I do not own the Gallagher Girls series. That belongs to the amazing Ally Carter. I however, own the storyline. It's a fan fiction for the love of-! God, these disclaimers are so pointless. Honestly, I don't even—... O_O

Summary: When Macey is kidnapped by the Circle while defending Cammie, can they rescue her in time? Or better yet, will Macey survive the ordeal?

Author's note: Unless otherwise mentioned, this story will take place from Cammie's POV.

Chapter 14

"The Calm of the Storm"

The next morning Liz was able to make contact with Mom again. A minute later a helicopter appeared on the horizon and dipped with expert navigation, carefully dropping through the tree cover and branches that obscured the cloudy sky. The whirling blades sent snow flying like dust and trees leaning sideways before coming to a soft landing. As Bex and Liz joined me outside, I saw three people pile out of the copper like a SWAT team, my mom, the best spy I'd ever known and was so happy to see in that moment I could've run into her arms and hugged her, in the lead. Mr. Solomon was among them. Shoot, I could've hugged him, too.

But I didn't want to pull off that Sound of Music reenactment right then. I dashed back into the cabin wordlessly when they came level with us, Mom and Mr. Solomon following suit. The third operative, which I recognized as the pilot who'd flown us here in the first place, winked at me and then waited outside.

"How is she?" Mom asked.

"I...I don't know." The words tasted bitter in my mouth. After all, taking the facts that I know fourteen different languages and how to kill a man seven different ways using my bare hands into consideration, I felt like I should know a lot more than I already do. Like why the Circle wants me in the first place, or where my father disappeared to.

Somebody somewhere knows.

The tricky part was finding that certain someone. The one with all the answers. Or at least some of them.

She kneeled in front of her student, who we'd propped up against the wall, her head resting against her chest.

"Ms. McHenry, can you hear me?"

Macey made an attempt to raise her head and look at her, but then the effort of waking up became too great, the fog of poison too thick, and with the weakest of sighs her body went slack and she returned to the blissful, painless darkness of unconsciousness her body longed for.

The poison as sapping the energy right out of her, and one of the brain's reactions to this extreme energy depletion was to completely shut down the unnecessary functions of the body. What worried me were the ever-increasing intervals of sleep that were occurring more and more frequently.

It's hard to describe in words a grief that is so severe that your body physically collapses underneath the pressure of it all… that feeling where a streamline of fight-or-flight responses get triggered one after the other so rapidly that the only response you can come up with is to just shut everything down completely, reboot yourself in one final effort to achieve the calm you so desperately craved…

Mr. Solomon stepped forward and picked up Macey's unconscious, limp form and carried her to the waiting helicopter.

The helicopter that would bring us home.

And to help.

The copter was small, made for speed whilst sacrificing capacity. Needless to say, Bex and Liz and I were scrunched pretty tight together on the small bench. Not that I minded, of course. The chilly air was beginning to seep through my clothes again and the combined body heat helped to keep it at bay. And I was bone tired, having not slept very at-ease over the course of events. I laid my head on Liz's shoulder and tried to keep my eyes open long enough to finish answering my mother's questions, which I felt coming before she even opened her mouth and said,

"Cameron, Rebecca, Elizabeth—"

"Poison." We couldn't afford to beat around the bush. Macey was hanging on for dear life, and the cord was slowly fraying, getting thinner and thinner. "She's been poisoned, Mom."

Her eyes grew wide.

"Well did you counter it?" As the headmistress, she knew full well that our curriculum included the counteracting of things such as this. I only wished I'd realized the true significance of it before this whole thing happened. And to our roommate.

"The tests came up as an unknown substance. We couldn't make an antidote without knowing what poison it was," Bex informed her sadly. "And if we assumed wrong..." She didn't finish. She didn't need to. We were all spies here, and we all knew what could very well happen should an operative mix the life-draining venom with the wrong antidote. The results could—and would most likely—be deadly.

"An unknown poison? Are you sure?"

"Since when have Liz's gadgets ever faltered before?" I asked her, and her worry became more evident.

"Please, Mom," I whispered. I didn't trust myself to speak any louder. "You have to help her."

I looked at Macey, who still hadn't stirred once since we had departed from the ground. Bex cradled her thin and fragile form in her lap, her head draped over her arm. It pained me to witness how vulnerable she looked. Instead of strong, graceful, confident Macey McHenry, she'd been reduced to a weak, shambling, delirious shadow of her former self. I could only hope that former self was somewhere inside of the broken girl in my friend's arms, who had her arms firmly wrapped around her like the Circle would materialize right in front of us and snatch her away again.

The thoughts I were conjuring up out of my sleep-deprived imagination were taking a sharp turn south, so I made an attempt to grab the wheel and take a U-turn around to the north.

We were only hours away from Gallagher Academy, the safest place I knew of and the place I'd come to know as home. The Circle of Cavan couldn't touch us there, couldn't hurt us. And Mom would ensure our sister would get the best care possible.

Macey would be fine.

Wouldn't she?

Mom leaned forward from the bench across from us and put her hand on my mine. "Don't worry about a thing, girls," she promised, choosing to address us as one this time. "Now get some rest. You've earned it."

I needed no further urging and my eyelids shut of their own accord.

My body was jostled slightly as the small helicopter made landing on the tennis courts, effectively waking me up. It was dark out. I glanced at my watch. We'd made awesome time as far as distance was concerned. Fourteen hours, fifty-seven minutes and thirty-two seconds, which was just as well, because before I could fully slap myself awake the doors slid open nosily and they rushed Macey to the infirmary. Bex grabbed my wrist and dragged me up from my seat, following closely on their heels. We were about to walk—or rather run-slash-sprint—through the door but Mr. Mosckowitz intercepted us.

"I'm sorry, ladies, but you can't go in—"

"But—"

"—because headmistress Morgan has requested a word in her office," he continued like I hadn't tried to persuade him otherwise. He smiled at me encouragingly. "Don't worry, Ms. Morgan. Baxter. Sutton." He looked to us each in turn. "We'll be sure to do everything we can. Now don't keep your mother waiting." And as he got the final word, he slinked around the door frame and closed it behind him.

"'We'll be sure to do everything we can,'" Bex said in an uncanny imitation of Mr. Mosckowitz's voice—for a girl, that is. "We'll it'd better be enough," she added with words like steel that sliced through the silence in the Hall of History. The hallways were empty at this hour.

Lucky for us. I don't think I could've handled the bombarding of questions from my classmates right now.

We dragged ourselves into my mother's office. And for the third time in a week, I meant it literally. Bex was holding my arm around her shoulders like I might fall asleep standing up and hit my head on something—though at this point I don't think I could've handled another concussion without suffering some kind of permanent brain damage.

Mom was sitting at her desk, resting her head on her hands. Mr. Solomon (surprise, surprise!) leaned against her desk and Buckingham and Mr. Smith were there, too. I was actually surprised Mr. Smith hadn't changed his face in the time we'd been gone. But hey, I've seen stranger things in my life.

The three of us sat down wordlessly onto the leather couch. Mom got up and lowered herself down to the coffee table. She looked almost as tired as I felt.

I didn't need any additional prompting as she raised her eyebrows, and we began to retell all of the details...

No matter how much it hurt to relive them.

We piled into the infirmary and immediately scanned the room for our roommate. It wasn't hard, considering she was the only patient occupying one of the beds. I sat down in the chair next to the bed and took her hand in my own. She didn't return the grip and her hand had a slight twinge of cold to it. I rubbed her fingers between my hands, trying to get the circulation going. Her skin was so pale.

I had momentarily forgotten that Bex and Liz were standing behind me until I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up at Bex.

"Come on, Cammie. We can't do anything for her now."

I realized she was right. Now we were just getting in the way of the nurses bustling quietly about the room.

Bex led me to the far corner of the room, where we pulled up three unoccupied chairs and "made camp." We could still see Macey from where we were seated and could oversee that nothing else bad would happen, though there was no way we could predict that. Regardless, if she would happen to sink even deeper into danger, we would be there to offer help in any way we could.

"I suppose I can't force you three to leave," the voice of Joe Solomon said as his form walked through the door and over to us. "But are you sure you want to wait it out? You still have classes on Monday, you know... and today's Saturday."

"You'd better believe we do," Bex responded with accent full-on, and Liz and I coursed our agreement.

Mr. Solomon nodded and a slight smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "As I expected."

And then he left.

A man of few words.

In response to what you're thinking: YES! THEY ARE FINALLY OUT OF THE GOD DAMNED CABIN! WOO HOO FOR PROGRESS! *eye roll* AND YES! I DO OVERUSE LINE BREAKS!

The chapter title can be deceiving, because there will be many more chapters to come! I have a bunch of separate chapters and ideas scribbled down; I just have to have them all connect in some way. So there will be much more to come, I can tell you that much! ^_^

REVIEW RESPONSES (FOR ANONYMOUS REVIEWERS)

Raven'sEVOLtwin: I have absolutely NOTHING against lesbians or gays or bisexuals. I feel everybody deserves to be happy and everybody deserves equal acceptance. We're all people and we're all equal. Cammie and Macey wouldn't make a bad couple, per-se, but I'm trying to stay as true to the Gallagher Girls books by Ally Carter as possible. Sorry if it comes off as femslash in some parts, but that wasn't my intention.

Reviews are appreciated. Let me know how I'm doing! :D

Side note: Expect less frequent updates. I just got my permit for driver's ed, and in the time I'm not slaving over this story, I'll most likely be dodging inanimate objects. (I'm comin' for YOU, mail boxes!)

Thank you and good night! (Or morning, evening, afternoon, whatever floats-slash-sinks your boat.)