The countdown continues!!!

Yesterday morning I woke up, got dressed, came to the office, sat down, and thought...

WHY AM I SO NERVOUS?

I mean seriously, people, I was really freaking nervous and I couldn't imagine why. And then...I remembered.

IT'S ALMOST TIME FOR CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO SPY TO COME OUT!!!!!

I was kinda nervous when my very first book, CHEATING AT SOLITAIRE (may it rest in peace) came out. And then I was a lot more nervous when LOVE YOU, KILL YOU came out.

But Cross My Heart is my fourth book! The nerves are supposed to be gone by now, but let me tell you, if anything, they've multiplied!

What if people hate it?

What if no one buys it?

What if the Oct. 2nd launch party at the Barnes and Noble on 41st Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma is reminiscent of the opening scene in Looking For Alaska and nobody comes?

What if some evil supervillain takes over the printing company and injects a rare but toxic chemical into the ink that makes every Gallagher Girl-fan in the world actually become the anti-Gallagher Girl?

Those things would all be bad.

I mean, you guys ARE going to buy it, aren't you? Because if you're lying to me about that...well...that's just mean.

And to tempt you even further into buying it, I'm going to go ahead and give you the rest of chapter one.

Enjoy!

Ally

CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO SPY
Chapter One
Part 3

(May I suggest you begin by reading
Part 1 here and Part 2 here)

“My name is Cammie.”

“No, what’s your full name?” asked the man in front of the Polygraph machine as if I wasn’t wearing the aforementioned (and supposedly non-explosive) name badge.

I thought about my mother’s words of wisdom, took a deep breath and said, “Cameron Ann Morgan,” and hoped that would be good enough.

The room around me was bare, empty, with a stainless steel table and mirror made of one-way glass. I probably wasn’t the first Gallagher Girl to sit in that sterile room--after all, de-briefs are a part of the covert operations package. Still, I couldn’t help squirming in the hard metal chair—maybe because it was cold in there, maybe because I was nervous, maybe because I was experiencing a slight underwear situation. (Note to self: research the wedgie theory of interrogation—there could totally be something to it!) But the efficient looking man in the wire rim glasses was too busy twisting knobs and punching keys, trying to figure out what the truth sounded like coming from me, to care.

“The Gallagher Academy doesn’t teach interrogation procedures until we’re juniors, you know?” I said, but the man just muttered, “Uh huh.”

“And I’m just a sophomore, so you shouldn’t worry about the results coming out all screwy or anything. I’m not immune to your powers of interrogation.” Yet.

“Good to know,” he mumbled but his eyes never left the three screens that surrounded him.

“I know it’s just standard protocol, so just…ask away,” I said, knowing I was babbling but I couldn’t stop myself. “Really,” I said. “Just whatever you need to know, just--”

But then he looked at me and blurted, “Do you attend the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women?” and for reasons I will never understand I said, “Uh…yes?” as if it might be a trick question.

“Have you ever studied the subject of Covert Operations?”

“Yes,” I said again, feeling my confidence, or maybe just my training, coming back to me.

“Did your Covert Operations coursework ever take you to the town of Roseville, Virginia?”

Even in that hollow, sterile room beneath Washington, D.C. I could almost feel the hot humid night last September. I could almost hear the band and smell the corndogs.

My stomach growled as I said, “Yes.”

Polygraph Guy made precise notes and stared at the bank of monitors and didn’t even blink when he asked, “And that is when you first noticed The Subject?”

Here’s the thing about being a spy in love: your boyfriend never has a name. People like Polygraph Guy were never going to call him Josh. He would always The Subject, a person of interest. Taking away his name was their way of taking away what was left of him. So I said, “Yes,” and tried not to let my voice crack.

“And you utilized your training to develop a relationship with The Subject?”

“Gee, when you say it like that—"

“Yes or no, Ms.--"

“Yes!”

Which I would like to point out is not nearly as bad as it sounds since, for example, you don’t need a search warrant to go through someone’s trash. Seriously. Once it hits the curb it is totally fair game—you can look it up.

But somehow I knew that the Office of Operative Development and Human Intelligence was probably far less concerned about the trash thing than they were about what came after the trash thing. So I was fully prepared when Polygraph Guy said, “Did The Subject follow you to your Covert Operations Final Examination?”

I thought about Josh appearing in the abandoned warehouse during finals week, bursting through walls and commandeering forklifts to “save” me, so I swallowed hard as I said, “Yes.”

“And was The Subject given memory-modification tea to erase the events of that night?”

It sounded so easy coming from him, so black and white. Sure, my mom gave Josh some tea that’s supposed to wipe a person’s memory blank, erase a few hours of their life and give everyone a second chance at a clean slate. But clean slates are a rare thing in any life—especially a spy’s life—so I didn’t let myself wonder for the millionth time if what Josh remembered about that night, about me. I didn’t torture myself with any of the questions that might never have answers as I sat there, knowing there is no such thing as black and white—remembering that my whole life is, by definition, a little bit gray.

I nodded, then muttered, “Yes,” because like it or not, I knew I had to say the word out loud.

He made some more notes, punched some keys, and said, “Are you currently involved with The Subject in any way?”

“No,” I blurted because I knew that much was true. I hadn’t seen Josh, hadn’t spoken to him, hadn’t even hacked into his email account over winter break which, given present circumstances, seemed like a pretty good idea. (Plus, I had spent the last two weeks in Nebraska with Grandma and Grandpa Morgan, and they have dial-up which takes forever!)

The man in the wire-rimmed glasses looked away from the screen then. He stared at me. “And do you intend to reinitiate contact with The Subject despite strict rules prohibiting such a relationship?”

There it was: the question I’d carried for weeks.

There I was: Cammie the Chameleon—the Gallagher Girl who had risked the most sacred sisterhood in the history of espionage. For a boy.

“Ms. Morgan,” Polygraph Guy said, growing impatient. “Are you going to reinitiate contact with The Subject?”

“No,” I said softly.

Then I glanced back at the screen to see if I was lying.