Chapter 9

"Cammie?" Liz asked as she paused mid-sentence to see her best friend staring off into space. She didn't even break out of her daze at the mention of her own name. "Cam!"

Snapping out of her trance, Cammie turned to her smaller friend. "What?"

With a small sigh, Liz asked, "Were you even listening to me?"

"Um, yeah, of course," Cammie said, trying to sound convincing but failing. Even she could tell how weak her response was.

Besides the constant zoning out, Cammie had been taking the news about Zach much better than Liz and the others thought she would. She returned to her daily routine the very next day and it almost seemed as if the past few months never even happened in her mind. But as Liz watched Cammie shift uncomfortably as she stood there, she began to worry that maybe Cammie was suddenly remembering what she was supposed to have been feeling the past few weeks. Feeling mildly concerned, Liz asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Cammie replied like it was obvious. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Liz could tell she was trying to act like everything was cool—like she wasn't constantly thinking about the man who broke her heart and destroyed every ounce of trust she had, which wasn't much to begin with. Liz sighed and followed Cammie as she strode back to the breakfast bar. "Well, your boyfriend ended up being a murderous spy and then left town after kidnapping our best friend," she explained, knowing full well that Cammie hadn't actually been expecting an answer. But Liz needed Cammie to finally confront what happened with Zach, and then maybe she would avoid the downward spiral all of her friends were worried was bound to happen. And soon.

Cammie gave her a disapproving look. Liz knew she wasn't supposed to mention Zach and who he truly was out in public. Cammie hadn't told anybody besides the frail blonde waitress about Zach's hobby and his real intentions for visiting Roseville, and she planned to keep it a secret for as long as possible. She was hoping Grant, Macey, and Preston would somehow find him before she had to tell them, and then she wouldn't have to admit that she had been keeping vital information during a murder-slash-kidnapping investigation. But there hadn't been such luck just yet, and it was starting to look like they were never going to find him or the British beauty he took with him

"Thank you, for that trip down memory lane, Liz," she exclaimed sarcastically, turning away from the southern belle.

"I'm just saying," Liz started, refusing to let Cammie avoid the conversation. "No one is blaming you for being a bit…disturbed."

Cammie stopped and turned back to Liz, analyzing what was just said. She narrowed her eyes, repeating the last word. "Disturbed? Like crazy?" she asked, feeling very offended. "Everyone thinks I've gone crazy, is that it?" she snapped.

Liz gave her a look that read Calm down, remaining just as calm as she was before Cammie's outburst. "Cammie, no one's saying you're crazy. What I meant was that you've been distracted the past few days."

With a sigh, Cammie finally surrendered. "Of course, I'm distracted. My whole life just turned upside-down in a matter of minutes. Zach's a murderer, and a liar. Bex is gone because of him. How am I supposed to be anything but distracted?"

Liz placed her hand on Cammie's shoulder, causing her to meet Liz's reassuring eyes. "I think you should take the rest of the day off," she told the weary woman standing in front of her.

"No," Cammie said defiantly as she rounded the counter and went back to clearing off the dirty plates from the empty tables. "Work is sort of keeping my mind off of everything."

"No, it's not, Cam," Liz said softly, stopping her from picking up another plate. "Please, just take a mental health day."

"Again, we're back to me being crazy," Cammie said, continuing to pick up the plate despite the small hand trying to prevent her from doing so.

Giving her a look, Liz asked, "Can you please not be stubborn for once in your life and just go home and rest?"

"How come you're not taking a personal day?"

Liz replied with a small scoff, "Please, this diner would get nowhere without me," adding in a playful smile.

With a small chuckle of her own, Cammie realized that Liz was right; she should take a day off to rest. She had been working, running errands, and doing any and everything she could to keep her mind from straying back to those irresistible emerald eyes and the impossibly charming liar they belonged to. But recently, images of the deadly man had been able to slip into her mind, and she was beginning to feel the heavy burden of potentially being the reason Bex was still missing.

"Alright, fine," she agreed, handing over the busboy bin full of dirty plates. "But I'll be back tomorrow," she promised.

"Only if you're feeling better," Liz warned her.

"I won't be feeling any better until they find Bex," Cammie explained, which was returned with a nod from Liz.

As she left the diner, Cammie paused in the doorway. "Hey, Liz?" she called out. "Thank you…for understanding."

With an appreciative smile, Liz nodded. "Just don't do anything stupid," she warned, hoping that Cammie would listen to her just this one time and actually spend the day resting.

Cammie left without a response, hoping Liz didn't notice. As she walked through the diner's door, she bumped into Mrs. Watson, an elderly lady who would let Cammie help with baking cookies during the holiday season when she was younger.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Watson," Cammie started, holding her hands out for the woman to grip onto incase she lost balance.

"Oh, don't be, dear. It's pretty obvious you're a bit stressed," Mrs. Watson told her, grinning uncontrollably. The look in the old woman's eyes gave Cammie a weird feeling—like she knew something that Cammie didn't and it was very amusing.

"Yeah, things have been a little hard lately," Cammie answered, not exactly sure what she was saying. She was too busy trying to read into the weird smile on Mrs. Watson's face to pay attention to what was being said. "Is there something you want to talk to me about?" she asked, unable to ignore the elephant in the room any longer. There was obviously something on the old woman's mind that seemed to amuse her even more when in the presence of Cammie.

"Oh no, dear," she told Cammie, still grinning from ear to ear. "You'll find out soon enough. Have a nice day, dear." Before Cammie could ask the old woman what she meant, she waddled into the diner without looking back.

Still confused as ever, Cammie slowly walked over to her Jeep Grand Cherokee and climbed inside. As she drove through the little town, she could see the other residents' stares and whispers, causing the knot in her stomach to tighten. Did someone find out about Zach and spread the rumor around town? Did everyone blame her for what happened to Bex? She sped through Roseville as quickly as she could and made her way home without making eye contact with anyone.

Pulling into her driveway, she noticed a black Kia Sorento parked in front of her house. Hesitantly, she got out of her car and made her way around to the front of the house, where she could see the figure of a man in the shadows of her front porch.

"Hello? Can I help you?" she asked, still slowly making her way towards the strange figure.

At the sound of her voice, he stood up from the outdoor couch he had been sitting on while he waited for her to return home and stepped out into the sun, giving Cammie the opportunity to see his familiar face.

She froze at the sight. She knew this face. She's kissed this face. This face was supposed to be in Kentucky, moving on and starting over, forgetting about the wedding that never happened and the soon-to-be-bride he ran away from. This face was never supposed to return to Roseville. And Cammie was never supposed to see it again.

"Josh?" she asked as he neared her slowly, as if approaching a wild animal who he wasn't sure was safe to touch.

"Hey, Cam," he replied, smiling uncomfortably. His voice was just like it was when he left; deep and rich and alluring. His smile, if possible, was even brighter and his hair was even wavier. Cammie couldn't help noticing that he looked really good, and she was suddenly concerned about her own looks.

Smoothing her shirt out, she smiled back and greeted him with a hug. The moment their bodies touched, she knew she was in trouble. The spark that generated between them at contact was enough to know there was still some unresolved feelings there, and she couldn't help but feel like the hug was long overdue.

"How was Kentucky?" she asked, trying to make the small talk as normal as possible.

"Different. Big," he answered with a slight chuckle. "It was nice to walk down the sidewalk and not have everyone know every single detail about yourself."

Cammie thought back to her recent encounters with the strange looks and whispers as she drove home from the diner, and the extremely weird conversation with Mrs. Watson finally made sense. They had either ran into Josh out and about the town or they had seen him waiting on her porch. Either way, everyone knew he was back home, and it was all they could talk about.

Laughing awkwardly, she agreed, "Yeah, I don't think I'd miss that too much, either."

The awkwardness began to fade as Josh tilted his head and half-smiled in the way that always made her heart skip a beat. "So, how are you?"

Taking a deep breath, she averted her eyes. "Um," she started, unsure of how to tell him everything that happened since he left. How do you tell the love of your life who abandoned you that you found someone else, possibly your soul mate, only for them to be a complete lie and abandon you, too? "Well, you've been in Roseville for at least five minutes, right? I'm sure you've heard by now," she joked, adding in a quick giggle.

With an encouraging smile and a silent chuckle, he nodded his head to explain that he had heard the gossip. "Yeah, there's been some rumors, but I'd rather hear the real story from you," he told her, staring at her with those beautiful pleading eyes. "How about we catch up over some coffee?"

The blue in his irises was hypnotizing, and she remembered why she fell in love with him in the first place. Five months earlier, she would've taken this chance to get revenge—to cuss him out and make him hurt as much as she did. Five months earlier, she would've hated Josh's guts with every ounce of emotion she had. But standing there, after everything that happened with Zach, she realized that he wasn't the horrible man she made him out to be after the breakup. She finally understood why he did what he did—he needed space and room to breathe. With the wedding approaching quickly and everything becoming real, he was feeling overwhelmed. It was as if he couldn't recognize his own life considering all that was happening so fast.

She knew this because it was the same reason she couldn't run away with Zach when he asked.

So without even thinking, and forgetting her promise to Liz to not do anything stupid, she agreed. "Come on in."


"Cammie, open up!" Macey yelled as she pounded her fist against her best friend's front door. When she heard nothing in response, she frantically beat down the door again, calling out, "Cam, it's Macey! Open up."

After a few moments, the door swung open and the blonde woman stood in the doorway, her face revealing how panicked the banging had made her. "Macey, what's wrong?" she asked worriedly.

"It's Bex. We think we found her," the detective explained, peering past her friend's shoulder and noticing the man inside the house. Recognizing the face she spent the entire night yelling at all those months ago, she leaned closer to Cammie and whispered, "Is that…who I think it is?"

With her face burning red, Cammie answered, "He just stopped by to catch up."

Macey's eyes wandered over her lying friend's guilty face, and asked, "They don't have phones in Kentucky?"

Of course Cammie knew that Macey knew the real reason for Josh visiting Roseville—Macey was known as the best detective-slash-field agent in the whole country, after all. But that didn't mean that Cammie was able to admit—to herself or others—that her and Josh still had feelings for each other. Especially when she spent the last few months head over heels in love with Zach. How do you tell one of your best friends, who simply wants you to be happy with a good and honest guy, that you've reconnected with the first man that broke your heart only a few weeks after the second one destroyed whatever was left of it?

Explaining that to Macey seemed even less appealing than reliving Driver's Ed with Bex behind the wheel, which is why Cammie shifted the attention back to what Macey had said before she noticed the returning man.

"You said something about finding Bex?"

"Right," Macey said, her thoughts snapping back to the task at hand. "We got a call from a police station in Colorado that reported a sighting of a woman matching Bex's description. So tell Josh goodbye and let's go!" She turned and started down the front steps, but was quickly stopped when Cammie called after her.

"Wait, Macey! What do you mean let's go?" she asked, stepping out onto the porch. "Why am I going with you?"

"Because Zach was your boyfriend," the hastening woman answered as if it was obvious. "Hopefully you can talk some sense into him."

She wasn't sure when his name had been tied to Bex's kidnapping, but Cammie knew better than to ask for the details and facts; they were only shared with those on a need-to-know basis. Besides, she was supposed to have been completely over him, so hearing him being blamed for what had happened to Bex only made it easier for her to believe he was the horrible person she was supposed to think he was. Even if a part of her knew he wasn't.

Cammie shook her head, knowing that there was no way she could face his hypnotizing, lying face again. "Macey, he's not just going to hand her over and turn himself in."

As if she was unable to handle it any longer, Macey's face fell with so much emotion that it almost physically hurt Cammie to watch.

"Cam," Macey sighed, her voice trembling. "I need you and Liz there with me when we search for Bex. I can't do this without my best friends."

Macey, Bex, Liz and Cammie had been best friends ever since sophomore year of high school; the three latter having been friends long before that. They had done everything together—including sharing each other's pain. When one of them was upset, they all felt it.

So it came as no surprise to Cammie that she was feeling the need to go with Macey. She knew Macey was right when she said she couldn't do it without Liz and her.

That's why she turned around to face the man she hated to say goodbye to so soon and sighed. "Josh, I'm so sorry, but I have to go."

"When will you be back?" he asked, his eyes searching her for some kind of explanation.

"I don't know," she answered, knowing it would be the most truthful thing she could tell him about the situation. "I'm sort of going to Colorado to meet a friend. But," she started as she took a small step towards him, hoping only he could hear her when she said, "it was great seeing you again," with a smile.

"I'll make sure to visit more often," he told her, smiling at her charmingly. "Give me a call when you get back."

Feeling giddy inside, all she could manage to do was give him a nod before leaving out the front door with Macey.

"What was that about?" Macey whispered as Cammie fell into step beside her on the way to her car.

Hoping that she could avoid the subject as long as possible, giving her and Macey the ability to focus solely on saving Bex, Cammie simply answered, "Later, Macey," and climbed into the car.


The sun had set and the brisk night air was swirling around the mass amounts of law enforcement that had surrounded the industrial complex they had traced Bex and her kidnappers to. The abandoned manufacturing company contained massive metal buildings that stood clumped together, causing everyone to split into smaller groups in order to cover the whole area.

Cammie had been following Macey through the maze of buildings, listening for any sound louder than her own heartbeat. She looked behind her, hoping to find comfort in Liz, who had been ordered to stay behind Grant, but only saw more fear in her big innocent eyes. Cammie's mind swam with so many unanswerable questions, which only made the situation worse: Why were they here? Why was Bex here? Where was she within this big mess of buildings? Who were they up against? Was it just Zach, or did he have more accomplices? Where were they hiding her best friend? And were Macey and Grant and Preston and the FBI and the Colorado police ready for whoever was waiting inside these buildings?

The wind blew through the complex, howling between the buildings as we stopped outside the door to one of the medium sized structures.

"Cammie, Liz, put these on," Macey whispered, handing them both heavy bullet proof vests.

Although she grabbed it, Liz was beyond nervous to even be in the presence of her own vest. Her hands beginning to shake as she held the heavy Kevlar vest and asked, "Why?"

"So you don't get shot and die. Now put it on," Macey replied, more harshly than intended, but too worried to care. This mission was important, and she couldn't risk Cammie and Liz's lives for her own selfish need to have them there for support. So the harsher her voice was, maybe the more they would realize how dire the situation was.

"I think she means why are we going in?" Cammie asked, clarifying her own concerns as well.

Knowing her reasons, but also knowing that they needed to get a move on with the search, Macey ignored the question. "We don't have time for this. Put them on and follow me," she demanded, heading towards the door.

Without a word of protest, her friends did as they were told, making sure to stay behind one of the cops at all times.

Inside the building was just as dark as the pitch black night they were in moments before, only this time, every movement they made was resonated with a thunderous echo. Everyone remained quiet, knowing how dangerous being otherwise would be. The only noises that could be heard as the group walked on through were their footsteps and the rattling of the guns.

It wasn't until Jonas called Grant over claiming he could hear talking that there was any sign of Bex's kidnappers in the proximity.

"Anderson, Booth, Richards, you're coming with me," Grant announced quietly to the group. "McHenry, Smith, Cooper, Cammie and Liz, you guys stay here and wait for my signal. We're going to surround them."

With that, Grant and the three other men made their way through the maze of the hallways and aisles in order to loop around whoever was responsible for the voices.

After a few moments, a red-headed woman turned to Macey and whispered, "What kind of man are we dealing with here, Detective?"

Without missing a beat, Macey replied, "A very dangerous one. Zach was able to get away with being an innocent, harmless guy for months. Don't underestimate him, you got that?"

"How could he do this to us?" Liz asked, glancing over at Cammie as if urging her to finally tell Macey the truth.

"He's a criminal, Liz," Macey said emotionless, as if that was something she had to continuously remind herself of. "That's all there is to it."

"No, Macey, it's not," Cammie said, unable to look her friend in the eye. She knew that this would change everything about the investigation, and she would no doubt be in huge trouble for withholding such vital information. But she had to tell them. Otherwise, they wouldn't go in fully prepared, putting Macey and the rest of them in enormous danger. "There's something I haven't told you. Zach's a secret agent. A spy."

Macey could feel the anger building up inside her stomach, refusing to believe that her best friend had been lying to her for the past few weeks. She couldn't help but blame Cammie for being the reason it had taken so long to find Bex and Zach—they had been thinking like a criminal and searching for a man who behaved as such; not a trained spy.

"How long have you known this?"

Remaining to avoid the cop's face out of fear, Cammie replied, "Since the night he left."

Moving towards the rightfully nervous woman, Macey growled, "You've known since the night he took Bex?"

After a moment of hesitation, Cammie finally looked Macey in the eye. "Macey, he didn't take Bex. Someone else did. Someone I think Zach is running away from."

Cocking her hip and crossing her arms across her chest, her gun hanging alongside her body, Macey glared at her friend and said, accusingly, "You still love him, don't you? You believe he's innocent in all this."

"You didn't see the look in his eyes when he found out Bex was taken. He was terrified, Macey," Cammie explained, remembering the night perfectly as if it had happened just hours before. His fear-filled eyes; his strong panicked grip as he held her shoulders; the kiss—all were signs of a very worried man. Although he was panicking that Cammie was the one in danger, he was obviously unaware of anything that was going on with the crazy terrorist organization. No one could fake that kind of emotion.

Cammie pleaded with her eyes, begging Macey to understand. "Truly terrified. He had no idea what was happening."

"Tell that to Payton," Macey argued, refusing to budge. She will forever and always believe Zach was responsible for every corrupt action that occurred in her peaceful town of Roseville that autumn.

She had barely gotten out the last word before gunshots rang and echoed through the building's metal walls.

"Move in!" Macey yelled to the rest of her group. Grabbing Cammie's arm, she commanded, "Stay behind me. Cooper, cover Liz!"

The group rounded the corner and was suddenly in open space, completely exposed to the men hiding in the darkness. Bullets flew from nowhere and hit metal in all directions, only making it more difficult to pinpoint where the enemy had taken cover.

Macey and Cammie ducked behind a water heater, their backs leaning against the heated metal tank.

All the sounds of the battle behind her —the gun shots, the hitting of metal, Grant's voice barking out orders to his unit, her heart beating out of her chest—seemed to ring in Cammie's ears while blurring together all at the same time.

"Stay here," Macey ordered before spinning off the water heater and entering the gun fight.

Cammie looked between the cracks of the pipes, watching the bodies in the dim lighting drop to the floor. Smith, one of Grant's right-hand men, was attacked by a man probably a few years older than himself, but still maintained the fighting skills of a seasoned operative. The two men wrestled back and forth, exchanging punches and kicks and using these elaborate moves that must've taken years to perfect. Kicking the man in the stomach, Smith spun around while grabbing the man's wrist and flipping him over his shoulder. Standing over him, Smith took out his gun from his holster and fired at the man on the floor in one smooth motion, causing Cammie to turn away quickly.

And she was lucky to have done so, for she caught a glimpse of a familiar figure with dark brown hair making its way down one of the aisles. Before she knew what she was doing, she stepped out into the open, leaving the safety of the water heater. She had only taken a few steps when she caught Macey aiming her gun in the direction of the man.

Still unaware of what her body was doing, she yelled, "Macey, no!" knocking the gun out of Macey's hands before she had a chance to pull the trigger.

Watching the man get away, Macey exploded. "Damn it, Cammie! You may have just ended your life, do you realize that? Zach is dangerous! You have to believe that if—"

"Hold your fire!" Grant yelled once the last man in the middle had fallen.

No one moved, much less said a thing, while they waited for him to give the next order.

"Move out," he said, holding his gun in offensive position in case they ran into more of the enemy.

"Grant, wait," Cooper said from where she stood, a few meters away from everyone else. "I hear screaming."

"Screaming?" Grant asked, running in the direction Cooper was pointing as everyone followed. He busted through the doors not caring of who or what might lay beyond them. He was only thinking of one thing; Bex was screaming.

Thankfully, there were no gun-bearing men inside the abandoned room—just a tied up woman whose screams were muffled by a handkerchief stuffed in her mouth.

"Bex!" Grant exclaimed as he threw his gun down and ran over to her. The rush of emotions he was feeling were almost impossible to describe as he stared his beautiful fiancée in the face—something he regrettably thought he would never get to do again.

Everyone filed into the room behind him, each one in turn sighing in relief.

Cammie, on the other hand, wasn't used to these types of situations, and she couldn't help the turn in her stomach as she witnessed her best friend completely beaten until she was almost unrecognizable.

Her face was swollen and bloody. Her right eye was completely swollen shut, her skin painted blue and purple with fresh bruises. Along her blood-caked hairline laid sickly green-colored older bruises, and her face was decorated with little cuts and scratches. Her wrists were rubbed raw from the handcuffs that held her bound to the chair, leaking small trails of blood down her hands and dripping onto the floor where a small pool of the dark liquid had formed.

"Hey, look," Liz stated, pointing at the smaller end-table that stood a few feet away from where Bex sat. "The keys to the handcuffs." She trailed over, reaching out for the silver keys that laid in plain view.

"Liz, no!" Macey yelled from across the room, but was too late in stopping her oblivious friend.

As Liz grabbed the key, Jonas placed his hand on top of hers, preventing her from picking it up like she had intended.

"What? What'd I do?" Liz asked, panicking.

No one moved from where they were. The only sound in the room was the tiny beeping that came from the black box attached to the underside of the table top, barely audible even with everyone remaining silent.

Trying to keep his voice calm, Jonas squeezed Liz's hand and looked her square in the eye. "You activated a bomb."


Thank you all for reading (: I hope this chapter met expectations even though there was absolutely NO Zammie in it :/ But I think I stated this earlier that this story isn't going to be all about Zammie, so I'm sorry if that's not what you guys are looking for…

So what did you guys think ? (: How are you feeling about Josh returning ? lol I can assume no one's really happy about that, but that's what makes it a good story ! His character is going to cause a twist in the story and I can't wait for you all to read that chapter. I don't know if it'll be the next one or the one after, but it'll be soon !

Shout out time !

XxCandyygirlxX: I was hoping I tricked someone into believing that I was just going to end it lol and answers are definitely coming, there's actually going to be one long chapter where everything is revealed (:

Miaadventure: I can't tell you how thrilled and elated your comment made me (: it was probably the most amazing review I've gotten on any of my stories and it really made me want to write an amazing chapter. So thank you so freaking much ! and may I just say, your story Imperfect is one of my favorites on fanfaic, and your new one This Is How The Story Goes sounds soooooo interesting…I can't wait for updates (:

Guest: it does seem like something she might've done in the books, but not quite in this story lol sorry :/ and about the Zach question, I guess you'll just have to read to find out :P

Awesomegirl3362: you'll have to wait and see ;) lol I want it to be sort of a surprise/suspenseful so I'm not telling anyone haha

Soccerlover21: If you can guess what happens next I'd be super impressed, cause I've been thinking about changing what I had originally written lol I think it might be too obvious and predictable so I'm trying to come up with a new ending and stuff…

BooksLover2000: love the username by the way (: and I think I should take your review as a compliment that you really want me to update cause you're liking my story and not feel completely threatened by it…? Hopefully ? lol