Ah! Another long wait for the next chapter. Unfortunately, now that school is getting close to starting, my updates might come at about this rate. Anyways, I hope you like this chapter (although, it might be a little unrealistic. But if you think about, this entire story is unrealistic soooo in comparison this chapter might actually be realistic. And now I'm just rambling...)
Enjoy!
Chapter 13. Break Me Out
It had taken me awhile to fall back to sleep after my dream. Consequently, I woke up late and had to rush to get ready in time for breakfast. It also meant that a few things had slipped my mind.
When I started down the stairs and saw Zach at the end of them, I brushed it aside. It wasn't until he started pulling me away from the Great Hall that I really noticed him. "Hey," I said, trying to extricate my wrist from his fingers to no avail. "I want food."
"This'll only take a second." Zach said. He pulled me past a couple of seventh graders who looked at us weirdly. My empty stomach made me a wee bit irritable so I made a weird face right back at them and gave a little 'hoorah' in my head when they scampered off. I knew I'd feel bad about it later, but at the moment, my stomach was my main concern.
Which meant listening to whatever it was that Zach had to say was not on my to-do list. "What do you want, Zachary?" I asked once he had led me into an empty closet. I recognized it as one that used to have a secret passageway that led to the barns. Alas, that lovely tunnel was gone now, so I couldn't make a run for some waffles.
I clucked my tongue when Zach stayed silent. I looked down at my wrist towards my imaginary watch and gave him a pointed glare. Zach smiled at me and said, "I thought you might like to know when our date is."
I stopped mid-cluck and looked at him a little stunned. Crap. After what had happened last night, I had totally forgotten about the date. I didn't say anything and he continued. "So, it's Friday at seven." He started to walk away and then looked at me over his shoulder. "And you might want to bring a change of clothes. Just in case."
He left, and I stayed where I was for a couple of seconds until my stomach growled. Then, I rushed to the Grand Hall where I ate my breakfast at an unhealthy speed. I shot a couple glances at Zach who was sitting diagonal to me, but he was never looking my way. I scowled a bit. Stupid boy making me act like my hormones controlled me.
Which they don't. Or at least, they never used to.
That day, I gave up on my whole avoiding-Zach-at-all-costs plan because I didn't see the point anymore. I mean, we were going on a date on Friday. I even partnered up with him in CoveOps for an exercise we were doing on interrogations.
"Chances are that you will either be an interrogator or be interrogated yourself at some point in your career," Tillie said as she walked down the aisles. She showed no signs of having gotten into a fight with the headmistress the day before. "It's a risk we all take, a very large one. Therefore, it will be a major part of your CoveOps curriculum this semester."
Zach gave a little smirk when I turned in my seat. "You aren't going to be able to interrogate anything out of me, Gallagher Girl."
I narrowed my eyes at him and suppressed a small smile. "Don't underestimate me, Zach. Besides, who says I even want to know anything about you?"
"Please," Zach said, leaning toward me. "All the ladies want to know me. And I know you want to know more about me because as I recall, we are going on a date on Friday."
He quirked an eyebrow at me, and I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him.
-.-.-.-
The rest of the week seemed to fly by, and then it was Friday. I had filled Macey, Bex, and Liz in on the date on Thursday night in hopes that it would cut back on their time to rant and fuss about it. I apparently didn't think through the part where they would fill an entire week's worth of jumping, giggling, and 'why in the world?'s into twenty-four hours.
"It's sort of romantic, don't you think?" Liz said from a couple feet behind me. I could see her in the mirror's reflection, clutching her pillow and sprawled across her bed.
I snorted. "Yeah, practically blackmailing me into going out with him. Dreamy." Macey tugged at a knot in my hair with her fingers as she French-braided my hair. In a lower voice I said, "I real knight in shining armor."
From the unnecessarily hard pull on my hair, I assumed Macey didn't appreciate my sarcasm. My assumption was proven when she said, "At least he wants a date in the first place. I mean, after all the trouble you've put the poor boy through in the past year, I'm surprised he can still bear the sight of you."
Bex chuckled a bit, and then ordered me to shut my eyes. I obliged grudgingly because I knew that if I didn't she might poke me in the eye with her eyeliner pencil. "Well, in any case, I don't see why you have to primp me so much. It's not like he's taking me Roseville High's prom or something."
Bex and Macey paused their movements around me. I chanced opening my eyes for a peek and saw them looking at each other over my head. "You don't think he's going to take her to a dance do you?" Bex asked, her accent more pronounced with her sudden, inexplicable worry.
Macey frowned. "He better not be. He should have given us fair warning if he was planning to. I mean, dances change everything."
I rolled my eyes, which caught Bex's attention and she ordered me to snap 'em closed or she'd sew 'em closed. I knew she was joking. Mostly.
It took Macey and Bex another hour to coerce me into wearing the outfit they'd picked out for me. It wasn't that bad of an outfit, but I did have some reservations about donning shorts in the middle of October. When I was finally about to leave the room, Liz gave an exclamation of surprise and jumped off her bed. "Just a minute!" She called as her head disappeared under her bed. When her face reappeared she was beaming.
"I totally forgot about this until just now," She said as took my wrist and clipped a bracelet to it.
I fingered it with my other hand as I narrowed my eyes at Liz. "Why do I get the feeling that this isn't just an accessory?"
"I have no idea what you mean," Liz shrugged. "It is an accessory." She caught the looks that Bex, Macey, and I were sending her and gave little humph. "Well, it's a spy accessory. It can record up to twelve hours of audio."
"Then why didn't you have me use this last Sunday?" I asked, looking at the bracelet for microphones.
Liz gave a little face. "Because it's sort of a prototype. And because I didn't deem it necessary that you take a weapon to dinner with your mother."
"Weapon?" Macey and I exclaimed. Bex looked a little excited.
"Yeah, just the run-of-the-mill, uh…" Liz's voice lowered like someone besides us would hear her. "Blow-dart."
My eyes widened, and I took a step back. "And why do I need a blow-dart exactly? I thought this was a date not a murder spree."
"Oh, so you finally admit it's a date and not just a means to an end." Bex smirked at me. I acted very mature and made a face at her.
Liz gave a nervous laugh. "Cammie, do you really think I would give you a murder weapon? No! The darts just have a slight coating of tranquilizer in them. You know, in case Zach takes you anywhere dangerous."
"Oh, sure. Because obviously Zach is going to take me off grounds for our date when his own mother is after me." I shook my head. "Not likely."
"Well," Macey said. "Better safe than sorry. Besides, this way if the boy really pisses you off you have an easy way of shutting him up."
Fifteen minutes later, I was standing in front of Zach with my arms crossed. "You have to be kidding me."
"I am completely serious." He said, mimicking my posture.
"Do you realize how much trouble we could get in? How dangerous it is?" I exclaimed. "My mother would never forgive me if we got caught."
"Well then I guess we better not get caught." Zach smiled. When I didn't return it he sighed. "Oh come on, Gallagher Girl. It's one night. And it isn't like we're not going to come back or keep the security down. I'll have you back at a very specific time."
"Oh, well then that makes it all better." Not. Seriously, what was he thinking? "Zach, only an insane person would go to Roseville right now."
Zach grabbed my hand and tugged me closer to him and said, "Then be crazy for a night."
-.-.-.-
"My mother is going to kill me," I said to the night air. Zach gave me a lazy smile and headed down the road. "Remind me again how you managed to get security down."
"It was just a momentary thing." He called over his shoulder. "Don't worry. I only programmed it to happen tonight." I caught up to him and looked at his profile in the dimming light.
"Where to? We are working on a clock here." I said. Before I agreed to come I had made him tell me what time we had to be back. He managed to get the security to go down at exactly 7: 54 and 9:54. But apparently, the security was as far as Zach had thought everything through. In the end, we decided to go into the first diner we saw.
"I wonder if they have corn dogs…" I said aloud when we got our menus. I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable. Zach had snagged the seat that looked out of the window which meant my back was to it. It made me feel vulnerable. "How's it looking out there?" I murmured.
"So far, all good." Zach's eyes didn't leave his menu, but somehow I knew he was still keeping an eye on the lookout for anyone we might recognize. "No sign of either of our moms or Jimmy."
I rolled my eyes at his deliberate mistake of Josh's name. The waitress came and took our order, and then the two of us just sat there. Zach leaned back in his chair, and I traced my fingers on the table, making invisible pictures. Finally, I sighed and said, "We might as well get it out of the way."
"Get what of the way?" Zach asked innocently.
"What you know about Tillie," I said. I leaned in toward him. "Spill."
Zach shook his head. "You're doing this all wrong. We agreed to a date. If we talk about Tillie during the date then it becomes startlingly similar to an interrogation."
I pursed my lips. "Well, she is the reason why I agreed to this."
"Sing that tune all you want, Cammie," Zach said, leaning toward me the way I was to him. "But we both know you said yes because you wanted to say yes."
"What I want are answers." I answered truthfully. Or mostly truthfully because it was beginning to get hard for me to deny the part of me that did want Zach. He smirked at me as our food arrived like he didn't believe me. God, I hope he wasn't wearing one of those rings that could tell him I was lying. I checked his fingers. All good.
Dinner passed relatively smoothly. There were a couple moments when I got close to slapping him upside the head and other times when I wanted to kiss the smirk off his face, but in the end I did neither. When the bill came, he paid and we went on our merry way. Or I guess it would be more accurate to say that we just went on our way. I was getting a little irritated that he still wouldn't tell me anything about Tillie.
"We've had dinner, now tell me what you know." I said, pushing on his chest to make him stop in front of the gazebo. It was a relatively quiet night, and there weren't a lot of people around.
"Now why would I do that and lose all of my leverage?" He smiled and stuck his hands in his pockets. Autumn was in full effect as a cold drift came and blew some yellow and orange leaves past our feet.
"Leverage?" I gave him a disbelieving look.
"Yes. What I know about Tillie is the only thing keeping you around, Gallagher Girl," He said. "I'm not about to give that up."
"We had a deal."
"And now I want to make a slight adjustment to that deal." He crept closer to me. Close enough that I could feel his body heat. Close enough for me to see that his eyes weren't focused on me but in the distance behind me. I wanted to know what was so intriguing, but his body was blocking my view of the windows behind him.
"What adjustment?" I huffed. My breath came out in a little cloud, and for the first time I realized just how cold I was. Stupid shorts my friends made me wear. I made a little face at my bare legs.
Zach's eyes finally met mine. "I want in on your little research project, of course." He noticed my hesitation. "Come on, Gallagher Girl. You could use me on this and you know it."
His eyes darted behind me again and I had to fight the urge to look behind me. I bit my lip as I thought what he said through. Was what he knew really worth letting him in on what Macey, Bex, Liz, and I were doing? Zach shifted slightly in impatience, and I took a leap of faith. "Fine. You're in."
He smiled at me and grabbed my hand. "Good. Now, we should probably be heading back to school."
"But it's only 9:03. The alarms won't go down for nearly another hour."
"Well, we don't really have an hour to kill here." He moved to my side and grabbed my hand. Finally, I could see the windows' reflections…and what was behind me. "Come on." Zach tugged me away from the gazebo and headed toward the pharmacy. Behind me, I could hear the footsteps of the person behind us. A person I'd seen before in the tunnels at Blackthorne.
"I knew it was a stupid idea to come to Roseville." I muttered and was rewarded with Zach's gentlemanly response, "Shut up."
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