A/N: So I've finally updated! *cheers* It turns out that I have exams that no-one told me about and now I have to study like mad. Enjoy topless Zach scene number 1!


Punch, kick, kick, punch, punch. The therapeutic rhythm of my anger echoed in the room, clearing my mind from the mess everything was in. My t-shirt lay abandoned on a bench next to a towel and water. It was nice to take my anger out on something inanimate for once - a real luxury to not injure people. The light of the stars filtered through the sky-light, giving my surroundings a change for the better. It felt cooler here; the faint smell of hay and being drenched with sweat added to the change. By the time I noticed someone was in the barn with me, I was already exhausted and breathing heavily. The punching bag was wrecked and only one plan came to mind throughout the whole time - find her. I couldn't let my mom get a hold of Cammie. If she did, she wouldn't stop torturing her until she gets the information she wants - whatever it was.

"Zach, it's two in the morning. Why are you beating the crap out of that bag?" It was Bex's voice. I turned to face her and was shocked to see that she had been crying, the puffy red eyes giving it away. She wasn't alarmed by the state I was in - if anything, she was amused by the sight of a topless assassin beating up a punching bag in the middle of a barn at night.

"It's all my fault!" I shouted, the anger I tried to release exploding from me, "If it wasn't for me, Cammie would still be here!" I couldn't stop the tear rolling down my cheek - I lost the one person I cared about the most.

"We need to find her, Zach." she said, her voice wavering ever so slightly, "We're getting her back no matter what Mrs Morgan says."

"The Circle are going to be looking for her as well. Only I can stop my mom." I muttered through gritted teeth. She walked up to me and slapped me. Hard. I have to hand it to her, she was strong.

"We can't just wait for her to come back. She must've hidden some clues around to tell us where she went!" she barked, optimism growing in her voice. I sat down on the bench and threw the towel on my bare shoulder, discreetly hiding the scars. They ran from my left shoulder down to my lower back; there were a few scars on my stomach, but they blended in with my muscular figure (yes, I give you permission to drool over the mental image of me).

"She doesn't want to be found!" I sighed, destroying her last hope, "She even wrote that in the report. Cammie is smart enough to know what she wants, but she doesn't think of how it affects everyone around her. In her eyes, she's protecting us. In my eyes, she's going into a suicide mission." I explained in a rush. I knew I was right and so did she.

The world around us didn't know that Cammie was missing, not yet anyway. In the morning when everyone wakes up, mass hysteria will break free, rumours will go wild and the harsh reality will come crashing down on us all. Without the one and only Cameron Ann Morgan, nothing will be the same.

In the depressing silence, Bex suggested, "If you have nowhere else to go over the summer, you can come with me to help find Cammie. My parents were told about this a few hours ago."

I thought about it for a minute. "I'll meet you there sometime." I said mysteriously, hoping that she wouldn't ask why I said 'sometime'. She nodded and smiled, then walked back to the school. I went back to the P&E barn to finish the

I had one agenda for the first two weeks of summer vacation. If I didn't fulfil it, I would go back to normality and help find her with official agents. What I was planning to do would either succeed or fail, there was nothing in between. I would do the one thing Cammie didn't want anyone to do. I was going to look for her and nothing could stop me.


When I woke in the morning, panicked whispers were in the air. It was the last week of school and tests were still to be done. The news of Cammie's disappearance had been found out and everyone was shocked. I trudged into the Grand Hall and the voices silenced as I passed the girls. Rumours were already spreading about why she left - some thinking it was to find Jimmy, others think it was because I broke up with her. But they don't know the truth. She left to find her father and finish his incomplete mission. She was going to take down the Circle on her own.

"Zach!" yelled Tina Walters, running towards me, "Is it true that Cammie left because you dumped her?"

"No!" I replied. I was annoyed that she would think it was something so simple, so petty. Cammie isn't the kind of girl to run off because of a boy. She's a Gallagher Girl - a teenage spy-in-training who can kill a man in several different ways with a piece of uncooked pasta. She's a girl that can speak fourteen different languages. She's a girl that can disappear in front of your eyes. But most of all, she's my Gallagher Girl.

I sat down with Liz, Bex and Macey and started to interrogate them. "Where and when was the last time you set eyes on Cameron Ann Morgan?"

"Sixteen hundred hours. Library." was the reply from Liz. She looked smaller than usual and the cheerful smile she always wore had been wiped from her face.

"What is missing from all your belongings? Including hers." I fired off, tapping my fingers impatiently on the table.

"Four hundred dollars, a rucksack, her first CoveOps report and her dad's journal." Macey recited. She didn't seem that annoyed that Cammie took her money, but she wasn't as Macey-ish as she usually was.

I scraped my chair across the floor and got up, leaving the Grand Hall. Everyone watched me leave and the uproar that followed was intense. I had the most basic information that I could get. Now was the time that I would get ready.