Hey Loves,

Sorry this took so long to post, I had to edit a lot of things for this chapter to work. But hopefully the amount of Zammie will make up for the time.

Disclaimer: Ally Carter owns everything.

Chapter Five

I'll Have Danger With a Side of Zach

Two weeks later I was sitting outside my favourite café with Kat's favourite IT geek Simon, listening to the musical sounds of his fingers rapidly hitting the keyboard of his laptop. I had gotten bored of waiting for Catherine to contact me about my payment and so I was focusing my attention elsewhere for the time being.

My Aunt had been thrilled when she found out I was going for coffee with a guy my age that wasn't a potential target. I didn't have the heart to tell her that he was only here to help me hack a security firewall.

From the rim of my coffee cup I saw Simon's eyes grow huge. "What is it?" I asked him, curious as to what could have made him stopped typing.

He looked swiftly around the half-empty café, suspiciously eyeing the elderly couple at the table in the corner. The sun felt glorious on the back of my neck and I was glad we had chosen to sit outside, even if it meant we were in a more vulnerable seating arrangement. Simon looked longingly at the dark corner at the back of the café causing me to remember that he usually did his work in a bathroom cubicle of a broom closest, not out in the sun.

He cleared his throat and scrunched up his nose as he turned back to face me, eyes half on the screen in front of him. "This firewall is complex, way too complex for a normal school security system. I don't think I've seen anything like it before, the Henley had less coding than this."

There was a gleam in his eye and I realised that to him, this code was a work of art, which is saying something seeing as he is an art thief. I rose to go order more coffee, "So can you hack it? If it's got that much security it obviously has something to hide."

Simon nodded absently, already focussed on the problem in front of him. Shrugging, I went to go pick out a slice of cheesecake.

Two hours and three short blacks later, Simon emerged from his world of numbers and grinned madly at me. I chewed slowly on my gum, "It's done?"

"Oh it's done alright, and you won't believe what I found."

He turned the computer towards me and I got a glimpse at what Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women was truly hiding behind its walls.

"Well that explains a lot." Was my awed reply. My thoughts jumped from Mr Solomon to the British girl who had planted a bug on Macey at the campaign event.

"Why did you even want me to break into their system in the first place?" Simon asked, probably confused as to why a boarding school had intrigued me so much.

I never got a chance to reply because my eyes had just zeroed in on a figure in the distance. "Excuse me Simon, but I have some unfinished business to attend to." With that, I stalked off towards the boy who was supposed to be dead.

As I got closer I composed my face and tried not to dwell on the fact that he should be in a morgue by now, or maybe even a grave.

What is he, a cat? No one else can survive that many attacks. And trust me when I say that I was not the only one trying to kill him. God, next time I'm going to dig the grave myself and throw him in, dead or not.

As you can probably tell Mr CIA, in my anger I have stopped tiptoeing around words like death and murder. So I wasn't going to regret murdering this guy. Slowly.

No one gets the best of Cameron Morgan twice and lives to tell the tale.

Now if you are wondering who this so-called guy is, then you should probably change jobs. I mean come on: if you have high enough clearance to be reading this than you should definitely be smart enough to figure out that the guy is Zachary Goode.

Two minutes and twenty-three seconds later, I was standing in front of Zach. Looking just like any other seventeen year old girl enjoying her first week of Winter break.

"You look rather toasty in that jacket Babe." I told him, leaning in to straighten the collar of the said jacket and acting for all the world as though I was his doting girlfriend.

Zach stiffened, but I had a feeling that it was less to do with the fact that a random girl was calling him 'Babe' and more to do with the fact that a random girl knew the spy-slang for 'being tailed'.

"How do you know about the tail?" He murmured quietly as I slipped my hand into his and pulled him towards a large oak tree.

"My school has taught me a thing or two." I muttered, pulling him into the shadows provided by the tree's leaves.

Upon his questioning look I rolled my eyes. "Your tail isn't going to expect you to be with a girl; therefore they won't really take notice of us."

He nodded, still looking at me strangely, "Gallagher Academy?" He asked me, going back to the topic of my school.

"Uh huh, being the daughters of important people means knowing how to recognize a tail. The Academy hires some big-shot bodyguard guy to teach us, but like I know daddy is powerful and all but I think all this training is stupid. Why not just give us extra guards?" I pretended to cling onto the school's cover story, acting as though I actually gave two hoots about whether the secret was safe.

Zach smirked at me, "You can drop the act Gallagher Girl; I have a high enough clearance to know that your school isn't just for the rich and pampered."

"Yeah, yeah, and anyone being tailed at your age is likely to go to Blackthorne right? That's why I didn't put much effort into the cover story."

Zach didn't reply but just looked over his shoulder before turning back to face me. He seemed to have gotten closer and I hadn't even realized. Yeah, I know what you're all thinking; my observation skills were pretty sloppy. But I was too busy trying to think of the best way to kill this –excuse the French- bastard.

"Just so you know Gallagher Girl, I'm going to kiss you now." Wait. Where the hell did that come from?

I frowned and stepped back slightly. "Why?"

"Well, because you were right about my tail not noticing us. And the best way to hide my face and make us look like a normal teenage couple is for me to kiss you." He sighed slightly in what seemed to be exasperation, though he was smirking.

He did make a pretty good point, but the only thing I could think about was how the one time he wanted to kiss me was the one time I'm not wearing the poison.

"Now just try and make it look believable." He made it seem like he was issuing a challenge.

And before I had a chance to say a retort he had pulled me to him and brushed his lips against mine; softly at first before attacking them roughly. His hands found their way into my hair and I wound my arms around his neck, pulling him closer as I fake moaned just for good measure.

"I think he's gone." I muttered to Zach in-between kisses, looking around for the operative.

"You sure?" He hadn't stopped kissing me yet.

"Yeah…Shit, he's back and he brought some friends."

"Describe them." Zach started to slowly kiss my jawline; giving me an excuse to stand on tiptoes and look over his shoulder.

I half closed my eyes in pretend lust so that it wasn't obvious that I was staring. "Woman; mid-twenties, straight white blonde hair, white blouse, pencil skirt, long nose, tall and thin. Man; short, oh and he was just addressed as 'Dr Sanders'."

Zach swore in Farsi and pulled me further into the shadows of the tree in hopes of making himself as unrecognizable as possible.

Now Mr CIA Man, I know what you're thinking; why didn't I just hand him right on over to the agents who were tailing him? They were most likely FBI after all and he was a criminal who a done a crime worthy of death. So why did I help him? For one reason only: the money.

With the money I would earn from killing him I could easily buy myself a roomy two story house…With a Jacuzzi.

I didn't know it yet Sir, but that one greedy decision saved America.

Zach pushed me up against the broad tree trunk; with a hand on either side my head as he started to kiss me fiercely, again. I hoped this was a convincing make-out. My hands were making a mess of his hair as I pulled him even closer, sandwiched between him and the wall. He was a really good kisser, though when it came down to it, being an amazing kisser just wasn't enough to stop me from planning how to kill him in the most painful way possible.

The weird thing was; besides all of the lies and the acting that surrounded this kiss I found myself enjoying it. Though there was quite a lot of lies; like how this was a pretend kiss and the fact that we were pretending that I was his girlfriend to lose a tail, then there was me pretending that I hadn't met him before and lying about going to Gallagher Academy, oh and the fact that I was pretending to be nice while I was really thinking of all the ways I could kill him. And of course the last one; him pretending that he was the good guy in this situation.

The tail must have spotted us because he suddenly said: "Could that be him over there under the tree?"

Zach pushed me even harder against the tree and I latched onto him as though I needed him to breathe, to be honest, which was the longest I had ever kissed a guy for.

"No, Zachary is too smart to be kissing some girl while he has a price on his head. That's just a pair of lust filled teenagers who will no doubt end up having sex right there under the tree." The woman's voice held traces of disgust, and her companions must have agreed with her because when I opened my eyes they were gone.

I gave Zach a light shove to push him off me and took a moment to adjust my top and fix my hair. Zach ruffled his already messed up hair and smirked at me, "Well Gallagher Girl, that was certainly something."

I rolled my eyes at him, "That was saving you from your tail, nothing else."

He just kept on smirking and I suddenly had a brilliant idea on how I was going to kill him. Oh, it was so perfect that I almost clapped in delight, almost.

"What are you going to do now?" I asked him curiously, knowing full well what his answer would be.

"They will have already found my apartment –not that it has anything important in it, I'm not that sloppy- but it does mean I'm going to have to lie low for a while."

"Where are you going to go?" I asked, already thinking of ways to stay in contact with him.

"Nuh uh, sorry Gallagher Girl but my parents taught me not to trust strangers, especially the pretty ones." He raised one eyebrow at me while I completely ignored his comment.

"It's safer if you don't trust me Blackthorne Boy, and so much more exciting. But if you do end up needing help, my number's in the inside pocket of your jacket." I laughed and whirled around, already walking off as he searched his jacket pockets in search of my phone number.

So he didn't want to tell me where he was going next. No matter, I already took the liberty of placing a tracking device on him.

You didn't think that kissing was all for fun did you?

Editing credit goes to my wonderful beta onelastchapter, without whom I would have posted a confusing a ghastly chapter. You should all go check out her stories Also she came up with this title, so thank you Ritt.

Please review my darlings, for your reviews are what inspire me to write, hence more reviews equals quicker updates.

Love you and all that,

Matisse