Plot
- For earlier events, see: Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover .
The story starts with student Cammie (Cameron Ann Morgan), still enrolled at Gallagher Academy, already in London with Bex (Rebecca Baxter) and her parents (Grace and Abraham Baxter). Cammie now has strict and very serious security surrounding her because the Circle of Cavan, a terrorist group, is after her. While at an ice skating rink, she talks briefly with Zach, and he asks her if she has seen Joe Solomon, and Cammie replied to him that "being out of the loop isn't fun is it?" meaning that now Zach understands what it's like to not be on a need-to-know basis. After Zach leaves, the lights go out, and Cammie is grabbed by Mr. Solomon, who tells her to run. They end up on the Tower Bridge, where Bex's parents reveal that Mr. Solomon was the threat. She demands answers but he only makes her promise to "follow the pigeons" before jumping off the bridge and escaping. She is interrogated two hours later by an MI6 agent (who is later revealed to be Agent Edward Townsend) and is released. While in a MI6 safe house with Bex's family, her Aunt Abby comes to visit. Cammie is appalled and upset that her mother did not come to comfort her, yet suspicious that she is there. After she and Bex eavesdrop on part of the conversation between the Baxters and Aunt Abby(Cammie listening from the dumbwaiter), they confront the adults about when Abby was saying "Cammie can never know-"., so Abby tells her with a trembling voice, that Joe Solomon has been a member of the Circle of Cavan since he was sixteen, and Cammie simply not believing it to be true, but Abby begs her that she of all people needs to believe it.
The girls return to the Gallagher Academy, but things have changed. All of the secret passageways (except one leading to the kitchen) have been blocked. Security is much higher than before. When the girls reach their room, the MI6 agent from London (Townsend) was there, having left the strong smell of cologne, coffee and footprints on the freshly vacuumed rug. At dinner, Professor Buckingham announces that Agent Townsend would be the new CoveOps teacher, and that Cammie's mother is temporarily detained.
They quickly figure out that Agent Townsend is not interested in teaching at the school, but requested the job to help him find out more about Joe Solomon. They drugged him with an experiment Liz developed (A concoction 10 times stronger than Sodium Pentothal) and interrogated him, and they found out that Mr. Solomon killed Cammie's father. Cammie's mother returned to the school shortly afterward. The roommates decided to try to find out what Mr. Solomon meant by saying "follow the pigeons". They find out there is an old carrier pigeon room, and they go there where they find a message telling Cammie to go to the gazebo. They decide to send Macey instead and discover Zach is the one that sent the message. He asks to see Cammie, and despite Bex's orders to stay where she is, Cammie goes down to see him. He tells her to go the Sublevel 2 and that there is a journal there that will help them understand everything. He also reveals that Mr. Solomon was the one who rigged the alarms in the sublevels so no one could go down.
While the girls try to figure out how to get down to the Sublevels, Cammie is having trouble trusting Zach, despite all they had been through together. Agent Townsend takes them on a "field trip" to an amusement park, and he gives all the girls assignments. Bex is reluctant to let Cammie leave, but Cammie argues that her mother would not have let her come unless it was safe. Cammie proceeds to tail an employee for her assignment. While following him into a building, she finds a rugged, tired-looking Joe Solomon. She first slaps him, making him look frightened, and then she yells at him and tells him he got her father killed, to which he wearily replies, "I know." Agent Townsend shows up with a woman, whom Cammie believes to be the woman from Boston show up and Cammie discovers that it was a plot to capture Joe Solomon. She runs to a hill and finds Zach there. She tells him that she had thought the woman was the woman from Boston and Zach shakes his head and tells her that Joe Solomon would never be with her, then Cammie asks him why Mr. Solomon would walk right into a trap, and he tells her that Mr. Solomon would do anything to keep her safe. He kisses her forehead and runs off.
Three weeks later, the girls are ready to get the journal. They work their way through Sublevel Two, with some difficulty, but finally get to the place the book is supposed to be. While Liz is hoisted up to get the book, Cammie and the other roommates become aware that there is someone else trying to break in. They assume it is Agent Townsend (we later learn it was Rachel Morgan), and get out as soon as possible. The book was written in code but the girls find the key, which was the Pigeon Code they had found in the pigeon carrier room. It turns out that the journal belonged to Cammie's father, Matthew Morgan. The journal explains how Matthew Morgan and Joe Solomon tried to bring down the Circle of Cavan. Operative Morgan went missing on the way to Greece. Solomon blames himself because that was supposed to be his mission, and felt it should have been him.
A couple nights later Zach sneaks into Cammie's room and wakes her up. They take a walk and she asks him why the Circle would break Joe Solomon out of a CIA prison if he was working against them. Zach responds saying, "They weren't doing him a favor". Cammie demands more answers, but Zach will not give her any. Her furious roommates show up and try to get answers from him, too. Cammie suggests a plan to go get the other notebook, the one that Joe Solomon wrote, from Blackthorne. Then, Cammie's mother arrives, and she says she will help them.
While in the car, Zach tries to talk to Cammie, but she ignores him. They pull over the van, and we learn that Bex's parents and Aunt Abby are there to protect Cammie. From there, the girls and Zach walk to Blackthorne.Cammie finds out that it was her mother who had tried to get the journal. They had heard her. After going through its various defenses, they learn Blackthorne's cover: it's a school for juvenile delinquents. Macey, Bex, and Liz go shut down the defenses and keep an eye on security, leaving Zach and Cammie alone to complete the mission. Zach asks Cammie to stay, wanting her to be safe, but she responds by kissing him and asks where they are going. "The Tombs," is his reply.
Zach and Cammie go out to the woods and find the entrance to "The Tombs". The make their way through a complicated maze and Zach reveals that Blackthorne is a school for assassins. They finally find the place where Joe Solomon's journal is hidden and retrieve it. As they are about to leave, they hear people coming and hide. They see several members of the Circle of Cavan, including the woman who tried to abduct Cammie from the roof in Boston last summer, and Joe Solomon. The explosives on the walls show that Mr. Solomon brought the members here to kill them and himself in the process. A man finds Cammie and Zach and brings them to the woman. We learn that she is Zach's mom, and Cammie is horrified. After a quick fight Zach manages to get a gun and take aim at the explosives. Cammie says "NO!" but cannot stop Zach, so she begins to run. She thought she had made it out but ran into Zach's mother, and we learn that she was a Gallagher Girl. She tries to convince Cammie to come to her by telling her that her father is still alive. Instead, Cammie jumps off the side of the cliff to get away, thinking that both Zach and Mr. Solomon are dead.
They find her and take her back to the school's infirmary. After having her explain what happened, Agent Townsend takes her to a man who is bandaged from head to toe. We know it is Mr. Solomon, but according to Agent Townsend, Mr. Solomon is "dead". He hands her Mr. Solomon's journal and walks away. Cammie is later talking with her mom and we learn that Zach will stay the rest of the semester at the Gallagher Academy and that Mr. Solomon might not make it. Cammie gives Zach the journal before being ambushed by her distressed roommates. Cammie decides she will not be able to go to her grandparents' ranch this summer because it is too dangerous. One day Cammie and Zach talk, and Zach asks her to run away with him. She kisses him and says she cannot, to which he replies "I know".
Afterwards Cammie describes how being at Gallagher academy is not dangerous to her, but to the people she loves. She asks for no one to look for her. She implies she's running away, but in her words she says to think of it as not running away, but running Towards. She states she will be back once summer vacation is over. This time with answers.
