow in the breeze, a corner flapping free, banging against the aluminum posts, but no one noticed the sound. No one saw the gap. No civilian would have appreciated that sliver of access, and what it meant. But the guy in the cap walked toward the banner. He slipped through the tiny crack, and that's when I knew he was a pavement artist.
I knew he was like me.
"No," I felt myself scream; but with the band and the crowd and the chatter of agents securing the rope lines, the word was lost. And he was gone.
I followed, pushing through the gap myself, but all I could see was litter and the tangled wires and rods of the metal stands.
For such a sunny day, it was dark under the bleachers; for such a screaming crowd, the noise seemed very far away. A warm breeze blew red, white, and blue confetti across my feet, while the band played and the people cheered.
And I felt someone behind me.
And for the second time that month, a strange hand grasped my shoulder.
I forgot all about Mr. Solomon's assignment as I reached back and grabbed the offending hand, stepped into the move, and swung the guy smoothly through the air, watching him crash onto a red balloon with a pop.
But suddenly I was the one who was breathless as I stared down at the guy who lay beneath me, and I heard the only words I totally wasn't prepared to hear.
"Hello, Gallagher Girl."
Chapter Twelve
Zach was there. Zach was staring up at me through the shadow of the bleachers, lying on his back, his shoulders pinned beneath my knees.
He was real this time. This wasn't spy genes and teen hormones running away with me. I wasn't hallucinating or daydreaming or the victim of some freaky hologram-based countersurveillance diversion.
I was just looking…
At Zach.
"Hey, Gallagher Girl," he said after … I don't know … an hour or something, "you gonna let me up now?"
But I totally didn't want to let him up because A) I had the superior position, and with any boy—much less a Blackthorne Boy—superior position is something you should hang on to when you get a chance, B) if I didn't let him up, there was a lot less chance of him retaliating by flipping me through the air like a rag doll (which I totally wouldn't have
put past him), and C) I kinda liked knowing where I stood with Zach. For once.
So instead of moving aside and pulling him to his feet like a good girl, I just leaned over him like a Gallagher Girl and said, "What are you doing here?"
But Zach didn't answer right away. Instead, he did that Zach thing he always did. He gave me a look that was so deep—so intense—that it was as if he were trying to send the answer to me over some cosmic, psychic thread or something.
Then he smirked and said, "I'm very interested in Ohio politics."
I scooted backward, stumbling to my feet as I blurted, "You can't vote."
"Yeah, but I can campaign." He pointed to the winters-mchenry button on his jacket as if to prove his point. And then it hit me—the feelings of panic that cute boys and kidnapping attempts have probably been prompting inside Gallagher Girls for a hundred years.
I'd thought about seeing him about a billion times. I'd imagined what I'd be wearing and what cool thing I would say, but I can assure you that in none of my fantasies had I been wearing my most uncomfortable jeans and a T-shirt that was two sizes too large. I'd thought about what kind of girl I was going to be—interested but indifferent, lovely but amused. And yet I was none of those things as I looked down at him and muttered, "You're a long way from Blackthorne."