Hurricane
Chapter Six: Fire and Gasoline
You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye
And I got that red lip classic thing that you like
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time
'Cause we never go out of style
We never go out of style
-Taylor Swift
(Style)
"Is that grilled cheese?" Cammie called from her bedroom. "Because it smells like grilled cheese!"
Zach laughed to himself as he served Cammie's grilled cheese onto a plate. Grilled cheeses were his specially. He was pretty shit cook otherwise, so grilled cheese had become one of his main food groups.
"Yes," he replied as she moved into the kitchen.
Cammie inhaled deeply taking in the smell. "How did you know I loved grilled cheese?"
He laughed again. "Babe, everyone loves grilled cheese."
She rolled her eyes, and felt herself flush. He'd called her babe, and it affected her more than she thought it would have. She shook her head to try and clear the flustered feeling but she was still a bit buzzed. She couldn't seem to shake the feeling.
He turned around and looked at her as he handed her the plate. She had changed out of her nice clothes and into a big t-shirt and a pair of barely their shorts. She'd cleaned herself of makeup and thrown her hair up into a pony tail, her cheeks tinted a lovely shade of pink. She looked younger then, she looked seventeen. It always surprised him that she was, because she was so adept at acting like she wasn't. Her young face didn't change anything though, she still looked beautiful. It wasn't fair, how was he supposed to focus when she was showing that much skin and managed to look like a goddess without wearing an ounce of makeup?
"Thanks babe," she winked as she took the plate from him, pretending she wasn't fazed by his verbiage.
"You're welcome," he replied, sliding his own grilled cheese onto his plate. "You want to do this mission briefing now?" He asked as they sat down at the counter.
Cammie made a face, effectively answering his question.
He laughed a little to himself. "You're the one who keeps telling me I need to read the files."
"We talked about some of it earlier," she said.
"Not all."
She shrugged. She didn't want to talk about the mission.
"What about your 'family issues'?" he asked, changing the subject . "You going to tell me about them?"
She was silent for a moment, but her expression gave nothing away. She took another bite of her sandwich and Zach was starting to think she simply wasn't going to answer him. He began to regret his words. They'd had such a good night, he hadn't wanted to ruin it.
"No," she finally said after she had swallowed. "I'm not."
Her honesty had surprised him. He had assumed that she would try and talk her way around it and get him all confused.
"You know, partners are supposed to share things. They're supposed to know each other inside and out." Zach didn't know why he was still pushing. But she made him crazy. It was like he had to know all her secrets. He wanted to know why she was the way she was. Why she could be so carefree and happy and but always have a dark shadow following her around, threatening to swallow her at any moment.
Her eyes suddenly flicked up to his. They were dark. The youthfulness from her face was gone, replaced by a stony expression. It almost scared him, how quickly her mood could swift from such different extremes.
"Then why don't you tell me about your family Zach?" She looked back down at her plate, hoping to have shut him up.
She said the words knowing full well that he wouldn't share either. But that was the point. Neither of them were willing to share even the tiniest bit, because it meant the other would have power over them. No one wanted to be vulnerable in their relationship. Both of them were too stubborn to give even a little.
He knew she expected him not to answer. Which is exactly why he did.
"I have two sisters, my mother is bat shit crazy, and I never met my father."
Without moving her body, Cammie's eye slid over to where Zach was sitting.
"Wow, Zach," she said sarcastically. "That was deep."
He scowled at her. He didn't like this Cammie. The sarcastic one. The mean one.
"It's a start," he replied, refusing to let his own irritation cause him to snap at her. "More than you shared." He knew he'd put his foot in his mouth by tying to get her to open up when she so clearly didn't want to, but he was a guy. And he wasn't about to let her wound his pride.
He was taunting her. She knew it. She wasn't going to rise to his bait. She had an older brother, a little sister, and a sassy best friend. By this point she had figured out how to take the high road.
"I'm not sharing because I don't know you Zach. I don't want you to know every aspect of my life. Just like I'm certain you don't want me digging around your past. So why don't we start talking about something else before you get yourself into trouble?"
Cammie knew more about Zach then she did about him. And not only because she had actually read his profile. Because her mother worked with Zach's, which inherently meant Zach's mom was a nasty piece of work. Before she met him, Cammie might have said the same of Zach. But it was clear he didn't like his mother; he didn't want to mention her at all. Just like Cammie wouldn't talk about her own. Maybe they could bond about having evil mothers in the future, but right now that wasn't going to happen.
Zach stared at her for a long time, trying desperately to figure out what she was thinking. But he couldn't, and he didn't think he ever would.
He sighed. "I think it's time for me to go."
She was caught off guard. She hadn't meant to scare him away. When he wasn't being a prying idiot or a pretentious asshole she kind of enjoyed his company.
He stood up, his grilled cheese only half finished.
"We're meeting James next week for the real mission briefing," he said, speaking before she had the chance to open her mouth to ask him to stay. He pulled his jacket on.
"Zach. . . I didn't mean—"
"Bye Gallagher girl," he cut her off, his eyes dark. She felt like she had hurt him somehow, which definitely had not been her intention.
Her mouth hung open as she watched him walk to the door.
She shrugged it off, she shouldn't feel bad or weird that he was leaving. "Bye Zach," she finally said.
He offered her a small smile before pulling the door open and leaving.
She stared at the door for a few minutes. She was confused. But boys tended to do that so she turned away and tried to shrug it off.
She flipped off all the lights and went to bed, refusing to give it another thought.
:*:*:*:
Zach had decided to walk back to his apartment. It was only a couple of blocks, and he craved the fresh air. It had started to get a little suffocating in Cammie's apartment. He liked being around her but sometimes there was something so dark about her. Something so unexplainably weird and polar from her personality that when it came out it scared him a little bit. When she spoke like that he felt like she could cut him into pieces with a bloody grin. Zach didn't often get intimidated by people. but Cammie definitely intimidated him, not matter how much he hated to admit it. She was strong, stronger than any girl, or any agent, he'd ever meant. She was hiding something, something that had broken her and made her that way. At this point, Zach wasn't sure he even wanted to know.
The fresh air felt like medicine to his lungs and to his brain. It would be good to have a couple days away from her before the mission actually started and they would be together 24/7. He could only imagine how he'd feel then.
Zach's peace didn't last long. His phone had started to ring. It was nearly 2 AM, it had to be Cammie.
"Hello?"
"Well I sure am surprised you decided to answer," a voice, not Cammie's, sang in his ear. "This must be a first."
He stiffened. "Tessa."
"Hi baby brother," she replied, and he could tell she was grinning.
A long silence stretched between them before Zach could say anything. He considered hanging up, but he knew she would just call back, and keep doing so until he broke his phone or answered.
"Cat got your tongue?" She hadn't changed. Her voice was still intentionally snarky and malicious. "Or should I say, Cam got your tongue?"
Zach felt his shoulders grow even tenser then they already were, he clutched the phone in his hand with an absurd amount of strength.
He knew that she was trying to get under his skin. She always was. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction. No matter how much he was dying to ask what Tessa knew about Cammie, or how. "Was there something you wanted?"
Tessa clicked her tongue in a disappointed kind of way.
"Can a girl not call her brother to chat?"
"Not you Tessa, and not at two in the morning."
"You really are no fun, did you know that?"
He didn't respond.
She sighed. "You haven't been reading the reds have you?"
"Maybe I haven't been getting them."
"Of course you have," Tessa said. "You're just being a little brat as usual. Why can't you just love your family unconditionally Zach? You know sometimes you really are a piece of work, no wonder Tasha is the favorite."
"My family are a bunch of criminals Tess, you're just jealous I got out and you didn't." His voice was softer than it previously had been. He knew Tessa wasn't inherently bad, she was stubborn and easily led. Once she made a decision she stuck with it, no matter the consequences.
"You had better be careful Zachary," Tessa said in what he had always called her "big sister" voice. "The reds aren't sent to you to be unread and thrown away."
"Well then stop sending them, because there's no way in hell I'm ever getting involved with that again."
"You've already wrecked our family," Tessa said. "Why can't you just help me put it back together?"
"You know full well that I did none of the "wrecking" Tessie," he replied. "I did what I had to do, and if you had half a brain and your own free will you would do the same."
"You don't get it Zach." Her voice was cold, but it was also sad. He knew she just wanted everything to be the way it was, when they were all a family. But she was definitely going about it in the wrong way.
"Obviously not," he sighed. "Well what does she want then? Come on spit it out."
"She wants you to open the fucking reds Zach," Tessa finally snapped. "And I would if I were you. She'll know if you don't."
So they were watching him then. Which is how they knew about Cammie, and that he hadn't been reading those stupid red envelopes.
"Tessa," he said. "I'm not part of that anymore. So you can tell our mother to fuck off because I'm not doing her fucking dirty work anymore. If she wants someone out of the picture she can do it herself."
"You know you're only digging yourself a deeper hole Zach. the only reason she hasn't come after you yet is because the assignment you're on. If you weren't she'd —"
"Tessa stop. Tell her to leave me alone. Also, it'd be lovely if you did the same, and Natasha. I don't have unlimited minutes afterall."
When she spoke again her voice sounded oddly frail.
"You have ruined everything Zach."
She hung up before he could answer her. He knew she believed what she was saying. Tessa didn't like change, even if it meant being a better person, or just a decent human being. She was set in her ways, especially if she thought that he had broken their family. She wanted him to come home. Then everything would be ok again.
But he hadn't broken their family, and he certainly didn't have the power to put it back together.
Zach sighed. He glanced at his watch. It was after 2 AM. He shouldn't have answered the phone.
Nothing good ever happens after 2 AM.
:*:*:*:
"It's two in the morning, this had better be important."
Cammie ignored the irritation in her best friend's voice. Bex's only job was to basically pick up at this hour and give advice. Lord knows Cammie had done it for a hundred times or two.
"He asked me about my family."
Cammie had tried to go to sleep. She had tried to forget the whole thing. But it felt like a scratch she couldn't itch. But boy did she need to scratch.
Cammie heard Bex sigh on the other end and the sound of light clicking on. "That'll do it."
"He had no right to expect stuff like that from me. We've known each other for a couple weeks. That doesn't mean I'm going to spill my guts to him! I mean what does he expect? For me to pour my heart and soul out to him? It's not like he would do the same for me! Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall, you know? Like it isn't fair. He shouldn't just get to pull on that string and completely unravel me. You should've seen me Bex— I was dumbstruck. And then I said some mean things and he got all weird and stiff and just left. Just like that! I mean really, he could of at least—"
"Cam."
Cammie inhaled deeply. She knew she had a tendency to ramble when she had a lot on her mind. Bex was a good friend to put up with it. "Sorry. But it's really irritating."
"Didn't you know he was already an ass? People ask you about your family all the time Cam, just brush it off."
"Ugh! I can't. He gets under my skin Bex."
"I think that's just his personality."
"You don't understand," Cammie said overdramatically. "We were having a really good time. We went out for drinks and went back to my apartment—"
"Wait what?!" Bex interrupted hastily. "You went back to your apartment?"
"Not like that Bex."
"Well what do you expect me to think. You don't exactly have a reputation for being a prude!"
"Nothing was going to happen. It was totally innocent. He's my partner, it would make the rest of the case weird. But that's all besides the point anyway. I went to see Tibey earlier and then my mom called—"
"You went to see Tibey?!"
"Yes Bex, it's been a busy day. Try to keep up!"
"Excuse me," Bex said sarcastically. "Fine, keep going."
"And she was all pissed at me for seeing Tibey. Zach called me and told me I missed out handler meeting which made him mad because our handler, you know James—"
"Oh yeah, he's the worst."
"— is awful. So he said we needed to meet and discuss, but he could tell I was upset so he asked me to meet him for drinks. I don't even know why I said yes. Anyway we ended up bonding and getting a little drunk. But then we saw the perp from our case and sniffed him out a bit. After that Zach decided I was "too drunk" to get home alone and came back with me. And then he made me grilled cheese and we got in a fight. Now you are up to speed."
"Give me a second to process."
Cammie waited a moment, forcing herself not to say anything.
"You "sniffed" out the perp?" Bex asked finally. "What does that even mean? Can't you get in trouble for that?"
"No, it got our foot in the door, it'll probably make the mission easier. I saw an opnening, and I made Zach take it."
"Same old bossy Cam."
"I am not bossy!"
"Keep telling yourself that," Bex muttered. "Anyway, how did the grilled cheese make you fight?"
"I told you earlier! He asked me about my family."
"Why didn't you just tell him you didn't want to talk about it?"
"I did! He kept pushing. He's a pusher, and I don't like it."
"Cammie like I said earlier, don't let him push your buttons. If you're already having problems with your partner then that probably means the mission isn't going to go so smoothly."
"I don't know why everyone says that you have to get to know your partner. I think it's ridiculous. I don't want to know Zach."
"You're drunk aren't you." It wasn't a question.
"I'm always drunk Bex," she replied without a moment of hesitation. Which is what she always said when someone called her drunk.
"Drunk off life," Bex said before Cammie could finish. "I know."
"Hmph!"
"I think you need to go to bed," Bex suggested. "We'll re evaluate it in the morning."
Cammie was quiet for a second. "I don't want him to keep asking Bex," she whispered.
"Cammie it'll be fine, you'll get over it."
"No you don't understand."
"What do you mean then?"
"I don't want him to keep asking, because. . ."
"Because why?" Bex asked, her patience thinning.
Bex could tell Cammie was holding her breath. "Because I think if he keeps asking. . . I might tell him."
Ah Zammie fights, aren't they the best?
Get ready for a story full of them ;)