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I didn’t want to consider what the ht have looked like

"We had to keep it quiet," Mom went on "We couldn’t let them know you were in the wind Alone"

I blinked, toldmy eyes to water

"But we kne you were trained," Abby went on "And we had an idea of what resources you had with you, and…"

"We knew you," Liz finished, snificantly less chipper when she pushed past ed "We didn’t knohere you were, Ca away froood a place as any to run"

It was, after all, where she had run I sood co toward the porch, I tried to search out so that was familiar, but I’d been to that cabin at least twice before Once, after the Circle had ht the Circle was after Macey And once again when Macey had run there on the eve of her father’s big election Those ether, and I didn’t knohere the old stopped and the newelse, a worry or a fear tugging at the back of my mind

"I don’t think I would have come here" I stopped in the cabin’s doorway and shookto intrude "I hed "Oh, you were good, Squirt" She walked to a cabinet and turned on a small TV "But Joe was better"

A split second later, a blurry black-and-white picture filled the screen It was divided into four quadrants, the i at least a dozen different angles of the cabin and the grounds

"He had cameras," I said, unable to hide the awe in my voice

Abby worked the re at a ain, and even in black-and-white, I kneas the brownish-blond color that had always see is seriously underrated

Abby pushed a button, sending the surveillance footage into fast-forhile I stayed perfectly still, watching Su I did sit-ups and push-ups, and the sun rose and set Rain fell and lightning flickered across the sky Days passed and I stayed on that screen, alone

"How long?" I asked

"Four days," my mother said "We think We don’t know exactly when you left, because…"

Her voice trailed off as Abby slowed the tape to regular speed On the screen, the girl I’d been stood at the sink washing a plate and fork, staring out at the lake beyond the , lost in thought But then soed a chair to the corner of the room and climbed onto it My face filled the screen as I leaned close to the caht of us stood silent, no clue as to where Suone

Abby put the re from the time sta for you But by then, the cabin was eone until the day you called from Austria"

I turned to see the plate in the drainer by the sink, sitting exactly where it was in the video And then for the first time, it wasn’t a question at all "I was here"

No one said a word as I walked to the sink "I don’t feel anything," I said, reaching for the dish

"It’s okay, Ca around in the room, I saw the narrow bed where I had woken after the attack in Boston--the first tinized the s the shelves of books

"Why are you just tellingshift inside ?"

"Ca for me

"I need to remember," I told her "I have to"

Mo in the world she wantedand didn’t say a word

"Why would you come here, Cam?" Abby asked

"I don’t know," I admitted

"Not why did you," she clarified "Why would you?"

It was just another test, a quiz, a hypothetical I should know the answer A Gallagher Girl with a big black spot in her head is still a Gallagher Girl

I was stillto leave until the night before I did it I didn’t have a lot of tione somewhere to buy tiet any supplies out of the sublevels without so, so I didn’t havesome clothes and"--I cut my eyes at Macey, whose wallet I had raided--"money Sorry about that I’ll pay you back"

"Oh, I’ll think of some way you can repay me," Macey told me

"I needed a safe place off the radar and tiear"

Abby nodded "Joe’s storage shed was half eot here"

"But mostly," I finished, as if she hadn’t spoken at all, "what I really needed was ti at the roo a different story

Mom must have noticed it too, because she asked him, "Zach, what is it?"

Zach’s eyes slowly passed over the cabinets, the closet, and the bed Then finally his gaze settled on the shelves of books

"Those are out of order," he said, pushing the books aside to reveal a s that was looser than the rest A second later, he had it open and was staring into an empty hole in the wall