Chapter Eleven

To say my mother was furious would be an understatement. And saying that was an even larger understatement. I'd never seen my mother look like she did in the hallway. If it was any other time, in any other situation, I would blame the florescent lights, or the hallways that were all to white.

But this wasn't any other time.

And I couldn't blame anything, or anyone except myself.

"Mom," I started, without even trying to finish.

"Cammie! I cannot believe you disobeyed me! What don't you understand about staying at school and pretending like everything was okay for just a little while?"

"Because it's not!"

"We're spies Cammie, pretending is what we do."

"Maybe you," I murmured "and maybe me, in any other instance, but not now, not when it's about him." I threw my hands up, frustrated now.

"Incase you haven't noticed, Cammie. You're a student. You haven't completed your training and you seriously need to realize that Zach is gone. He left. He didn't tell you or anyone where he was going; he didn't want to be followed."

It wasn't a shock that my roommates were waiting for me when I returned to the Gallagher Academy.

"Tell us everything!"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Cammie!"

"No." Bex turned around and crashed on her bed sighing.

"Cam, you promised to tell us," Liz looked up from her book.

"A promise is a promise," Macey sang running a towel through her hair "tell us."

"Can I tell you tomorrow? I'm really exhausted." Except, I wasn't exhausted, I wasn't merely tired. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I was picking at every word my mother said to me in the hallway of the hospital. Maybe she did understand, maybe she went through something like this with Dad? Maybe not. It was impossible to say for sure, my mother was a spy. A master of secrets, the master of secrets.

My mother was pretty much her own secret. She didn't confide in anyone, she put on a front that she was tough and strong, but if you looked far enough into her eyes, you could tell there was something else there. Hurt? Anger? Suffering? Sadness?

I couldn't figure it out.

My mother was a code I could not crack.

It was time I became my own code. No one would know who I am, who I was, or who I aspired to be. No person would realize that I was a spy, which was looking for someone who may or may not want to be found. I was going to succeed, whatever it took. I wasn't going to let Zach decide when or where I could see him anymore. He wasn't going to disappear randomly. I was taking charge. Despite what he or my mother thought.

They didn't matter. I mattered.

And that's all the persuading it took, for me to climb out of bed, back a few things into a backpack and disappear into the walls of the castle as if I'd never been there at all.

Authors Note: Please review, the next chapter will be longer, I hope/think.