Beaten. Broken. Bruised. That's how Cameron Morgan felt after she had tried to talk to her husband, Josh Abrams. He was a violent man, and he never once said a nice word to Cameron.
You have to understand; recently Cameron had a bad case of amnesia. Josh had tried to help her through it, but the moment she didn't recognize him as her husband, he went berserk. It was only her second month of recovery and she had to hide the bruises her so called "husband" had given her.
The only thing that brought Cameron pleasure throughout the day was her twin baby girls, Emmie and Gwendolynne. The one thing that Cameron didn't understand was why they didn't look anything like Josh. They slightly resembled Cameron, fairly enough. The single way to tell the twins apart was that Emmie's eyes were green and Gwen's eyes were blue. Other than that the two were exactly the same.
She was in her room now, sobbing into her pillow. Suddenly she got a call from an all too familiar number – her best friend Bex. "Hello?" Cameron's voice wavered as she spoke. Normally Bex would ask her what was wrong, but right now her tone was urgent. "Cam, you have to listen to me. You need to get out of your house – forever. Bring whatever you can, including the kids. Take the car, and come visit me at Gallagher, I am hoping you will recognize some things if you come. And we have some bad news about Josh." With that her friend ended the call.
It wasn't everyday you delivered a depressing phone call to your best friend. Or at least if you were normal and that didn't describe one thing about Rebecca Baxter. She wasn't normal, but not in a bad way – depending on whom you were. She depressed the "End Call" button on her temporary phone and walked down the all too familiar hallway.
She tapped lightly on her best friend Liz's door. She heard a crash and the recognizable "Oopsie Daisy!" and knew that Jonas was somewhere helping her up off the floor, sweeping up the mess his fiancé made. Bex tapped her foot impatiently and rolled her eyes. She was about to knock again when a lanky, dark haired boy answered the door.
"Oh, hey Bex. Come on in."
She felt the need to do a sweep of the perimeter before entering, but remembered she was at Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Women – the safest place on earth. Next to Blackthorne Academy for Boys.
There were few pieces of furniture that weren't littered with electronics or digital devices. Bex didn't feel like sitting, she didn't even feel like being here, but she needed to get more answers, and she had a feeling Grant nor Zach nor Macey nor Haven wanted to help. "Liz, I need you to look up Josh's file and see if he is working with, or against, anyone."
Elizabeth Sutton decided for once it wasn't good to ask questions, Bex had a murderous look on her face and Liz didn't think arguing would help the situation. So, she went to work on her computer.
Zach sat on his bed, desperate for some reason to go out of his apartment-like room he shared with Grant. He just couldn't find the energy to get up and off the couch and be social anymore. His whole life had been taken away one night, and he was about ready to go and murder Jimmie Abraham.
Grant came rushing through the door and shook his friend's shoulders. "Dude, if you are going to rant on about how 'beautiful your British Bombshell' was today, I don't want to hear it." Zach said lazily. Grant rolled his eyes and flipped his best friend over so he was facing him.
"Fine, if you are going to act like that then I won't tell you anything about your Gallagher Girl." Grant said teasingly. Zach tensed up at the old name, and so many great memories flashed through his head. "What about her? Other than the fact we know she has been beaten up by that major idiot Jimmie, we know nothing. Nothing, Grant, nothing." Zach was on the brink of tears, and he didn't cry often. "Do you just want to update me on the fact she is being bruised and torn by her "husband", or that she has a few more gashes today than yesterday? No more depressing news Grant, no more. Tell me something positive for once, please," He pleaded, overwhelmed with emotion. That was all he had ever heard, or eavesdropped about – how awful Josh was to Cammie. It tore Zach's heart to shreds, he missed holding her, he missed kissing her and his kids good night. He was surprised Josh didn't go and kill the twins, that he had enough self control to keep alive the only thing that brought Cam joy.
"She's coming." That was all Grant had to say to make Zach start to freak out. He jumped into the shower and tried to make himself as presentable as possible. It was eight o' clock in the morning when Grant delivered the news, and now Zach had a feeling the day was going to get a whole lot better.
Cammie was sure the speed she read on her speedometer wasn't the speed she was supposed to be going, and when her adrenaline rushed like this it never led to good things. Or at least, what she remembered about her crazy adrenaline rushes. And that wasn't much.
She slowed down to a more civilized speed, and tried to calm herself down. She had packed all the baby clothes she could fit into half a suitcase and shoved the other with baby food and hygiene supplies. Her other suitcase was filled with her clothes and little food. It was a three hour drive to Roseville, Virginia and Cammie didn't want to have to stop often. She had already chugged a soda and eaten a large pack of chips she had bought from a convenience store she frequently visited. Right now it was hard for her not to fall asleep, but she left about fifteen minutes after she knew Josh had gone for work at six-thirty in the morning. She had gotten the urgent call from Bex around midnight, and tried to rest as much as she could after she had packed the things for her and her children. She already had the car seats buckled into her car and was ready to go.
She knew not to question Bex's judgment, and this time was no different. Cameron had a strange feeling that her friend was on to something that she couldn't tell over the phone. It was eight ten as she saw the sign that said 'Roseville – 79 miles' and she felt a wave of relief wash over her. That meant she only had around an hour left of driving.
Cammie pulled into Gallagher gates at nine twenty-six, and why she knew this she didn't understand, but she waved off the detail. Bex and her boyfriend Grant were waiting at the door. Cammie at once saw that Grant was about half a foot taller than Bex, but she also noticed the worried look on Bex's face. Grant's eyes were stone cold, his jaw set firm.
Cameron brushed her bangs away from her forehead to get a better glimpse at the dark shadowy figure lurking in the background. It moved before she could analyze it any further.
A shrill cry broke Cam from her thoughts and she turned towards the car to retrieve her daughter, Emmie. The moment she was in her mother's arms the child calmed. Gwen was still asleep but once Emmie made her noise she had woken up. Cammie handed Em over to Bex and picked up Gwen from her car seat.
"They're beautiful, Cam. You have the most beautiful babies." Bex gushed as she cooed at the small child. Grant stayed put with one shoulder resting on the wall; he seemed lost in thought, which, according to Bex, didn't happen often. "Thank you so much Bex, now what did you need to tell me about Josh?"
Bex's face went dark and cold, resembling much like Grant's. It was almost scary. "You might need to sit down for this. I have been aching to have a roommate since Macey moved in with Haven down the hall. I'll have Grant bring your bags up in a bit."
"Okay," Cameron saw the figure flash in the dark again, but she shook her head and thought she'd probably been seeing things. She didn't get much sleep last night.
When they got into the room and shut the door the girls claimed their own beds and suddenly a memory hit Cameron. She was sitting on her bed with a petite blonde girl sitting in front of her, a muscled Egyptian goddess sitting next to her, and a model to her other side. The blonde was typing something into a small electronic device and next to her was a piece of paper.
"What does it mean?" the small blonde girl asked. Her big blue eyes searched the device for some type of answer, but she looked depressed as she realized that she wasn't going to get an answer.
With that the memory faded. It had left Cameron dazed and confused.
"Okay, you aren't going to like what I have to say, but I have to tell you." Bex's voice sounded weighed with emotion. Cameron prepared for what was to come, she didn't expect at all what her friend had to say.
"You aren't married to Josh."
Cameron laughed at the thought, and Bex's look told her she wasn't kidding. Bex'a eyes were as serious as ever. Cammie's eyes bugged out as she tried to process the information. She had never seen a wedding band on Josh's hand, but he had insisted it had gotten too small and he hadn't the time to get it resized. She had never seen any pictures of their wedding either, Josh said that the film developer forgot to call them and decided to throw away all the pictures – including the negatives. There wasn't a wedding dress hanging in her closet, but she had assumed she had only used a rental.
"Everything he told you was a lie. He only let you keep your wedding ring to make you at least think you had been married. But you are married, and your husband is in much distress. Now, you will need help with remembering the truth. So, Grant and I have decided on a memory guide for you. This is one of your lifelong friends who haven't had quite that much on their to-do list for a while, and I am sure they'll want to do it wholeheartedly. So, are you ready to meet him?" Bex's tone was playful, and Cameron honestly was ready to meet this mystery guide.
A man – the same age as Cameron – walked through the door. His attire was laid back, jeans and a t-shirt, his body reflected his clothing. His face was a mask in which Cammie couldn't decipher what he was feeling, which annoyed her lots. She noticed he had a ring on his hand, which told her at once he was married. He had emerald eyes and a smirk plastered on his face. He was leaning against the door frame analyzing Cameron.
"Come on Gallag-" he stopped himself, correcting his choice of words. "Come on Cameron, I'll talk you through what you want to know." The sound of his voice made Cam's heart tug, she felt strongly for him, but she didn't know why.
She had to sit down the many memories came flooding back to her brain. She held her head in her hands and the man came and sat down next to her. Cammie noticed Bex had discreetly left the room, and that the guy was trying not to get to close to her. She had a knowing look in her eyes as she asked, "Zach?"
At the nod of his head she felt instantly relieved. "What can you tell me?" she asked.
"Anything you want to know." His cocky tone actually kept the memories flooding back. "When did you get married?"
"May twenty-ninth." He responded immediately, which pleased Cameron. "How many years have you been married?" He once again answered without hesitation. "Five years, eleven months and twenty-three days."
He smirked at his response, hoping the look on her face meant she was at least remembering a few things. And she was, so many things that she had to close her eyes and breathe a deep breath. The hardest question she had to ask was this, "Who is your wife?" Instantaneously his expression dimmed and he had his jaw locked. He obviously thought the question wasn't one that needed to be asked. He replied anyway. "She's gone. Unless I get a miracle, I may never get her back. She's lost in a sea of lies. She probably doesn't know who to trust any more. She seems as if she keeps trying to remember if I really am her beloved and it takes all my willpower not to run up to her and hold her. I lost her for three years and sixteen days due to a kidnapping. She was obviously brainwashed, now she doesn't understand anything she's being told and she is running off of relayed information, most of which was lies."
She remembered something about being married to Josh, she could hardly remember anything from high school. He said that the amnesia she had been diagnosed with corrupted her more recent memories. She had also been married to him for three years and sixteen days. She tried to think hard and all of a sudden a knowing look was on her face.
"It's me, isn't it?" that was all either of them could take. She gave him the most pitiful look and the tears started to roll down her face. She couldn't see the tears glistening in his eyes because her vision was blurry. They somehow maneuvered to where she was on his lap with her head on his shoulder crying her heart out. Suddenly she heard Bex's firm knock on the door. 'How did I know it was Bex's knock?' she thought to herself. She stood up and answered the door with tears still in her eyes and her face was swollen and red. The moment Bex saw her distraught best friend she pulled her lips into a tight line and clenched her fists. Grant snaked his arm around his girlfriend's waist to hold her back from completely destroying Zach. Grant's arm muscled were flexed, showing that Bex was putting up a struggle. He put his other hand on her shoulder and whispered something into her ear that neither Cam nor Zach could hear.
"What. Happened?" Bex's voice was firm just like her knock. Just then Cameron whispered the most valuable words of the entire day. "I remember."
A whole new set of tears found their way to her face and Bex's matched hers. She ran back over to Zach, who was sitting on the bed dumbfounded she even remembered his name. She wrapped her arms around his neck and it knocked him backwards onto the hard bed. She buried her head into the hollow of his neck and kept crying. She repeated those same words over and over again, "I remember."
After about five minutes of total freak-out time she sat up, and grasped Zach's face. She rubbed his moist cheek bones with her thumbs tenderly, and he had a sudden urge to kiss her.
Bex and Grant had subtly left the room, and Cameron had finally chosen the correct words but Zach beat her to it. "I missed you so much Gallagher Girl. So much." At the name she melted, and remembered the countless occasions when he had called her that. "I-I.." her mouth didn't want to form the words her heart was telling her mind to say.
She pulled him into another hug and he couldn't keep himself from at least kissing her on the neck. He did, once, and it sent tingles up her spine, but it felt normal. She cried silent tears onto his jacket. She pulled herself up and there was one more tear that hadn't fallen.
Zach did something unpredictable; he caught the tear with a kiss on her jaw. She only had to slide her face a few inches and she could get what she wanted. She wiped both of their faces, but didn't move her hands from his jaw line. Before she knew what she was doing she pulled his face and pressed her lips to his.
It sent sparks up both of their bodies but it didn't deter either of them. They felt emotionally and physically "in place". He pulled away and kissed her earlobe, she felt the need to tell him what had recently found its way to her brain. "I lo-" she was cut off by another kiss - this one was a little more meaningful, as if he wanted to prove something.
He broke off and said, "I have been waiting for you for three years, sixteen days, thirteen hours and twenty seconds. I have been watching what he does to you, how many times a day he beats you up. How he took you from me, and I-I couldn't help. It destroyed me Gallagher Girl. I've been waiting for myself to just wake up and it all had been a dream. Every morning I woke up, and you weren't there next to me. It killed me."
She was waiting, and listening. Finally she chose to speak. "Zach, I love you." The words were only out of her mouth a moment before she had tackled him again with a hug. He had snaked his arms around her waist, and he was on his back just holding her. He honestly didn't know what to do, other than tell her the truth.
"I love you too, a whole lot more than you can even, or ever, think up. When you walked away, you took a piece with me, and that didn't settle too well." His face darkened and he tensed up as if he remembered something horrid. And that he did. He remembered the night that she had been taken.
"Gallagher Girl, you look beautiful." She gushed at the comment, feeling a hot tinge on her cheeks from the blush she should've been able to control by the age of twenty-two. She was putting the girls to bed, and she sang them a soft lullaby. Zach had often bombarded in on her personal time with their daughters just to watch and listen to his beautiful and talented wife. The babies had just been taken home from the hospital, at the age of two weeks.
She turned to walk out only to see her handsome husband propped up with one shoulder on the door frame watching her every move, intent on memorizing each one. She made her way to the door, but that was as far as she'd gotten before they busted in the doors. She remembered some of the Circle's moves before they had even made them; she had been fighting them off for at least five years. She was giving one man a good roundhouse kick when she was drugged. A rag was placed over her mouth and her hands were bound behind her back.
Zach tried to get to her before they had dragged her out of the open window. The attack seemed not to wake up any of the surrounding people, so he was sure no one had noticed the twenty men in black lugging his wife out their room and into a getaway car. What tore his heart was that he couldn't do anything about it. He went back to check on his children but all he found was a rattle and a blanket.
He shuddered at the thought of Cams being tugged and pulled into that jet black Hummer. The one thing that brought him out of his state was the young woman cinching her arms around him tighter, holding on now for her life it seemed. He hoped he'd never have to think like that again. He found that she had slowed the sobbing, and it made him happy she was no longer crying.
He was busy thinking about her but noticed she had left a trail of kisses from his jaw to his collar bone. Each one felt more electric than the last. For the rest of the night she was being held, while being told information. Cameron felt more at home than ever.
A/N I am thinking this is a one-shot, but if you review a bunches then maybe I'll continue on. I know I have another story, and it's on hold right now from writers block. I really hope that you guys and gals liked this story. Probably the best Zammie I could come up with.
Love, Moe – Happy Fanfictioning!