Soooooorry for the long wait again! I just haven't been getting as many motivating reviews, so I'm like, "Meeeeh." But a big thanks to everyone who gave me input! :D

"Love makes life so confusing, but would you want to live without it?" –Anonymous

Chapter Nine: Exquisite Insight

P1

"You're not actually going to touch it, are you?" Cammie asked, looking a little annoyed as Zach reached out to poke the tiny bomb. "What if it's like, motion activated?"

Zach sighed, his shoulders slumping towards the ground. "Please, just let me work."

Josh watched, intrigued, as Zach opened an almost unseen hinge on the bomb that led into the intricate tangle of blue, yellow, and red wires, each one skinnier than a piece of thread. They looked like fine pieces of hair.

Marina sat, uninterested, picking at her finger nails. "C'mon, Zach, hurry up. That bomb in Bali was two times smaller than this one, and you had no problem with-"

"I understand, Marina," Zach snapped, a pair of tweezers in his callused hand. "I'm a little distracted from you guys talking so freaking much."

Marina pulled out a cigarette and lit it. "You were trained to work under pressure. Don't blame us." Marina blew a puff of smoke in Josh's face, and he fanned it away.

"That's a bad habit," Josh muttered, eyeing the cigarette in distain.

Marina took another long, dramatic drag of her cigarette and looked Josh in the eye. "So is running six miles every day. Did you know the cartilage on your knees and ankles will be completely worn away by the time you're forty?" Marina tapped the ash off her cigarette, and it fell to the floor. She ground it into the carpet with the tip of her pointy-toed boot.

Josh rolled his eyes as Zach fiddled with the hair-wires. "At least my lungs don't look like pieces of sh-"

Cammie rolled her eyes. "Enough bickering." She kneeled next to Zach and narrowed her eyes in concentration. It really was a delicate art, what Zach was doing. He couldn't help but wonder where he had learned how to do such a thing.

Josh lay on the plush carpet and stared up at the ceiling, his arms crossed behind his head. The crystal chandelier above chimed together when a door upstairs slammed, and it made Josh think of D.C. and his apartment... And then it made him think of… Nell. She loved wind chimers.

Josh wondered what she thought of his sudden disappearance from the CST program. He had really screwed things up; the CIA would never let him back in now. At best, they would kick him out. At worst, they'd arrest him on counts of treason and espionage. He'd wasted all those years, learning Russian, Arabic, Chinese, studying foreign relations…

"Got it," Zach finally said, his voice smug. He held up the tweezers, gripping a segment of blue wire. Tiny beads of sweat fell from his temples and neck.

Cammie sat up and threw the softball-sized bomb into her duffel. "Let's get outta here."

It was strange, Josh's last few days here in Egypt. He had been hit by a car, interrogated by the Egyptian government, and then invited to stay at one of the most prestigious resorts in all of Egypt only to discover that terrorists had planted a tiny bomb in their room, a thwarted attempt to kill off Josh and the rest of the assassination crew.

Luckily, Zach, Marina, and Cammie had experience with counterterrorism, and they knew all the tricks in the book. They found the bomb probably more quickly than it took to plant it there.

"Where to?" Zach asked, looking between Cammie and Marina. He wasn't sure who was in charge here.

Marina took the last drag of her cigarette and threw it on the cracked sidewalk as they made their way toward the parking lot. "Back to headquarters."

Josh smirked. "And by headquarters you mean-"

"Yes, I mean that shithole across the street from Ahmad's." Marina yanked the pack of Marlboro's out of her pocket to reach for another cigarette, only to find that the pack was empty. She sighed. "We've got two days before the A-Ks arrive."

Cammie readjusted the strap of her bag.

While Josh knew Cammie was physically in that parking lot, he suspected emotionally she seemed to be somewhere else. "You guys head out. I've got some things to take care of."

P2

Alone.

It seemed to Joshua Abrams that this was a moment of divine intervention—Marina was out meeting a "contact" and Zach was tailing Cammie—that would allow him to take care of… personal business.

Josh hadn't had the nerve to confront Nell to her face about his leaving. After all, he had been abducted by Zach, a gun pointed to his temple. It was about time she learned what was going on.

Without even realizing he had walked out to the car and grabbed his secure cell phone, Josh robotically dialed Nell's number, his fingers shaky.

It rang once, and Nell immediately answered. "Oh my God, Josh! Where are you? Are you okay? Everyone is really-"

Josh interrupted her. "I'm fine. I'm out of the country right now. That's all I can tell you. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to tell you I was leaving-" Josh made sure to keep an eye on Ahmad's place, in case he was spotted.

Nell sounded like she was about to cry. "No, Josh, I'm sorry. I'm so stupid, leaving you the way I did. And when you disappeared, I didn't know what I was going to do. I just love you so much-"

Josh smiled. "I love you too. We'll deal with all this when I get home, but I gotta go." Before she had a chance to respond, Josh hung up the phone. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, clutching the phone tightly to his side.

If he could take it all back—digging so deeply into his past, searching for Cammie—he would. In the end, it wasn't worth it. Here he was in Egypt, with the same girl who had once seemed to only be a ghost, and she was in love with someone else. That, if anything, was clear.

No matter how many times Josh told himself he had only wanted closure, he couldn't deny the obvious—he still had feelings for Cammie.

But something in her eyes made Josh recognize that her heart was forever taken. The way she looked at Zach was interesting—a gaze hardened, steeled, unforgiving—it might be mistaken for hatred. But, as Josh had learned over the years, love and hate weren't so far apart.

After all, the opposite of love was not hatred, it was indifference.

P3

It felt strange, spying. The conversations that one could hear that weren't meant for their ears—intimate moments, angry ones, and heartbreaking ones. Yet Josh couldn't quite stop himself from listening, watching, and observing.

"What happened in that plane, Zach?" Cammie asked, her head lying on his shoulder.

Zach's hand reached out to play with a piece of her hair. He smiled down at her. "I was afraid."

Cammie sat up and pulled away from him, as if she had just realized what she was doing. "Afraid of what? The Circle would have gotten you anywhere-"

Zach shook his head and put his hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt. "Not the Circle. I was afraid of… you."

Cammie looked angry now. She sat up and took a few steps away from him. "Don't feed me some bullshit line about 'being afraid to love me,' okay, Zach?" She almost heaved in anger, her eyes hard. "Do you know how much I let myself hurt for you?" She pointed a finger at him, accusing. Everything would change after this conversation, Josh knew.

Zach didn't say a word. He didn't move a muscle, breath a single gulp of oxygen, for what felt like eternity.

Finally, he spoke. "Does he make you happy?" Zach had almost whispered, staring down at his knuckles. Josh noted his hunched shoulders, a physical sign of hurt.

Cammie threw her hands in the air and turned to face him. "You're really going to do this, Zach? You don't get to do this!" She glared at him, but Josh saw the smallest of tears slide down her cheek. "I'm finally happy."

It was silent for a moment as Zach absorbed this blow. He nodded curtly. "Okay, okay. I'm happy for you, then. I really am." Zach coughed into his sleeve and cleared his throat. He sat on the floor, his back against the wall, and looked up at her. "I just wish things could have been different, Gallagher Girl."

Cammie almost smiled and closed her eyes. "I do too."

Josh accidently bumped his hand against the vent. He winced as he watched Zach and Cammie turn instinctively in his direction. His heartbeat accelerated as he fled to his air mattress. It would be beyond embarrassing if they caught him eavesdropping.

He tried as hard as he could to steady his breathing. Within a few moments, he heard the door creak open. He could almost feel Zachary Goode's burning glare through the bed sheets, but nevertheless, after a few moments he left, closing the door behind him.

Josh listened for noises outside his door for a few moments before returning to the vent. Zach walked back into the room.

"He was pretending to be asleep, I think." Zach sounded amused as he reached up to run his hand through his short black hair.

Cammie smiled. "That's so unlike him." She leaned down to pick up her sweatshirt. "Then again, I haven't known him for a very long time. People change."

Zach eyed her warily. "Yes, they really do."

P4

"Three," Cammie whispered, her head hidden behind a stack of magazines, "two," she took a few steps toward Josh, "one."

With the smallest click of a button, an entire building was up in flames. Josh covered his ears. The amount of C4 in Ahmad's house had been enough to blow up the White House four times over, and Cammie thought it necessary to be rid of such dangerous weapons. After all, Ahmad would be dead soon, anyway.

"Awesome." Marina half-smiled at Josh. "That, my friend, is what this job is all about."

Josh took a bite of his BLT and turned to face her. "Catching terrorists with their C4?"

Marina shook her head and grabbed a cigarette. "No, catching terrorists with their C4 and then getting to use the explosives yourself." Her smile was mischievous as she took a drag of her cigarette.

"Please," Josh fanned some smoke away, "seriously learn to smoke those outside. You're going to give me lung cancer."

Cammie tossed the detonator in the air and caught it in her hand, a smile creeping across her face. "And they say justice isn't sweet."

Marina finished her cigarette and immediately lit another one. "Don't celebrate yet, kid. If Zach doesn't get Ahmad back here this whole thing is blown."

Cammie logged something into her Palm Pilot and smirked. "Both me and you know there's no way in hell Zach messes this up."

Marina looked thoughtful as the cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth. She strolled over to the coffee table and picked up Ahmad's file. "I dunno, it says here this guy used to work for Indian intelligence, no matter that it was only for a month… We don't know who we're dealing with." She flipped through the pages, her eyebrows scrunched in concentration.

Something in Cammie's eyes changed. "Trust me. I know exactly who I'm dealing with. I've been on this guy for years." She went back to her Palm Pilot.

Years? That seemed like an awfully long time to catch one medium-threat terrorist.

Marina seemed to be thinking the exact same thing. Her auburn hair seemed to glow with curiosity as she placed the manila file back on the table. "That long, huh?" She took a stride towards Cammie, one hand in her pocket, the other constantly glued to a lit cigarette. "A pavement artist like you should have knocked this guy out within a month."

Cammie shoved the device in her pocket. "This is the first time he's been working solo on his own operations. He was always surrounded by other terrorists."

Marina looked thoughtful. "Really? What makes Ahmad more important than those other terrorists, huh?" She narrowed her hazel eyes at Cammie. "I think it's about time you give up a little more information."

Cammie chuckled and reached for her duffel. Josh expected she was reaching for a file that would tell Marina more about-

A pistol. A shiny pistol was pointed at Marina's skull. Josh heard the ominous click of Cammie turning off the safety lock. "I think it's about time you do your job." Cammie took a seat on the couch, the gun never wavering from its target. "You're not the CIA; you're not the government. You're a highly skilled assassin being paid a lot of money to do very bad things to very bad people. Remember?" Cammie clenched her jaw. "You said it yourself."

Marina slowly raised her hands toward the air and signaled for Josh to do the same. He held his breath in suspense. "You're right, Cameron. I was out of line." Her eyes were hard.

Cammie sighed, the gun tight in her hand. She was ready to pull the trigger. "You made me do this, Marina." She slowly laid the gun to her knee. "Don't question what isn't your business."

In one swift move, Cammie clicked the safety of her gun back on and hooked it on her jeans. "But just in case you get 'out of line' again, I'll leave this right here." Cammie smiled and patted the gun with her hand. "Better safe than sorry."

P5

"Sniper in place," Zach murmured through the comms. "BB to GG, do you copy?"

Josh took a quick glance at Cammie, who was looking through a pair of binoculars at Ahmad who had just arrived at his demolished house. "I copy, BB. Proceed."

Why had Cammie felt so threatened by Marina's questions if Ahmad was just a terrorist? Josh couldn't help but wonder that the Cameron Morgan who sat next to him was not the same girl she used to be; he knew that for sure.

Josh turned his attention back towards the window, and he watched Ahmad's puzzled expressions as he made his way toward the pile of debris that was now his house. He leaned down, tears falling down his cheeks, to run a black pile of soot through his fingers.

Before Josh knew it, a bullet hit Ahmad dead in his forehead, and he collapsed on his front steps, dead.

"Mission target: complete," Zach said through the comms, sounding strange. "Let's get the hell out of here."

Cammie smiled a grin of true joy. Josh always thought the death of another human being was a bad thing, not one that called for a smile like that. "Finally," she murmured, tears flowing down her face, "justice."

And the strangest thing happened next. One moment Josh was thinking Cammie had to be a sadistic killer to find such joy in the death of another human, another, she reached over and planted a huge kiss on his lips, one that sent tingles of joy down his spine. Without thinking, he wrapped his arms around her and deepened the kiss.

Marina was the one who interrupted the moment. "Huh. Well, that was actually really unexpected."

Josh pulled away from her, blushing. He really still had feelings for Cammie.

One glance at her showed Josh that she appeared to be unfazed by their kiss. She simply smiled and bounced on her toes towards her bag. "A lot of things in life you can't expect."

She sounded so happy; Josh couldn't believe it. Perhaps they would get back together…

No, he thought to himself. He had decided Nell was the only woman for him. But it had been a nice kiss…

"And here I thought you were talking about that man I saw you with in Cairo." Everyone turned to face none other than Zachary Goode, who stood in the doorway, looking broken. "But all along, it was him."

Finally, the eerie spurt of joy drained from Cammie's face, and she widened her eyes at him. "Oh no, Zach, no, it's not what you think-"

Zach's eyes looked glassy as he clenched his fists to his sides. "You were right about one thing, Cammie." He looked her in her eyes, and it was like there was no one else in the room but them. "You did get your chance."

Josh had no idea what he was talking about, but something in Cammie's pained expression told him it wasn't good. "Zach-"

"Consider me hurt, okay?" Zach snapped at her, tossing a small wooden box her direction. "You'll be wanting that back." He looked broken, hurt, disgusted, and angry all at one time as he turned to leave.

"Please," Cammie took off after him, but Josh knew he was gone, and he wasn't coming back. She slowed at the front door. "I'm so… sorry."

Wow it's been a really long time since I've updated. Haha. Well, I hope you guys like this chapter, and I'll try to have a new one up as soon as possible! But really, reviews have been slacking and I think that's why it's taking me so long to update. I hate fishing for compliments, but pleaseee everyone read and review! :D