DISCLAIMER: ya know, after you say disclaimer, everybody knows what's coming, so I don't see the point of typing right here that I'm not Ally Carter and don't own Gallagher Girls.
The line, I knew, even though I couldn't see it was flat. The beep, even though I couldn't hear it, I knew had turned to a solid drone. I wondered what everyone made of this. What were they doing? Were they all even here?
Since I'm sure you're extremely confused, so I'll go back in time for you, to a time where everything was painstakingly simple. Now, if you had told me a year ago that now I'd be calling that time simple, I would've slapped the back of your head, called you a freak in the fourteen different languages I know, and had you admitted to a mental asylum. But the truth was, that was the truth. So, let our time warp begin.
"Cameron Morgan, you better have a good excuse for running away!" my mother screamed. I had come back after only twelve days, but she still had steam coming out of her ears.
"I do." I whispered softly. I looked up at her, shyly meeting her eyes. "Mom, the circle was after me, and I didn't want y'all to get hurt. They were going to torture and kill everyone close to me. I would rather die than let that happen." my voice rose, it was filled with emotion, and I was practically shouting by now. "I would sooner commit suicide than let that happen. I would slit my own wrists, shoot myself in the heart, decapitate my head, anything, in the blink of an eye if it would keep all of you safe. I would do it without regret, and if I had to live that day over again five hundred billion times, I would do it every time. Understand?"
My spiel was over, which I could tell relieved her. As I continued to stare into her emotion filled eyes, I saw they were overflowing with the tears that spilled over the red- rimmed brims of her gorgeous deep chocolate brown eyes. "Yes, Cammie, yes I do. Because I feel the same way about you and my students. And I would've done the same thing. But my only question is, Cammie, why? Why did you come back?"
"I realized I wasn't really doing any of y'all any good. I wasn't protecting you any more. Instead, I was basically just insuring that if I was captured... or killed, I wouldn't get to say goodbye, or let you guys know how much I loved you. Instead, you wouldn't know anything, including why I left. You'd think I was a coward, who ran away from her problems. Instead of right into their arms."
Which, my friends, was exactly what I was about to do.
We hugged, talked some more, and I left to go eat dinner with my classmates. It turned out to be a big deal, since I had been gone for almost two weeks. My aunt, who turns out to be our assistant CoveOps teacher, strode up to the podium, and grabbed it with force, one hand on either side of it, clutching it on the rims. "Students, as you all know, on of your own was missing. A beloved friend, roommate" -she glanced at Bex, Liz, and Macey- "student, niece, daughter"- she looked at her sister- "god-daughter" -she looked at Mr. Solomon- "girlfriend."- she looked at Zach, whose signature smirk was, surprisingly, not in place. Instead, he blushed slightly, his eyes holding anguish at the loss of his girlfriend. "She was the best spy, best pavement artist, and best student to ever walk the halls of Gallagher. This girl, a CIA legend at only the age of three, my favorite person in the world, and I know I am not alone when I say that. Gallagher Academy, this girl has been found.
Now, a few people were crying, obviously assuming I was found dead. Now, I'll admit, my aunt and mom both had tears in their eyes, so it was kind of pointing in that direction, but any good spy should know not to make hasty assumptions. Heck, I knew that when I was five, that's why I never believed in Santa Claus.
"Come on in, Squirt", she whispered hollowly, so low that I think I was the only one to hear it. I opened the door silently, making sure no one would notice. I strode up to the podium. During my time away, I had dyed my hair, because, personally, I thought wigs were too noticeable. It was now a sandy blonde color, and my usually sapphire eyes, with teal bordering the pupils, had hazel contacts over them. I was wearing my Gallagher uniform, but the skirt got shrunk after some experiment of Liz's, so I guess it didn't look like something I would normally wear. I had messed up my school shoes while I was gone, so, instead of the normal black ballet flats I normally wore, I was wearing black three inch heeled ankle boots.
So, obviously, I didn't look like myself. After a brief Mr. Solomon hug ( "Knock 'em dead, Chameleon."), I strode over to the podium, giving Aunt Abby a hug. I stood in front of it, grasped the edges, and took a strong, fast approach. When Aunt Abby first taught me about the power of it, she told me they 'wouldn't know what hit 'em'. That was definitely true now (though mostly because all the boys were drooling at me (except a certain green- eyed one who was looking at me calculatingly), and the girls who weren't crying because I was "dead" were looking at me enviously.)
I opened my mouth to speak, but a certain Zach Goode ran up to the stage, mounted it, and planted his mouth firmly on mine. He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I wrapped mine around his neck, playing with his hair. He deepened it, and I let him explore my mouth with his tongue. He whispered- into my mouth- "I love you Cameron Morgan."
"I love you too, Zachary Edward Goode." I whispered back. We kept kissing, but three minutes later (well, three minutes, forty- four point seven seconds, but whose counting?) someone cleared their throat. Someone named Joe Solomon, who loves playing the role of overprotective godfather. I turned us around and acted like I had wanted to give Zach a simple hug, but really mouthed over his shoulder, Sorry Uncle Joe! In Lithuanian pig Latin. My dad and I used to talk in it, it's Lithuanian, just with Pig Latin. After he went MIA, I would only talk in it for two months. Needless to say, no one knew what we were saying.
I finally, regretfully, pulled away from him. His eyes told me he wanted more, so I told him with mine that we could , later. Continuing my walk to the podium, I gripped its edges. Some people might be offended, or consider it a bad omen, if they were interrupted before they even began speaking. But I just laughed when Grant Newman said, "Hey, Goode, I thought you had pledged your undying love to Cammie, and said you'd never kiss another girl."
I raised an eyebrow because of how out of character that was for Zach. Then I turned towards him and smirked. To be more exact, I smirked his smirk. He made a face and grinned. Turning back to Grant, I said, "Thank you, Mr. Newman. Now I can tease him relentlessly for the rest of our lives. But, now back to the identity at hand. Who do you think I am?"
"That really hot girl from the cover of last month's Playboy." some senior guessed. I laughed and rolled my eyes.
"The love of my life." Zach replied.
I laughed again and said, "Yes, but no."
Suddenly, Bex ran up to the stage and gave me a bone- crushing hug. It hurt, but I wasn't gonna complain. I had missed her too much. "My bestest friend in the whole wide world," she whispered into my hair. I nodded into her shoulder. The hug got even harder. Macey and Liz, putting two and two together- me and Zach, and me and Bex- ran up to the stage and joined in the hug.
After five minutes or so, Mr. Solomon told me, in Lithuanian Pig Latin, to just go on and tell them already. I pulled back and returned to the podium. "Whatever you say, Uncle Joe." I replied, also in LPL. Then I returned to the students. "Like Mr. Solomon said, I should just go on and tell y'all. I'm back. After being gone for twelve days, I esc- decided to come back." I could tell a few people- Zach, mom, Aunt Abby, Mr. Solomon, my roommates- caught my slip- up, but weren't going to bring it up here. "I love you guys, and I'm glad to be home. Oh, and, James?" I replied to the senior who said I had been on the Playboy cover. "I have never modeled for Playboy in my life. And I don't intend to." I heard a few grumbles of "sadly", "too bad", "crap", et cetera. I laughed. "Sorry I took up so much of your eating time."
I went through the line and got my dinner and sat down by Zach and Bex. We just had normal conversation through the rest of dinner. They wanted to know about my adventures. I told them I would tell them in a more disclosed, secure location.
When supper was over, Macey, Bex, Liz, and I went back to our dorm. "So... Spill!" Macey exclaimed. I held up my index finger and walked around the room, collecting and crushing seven bugs. I got them in six seconds, which shocked the girls, who hadn't even seen them. I then took out my phone and hacked the security system, disabling all of the cameras in our room. It took 16.2 seconds. Liz, who was watching over my shoulder, gaped open- mouthed at me, her jaw was honestly almost touching the floor. I just shrugged sheepishly.
"Okay... now that you've everything and everything watching us in less than thirty seconds, spill!" Bex practically screamed in my ear. I did. The first thing they wanted to hear about was, obviously, the kiss. After I described it to them (in perfect detail, not leaving out one teeny tiny smidgen of a detail, at Macey's request), it was like Annual Shriek and Giggle Fest.
"So... now that we know all about your love life, where ya been?" Macey asked, honestly curious, not just nosy.
"Running from the Circle. They threatened to hurt and kill y'all, so I thought I was protecting you. Then I realized I wasn't, I was just insuring that if I got killed, I wouldn't get to say goodbye or tell you guys how much I loved you. So on the third day, I decided to come back."
"So why were you gone so long?" Liz asked, having realized that things didn't add up.
"Well, when I first left, I went to Canada. Then Mexico, London, Paris. Then somewhere in Italy, Rome, and Cairo. Then they chased me to Antarctica. There, they captured me and sent me to their base in the Peruvian Rain Forest." I began to tear up. "They tortured me. It hurt so bad." The tears were flowing freely by now. "They hung me by chains around my neck. They never fed me. They showed me videos of them torturing other people. They beat me." I showed them the whelps, scars, and blisters on my back from steel and leather whip. I heard gasps. 'They cut me. Really, really, deep." I showed them the scars. One, an inch wide, ran from the bottom of my right ear, down my neck, and onto my right shoulder blade. Another, two inches wide, ran from my right hipbone, around that knee- which, along with my shoulder, ankle, and all my fingers and toes, had been dislocated- and around the top of my foot down to he underside of the arch. Then came the last major scar. It was four and a half inches wide and encircled my whole stomach. They were all gasping and crying now. 'They also shot me." I showed them the bullet holes. Left shoulder. Left calf. Lower back, almost to my backside. Right between my ribs. It had been intended for my lungs. I sighed and pulled my shirt away to reveal the one lodged in my left breast. They gasped, shocked.
"How are you not dead?" Bex asked.
"Well, the one aimed for my lungs is about half an inch shy of each one, and the bullet near my heart is about a centimeter off target."
"Didn't it hurt when you were making out with Zach then?" Macey asked.
I nodded. "Oh, trust me, it hurt like hell."
"Wait. If all of that was so recent, how come they're already scars?" Liz asked.
"I used skin- again."
"Skin- again is supposed to make sure stuff doesn't make scars. You must've been one hell of a mess, Cam," Macey commented, ever the expert on anything remotely related to makeup.
They never got an answer, though, because right then, I, Cammie Morgan, passed out.
Zach POV
"Mrs. Morgan, report to the infirmary immediately," a voice said over the intercom. I found it kind of strange, because when people get hurt in P&E and stuff, they always say please, or at your earliest convenience. Then, I realized that there were no students in P&E. I hadn't heard any fights break out in the boys' dorm, and fistfights in the girls' dorms are very uncommon, almost unheard of.
Then I heard the scream. It was a scream of agony, pure, high, and shrill. "Abigail Cameron and Joe Solomon, report to the infirmary immediately." intercom voice said.
Something was definitely fishy here, I decided. I went to check it out, telling the guys I wanted to go on a quick walk. They just nodded. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, there was another scream. I guess Solomon and Abby had just gotten there, because Abby yelled, "Oh my God!" and there was a loud chorus of sobbing.
"What the hell happened?" Solomon screamed. That was about when I got really worried, because Solomon never loses his cool. Ever.
"Well... Peruvian Rain Forest base... skin again... well, only the big ones... barely missed lungs... close to heart...major vein in calf..." a few female voices put together.
"Well if skin- again made the big scars, we'll need to reverse it. Dr. Brown, if you will, please rub the reverse salve on each scar, and they will return to the exact way they were the day they were created."
There was another scream. "I know it hurts, dear, but we must get the bullets out. Only two more!" the male voice said.
"Doctor Jones, please be careful with these next two. If you puncture her lungs or heart..." Mr. Solomon trailed off.
"ALL STUDENTS, PLEASE REPORT TO THE GRAND HALL FOR MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENTS!" intercom voice said. I complied. Once I got there, I began looking for Cam. I didn't see her or any of her roommates, so I sat with Grant and Jonas. Dr. Steve came to the podium.
"Students, I am so sorry, but I must make an extremely heartbreaking announcement. The best student in all of Gallagher and Blackthorne, Cammie Morgan, was held at a base of the Circle of Cavan, where she was tortured. They whipped, cut, and shot her. She was cut on her neck, stomach, and right leg, and shot on her left shoulder, left leg, lower back, lungs, and heart. Over half the joints in her body were dislocated. She has lost over three- fourths of her blood and has entered a blood- loss- induced coma. Here is footage from her room in the infirmary."
He pressed the play button on a remote. A projector projected an image on a screen Dr. Steve pulled down. On a bed in the room lay a passed out Cammie. Her friends were crying in the corner of the image. Mrs. Morgan walked in and screamed. She fell to her knees, sobbing. The doctors stripped off Cam's clothes, revealing countless bruises, scrapes, and scars. Cam woke, screaming, when they stuck a scalpel in one of her wounds to get the first bullet out. There was so much pain in her eyes that I started to tear up. It went on, her screaming, people sobbing. Then they put on the reverse salve, and all of her wounds opened back up. They were all gushing blood a mile a minute, and just the amount of it she was losing now could kill her. Suddenly, her body, which had been tense and tightly strung, relaxed, and she stopped screaming.
"Is she... alive?" Mr. Solomon asked.
"Well, I believe so. She is most likely in a blood- loss- induced coma."
The sobbing on the tape grew louder. I heard the mahogany double doors at the back of the room open, and in walked the girls of room 223, minus one. Cam.
Bex, Macey, and Liz all had tear tracks running down their faces as they walked towards us. They sat next to us: Liz next to Jonas, Bex next to Grant, and, since neither of us had anyone to sit next to , Macey sat between me and Bex.
Dr. Steve cleared his throat, and our attention (besides Liz's and Grant's- they were crying into their boyfriends' shoulders- and Macey's- she was sobbing into her hands, which were on the table) went to the stage. Due to Miss Morgan's... situation, the Blackthorne students will be leaving. I am told to tell Gallagher students, your classes will begin Wednesday, giving you four days to recover. Thank you."
He stepped off the stage with a small wave. I ran up to him. "Can I see her?" I asked. There was obvious hesitation in his eyes. He didn't want to let me. But he also knew that this could easily be the last time I would see her- alive, at least- for a long time, if not forever. So he just motioned with his head for me to follow him. I did.
My first thought upon entering her room was Oh. My. God. She looked way worse in person. There was blood everywhere, and she had so many bruises and open wounds that she didn't even look naked. Headmistress Morgan, Ms. Cameron, and Mr. Solomon were all in tears. The ladies were full- out sobbing, holding hands. Mr. Solomon had one thin tear track going down each cheek. They were a mess. As I felt an unfamiliar wetness on my own cheeks, I realized that Cam was a special person. She had me AND Mr. Solomon in tears. Either one was a record breaker, but both... wow. This girl was really something. And I might be losing her.
So. Another Gallagher Girls story. Tell me watcha think!