As Buckingham talked, I couldn't help but remember that there's a reason they call us Gallagher Girls. It's not just because the youngest of us are twelve. It's also because our founder was under twenty. From the very beginning we have been discounted and discredited, underestimated and undervalued. And, for the most part, we wouldn't have it any other way.

There's a power that comes with silence. I had grown to fear the unsaid thing. So it felt like a release to say it-to admit that the risk wasn't just inside our walls-it was inside my skin. I was willing to claw, scratch, and bleed until I'd found it.

Macey was just starting to argue when Abby asked, "What can you tell me about the gunmen?" "They're amateurs," Hale said at the exact same time Macey told her teacher, "They're pros.

You can’t really yell at your boyfriend for stealing your seat and your best friend. You also can’t yell at your best friend for stealing your boyfriend. Or you can…but Hi seemed like a much easier way to start the morning.

Abby must have been the one who found the safe house, because Townsend didn't like it. "The building across the street is under construction," he snarled as soon as we'd carried our bags inside. "The elevator has key card access, and I've hacked into the surveillance cameras from every system on the block," Abby argued. "We have a three-hundred-sixty-degree visual." "Excellent." Townsend dropped his bag. "Now the circle can see us from every angle." "Don't mind Agent Townsend, girls," Abby told us. "He's a glass-half-empty kind of spy." "Also known as the good kind," he countered. Abby huffed.

She didn't protest as Hale slid his arm around her and pulled her to rest against his chest. It was somehow softer there than she remembered.

It was so rare to find someone who was both so young and so wise, both so fresh and so jaded.