Gallagher Girls 5 - Out of Sight, Out of Time Read Online Free Page B

remember.”
    The other teachers were on the far side of a soundproof door, halfway down the hall, and I couldn’t help wondering if Mom would have said those things in front of them. Somehow I knew this wasn’t the advice of a senior operative; this was the warning of a mother.
    “But I need to know.”
    “No.” She shook her head and cupped my face. “You don’t.”
    When she touched me this time, I suddenly realized that I wasn’t the only one who was thinner. I wasn’t the only one whose hair had lost its natural shine. I’d seen her look that way only once before—when we’d lost my father. And right then it dawned on me—I had lost my memories, but…last summer…my mother had lost me.
    “Mom, I’m sorry.” I could feel myself wanting to cry, but the tears didn’t come. “I’m so, so sorry I made you worry. I was going to come back. I was going to come back so much sooner.”
    “I don’t care about that.”
    “You don’t?” I asked, certain that I had misheard her.
    “I care that you are home. I care that you are safe. I care that this is over. Sweetheart”—she smoothed my hair away from the terrible lump that was still tender—“just let it be over.”
    “Rachel.” Mr. Smith was standing in the doorway, waving my mother back into the room. But Mom ignored him and kept staring at me.
    “Promise me, Cammie, that you will let this be over .”
    “I…I promise.”
    She pulled back and wiped her eyes. “Can you find your way upstairs?”
    “Yes, I remember.” I didn’t think about the words. “I mean…” I started, but then trailed off, because my mother had already turned. My mother was already gone.
     
    From the moment I’d awoken at the convent, one of the nuns had always been by my side. Since my mother had landed in Austria, I’d barely left her sight. So it felt more than a little strange walking alone through the empty corridor that led to the Gallagher Academy hospital wing.
    I was finally alone.
    But that was before I turned the corner and saw a boy standing in the center of the hall.
    His hands hung loosely by his sides, and his hair was neatly combed. His white shirt and khaki pants were clean and freshly pressed. At a glance I might have confused him with just an ordinary private school boy. But, 1) There are no boys at my school. And 2) Zachary Goode has never been ordinary a day in his life.
    I stood motionless. Waiting. Trying to reconcile the fact that Zach was there, standing in the middle of my school, looking at me like maybe I was the one who was totally out of place. He reached out one hand, his finger sliding down my arm as if to check to make sure I was real, and the touch made me close my eyes, waiting for his lips to find mine, but they never did.
    “Zach,” I said, easing closer. “What are you doing here? Are you…? Is it…?” The questions didn’t matter, so the words didn’t come. “You’re here!”
    “Funny, I was about to say the same about you.”
    Just to reiterate: I was alone. With Zach. In my school.
    Crazy was taking on a whole new meaning.
    “What are you doing here?” I asked.
    “I sort of…go…here now.”
    “You do?” I asked, then nodded, the facts settling down around me. Zach’s mother was a prominent member of the Circle. The fact that he had chosen to work against her meant that the same people who were after me were after him. The Gallagher Academy was one of the safest places on earth—probably the safest school. It made sense that he would come back and enroll full-time after the summer.
    “Cammie,” a woman behind me said. “I’m Dr. Wolf. We’re ready for you.”
    I knew I was supposed to turn—to go take their tests, answer their questions, and start trying to unravel the mystery of my mind—but I just stood, feeling Zach’s fingers play with the ends of my hair.
    “How…are you?” I managed to mutter.
    “It’s different,” he said, looking at my new short locks as if he hadn’t heard my