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"I’m not?" I asked, honestly not sure of the answer anymore

"No" He shook his head, looked at the low stone ceiling and too-close walls "It’s just like the tombs"

I breathed in the musty air, and my mind flashed back to the crah the mountains that surrounded the Blackthorne Institute There had been a ti to find out the secrets Zach had been hiding about his school, but a lot of things had changed during that fateful mission last semester

The path was clear ahead of me Only Zach blocked the way behind And yet I couldn’tI didn’tto kidnap me

It didn’t seem like the time to ask why he’d never told me that Blackthorne was really a school for assassins

All the things that had been weird the last ti for s were still there, exactly where we’d left theh a hole in the stone that could best be described as a doorway So I turned and went inside

I’d always suspected that ood at alh the classroo would be no different

"I hope everyone enjoyed last week’s little lesson in overt surveillance counterent Townsend thinks," Aunt Abby added to the senior CoveOps class "Ms Walters, please re a suspected observation point on fire is effective but perhaps a little too overt in ed, and I looked around Classrooht word to describe the space It was , tall tables, each with a pair of stools I stood by the entrance, realizing there was no room at any of the tables for me

"Come on up here, Cam" Abby pulled a stool from the corner and placed it behind the table at the very front of the class "You can share withonto that stool, I felt entirely too visible, conspicuous It wasn’t just the chaher Girl who’d broken the rules, been foolish--gotten caught I couldn’t help feeling that Sublevel Three ht to be there

Then ainst it, like I’d seen Joe Solomon do about a million times

"Professor Townsend," she said, with a roll of her eyes, "suggested that this section of the curriculum be postponed--I don’t think he even bothered to teach it to the seniors last year Not that he taught anything else," she added under her breath "But I say you need to know"

She walked to a corner of the room, picked up one of the wooden crates that were stacked there, carried it to the front table, and set it down beside me

"I say it’s time for you to know"--she held the crate by its ends and flipped it, sending at least a dozen objects skidding across the table--"about this"

There were springs and tubes, small cylinders I’d never seen before The whole class leaned closer to get a better look--everyone but Zach, who didn’t move, didn’t stare

"You knohat this is, don’t you?" Abby asked him

He seeht so" There was no judg us about it?"

Zach shook his head "No"

Abby looked as if she couldn’t really blaher Acadeood reason," my aunt said, and I could have sworn that, for a split second, her gaze drifted to s we have not covered…until now" She stepped away from the table and moved closer to the rest of the class "These boxes contain long-range, high-powered rifles, and they are part of the most controversial topic that ill cover at this school So why is that?" she asked,down the aisle, all eyes trained on her "Why do people like Agent Townsend think you shouldn’t be around"--she gestured to the weapon on the table--"these?"

Tina Walters raised her hand "Because they’re dangerous?"

"Yes," Abby said "But not exactly in the way you think"

"Because they’re…active," Eva Alvarez tried "It’s not like P&E, when it’s about protecting yourself They’re for going on the offensive"

"Yes, they are But that’s not why they are so controversial"

The class sat silent, transfixed, as Aunt Abby studied every student in turn "Doesn’t anyone want to guess why--"

"Because weapons h the rooun, it’s probably too late for you to actually be safe"

"That’s right" Abby ss we teach because they are as you need to know"

It see parts I glanced quickly down at the pile on the table, reached to finger the pieces of cool s, while my aunt talked on from her place in the center of the room

"They will not keep your covers They cannot recruit and train an asset Make no entleman, in the field, the only weapon that will truly keep you safe is your mind, and that is where any decent operative puts her time and her faith And so what I teach you today is not the skill of a true spy It’s the skill of a killer"

Everyone atching Abby But not lued to his hands They were clasped together, resting on the table, his knuckles completely white