I PLEADED. We were back in Ms. Pullman’s office. Neither of us had spoken during the long walk there from Agent Nineteen’s music room. “Why were you even in that area of the school at all?” Ms. Pullman asked. Her demeanor was different from the way it had been after the fight at lunch, but it was still calm. Controlled. Not at all the sputtering, shouting mess that Gomez always turned into when dealing with a disciplinary situation. It was sort of unnerving in an odd way. Like when your mom, instead of getting mad over something you did, just told you she was disappointed in you. I wasn’t sure how to answer Ms. Pullman’s question. So I shook my head. Like an amateur. Sitting there shaking my head, opening and closing my mouth like a dying fish, was basically as good as an admission of guilt. That was me right then: Carson with gills and beady unblinking eyes, struggling to breathe. The ultimate question was: If she actually was in cahoots with Medlock, then she knew darn well it wasn’t me who had ransacked the office, and if that were the case, then why had she gone down there at all, considering that a spy was trying to complete a mission there?
