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"ZACH!" I screamed before I even realised I was speaking. Alarms rang out. The doors buzzed and locked, and as they did I stood up suddenly, trying to get to the mirror. But my right arm was handcuffed to the chair, and the chair was drilled into the floor. My fingers could barely skim the mirror.
Then the mirror was shot, sending shards of glass spraying. Once, twice, three times, until it was all gone. I covered my face with my arms, and then someone was grabbing me.
"NO! GET OFF!" I yelled.
"No, Cammie, we have to go," A familiar voice said. No, I didn't dare hope. Slowly, I peeked between the gaps of my arms. It was Zach.
"Zach! Ohmygod I thought you were dead!" I sobbed, flinging my arms around him.
"Come on, Cams, you know I wouldn't leave my Gallagher Girl without a goodbye." Zach whispered, cutting away my handcuff with a pocketknife. He tutted. "Look, there's no time, you're gonna have to go like this." He gave a final tug on my handcuff, and the chain came away, leaving the clasp on my wrist.
"OK, fine, whatever, let's just get the hell outta here!" I said eagerly. Zach took a gun out of the waistband of his jeans and shot the security camera before climbing on the table and sliding away one of the wall panels. He took my hand and pulled me up onto the table. I hoisted myself into the air vent and Zach followed me, pulling the panel back in place as best as he could.
"This way," He shouted over the blaring alarm, crawling along the vents. I didn't know where we were going but he must have, because a few minutes later, I could see the light of the moon. My heart started pounding with adrenaline rush.
This is it, I was finally getting out. "We're gonna have to jump!" Zach yelled, pointing down. He unscrewed the grated closing of the vent with his pocketknife (and silently, I wondered where did he get that?) He dropped the grate and it fell with splash- water?
Zach jumped and I immediately followed him. I took in my first deep breath of fresh air in 10 days before I hit the water.
It was freezing, and my first impulse was to breathe in, but I stopped myself. Zach grabbed my hand to keep me from rising to the surface, and gave me a reassuring kiss before pulling my hand to take me to shore.
I was trained to hold my breath in for –so far- 5 minutes and 13 seconds, but from the shock of the cold water I couldn't help but cough when me and Zach resurfaced.
"Where are we?" I asked, shivering as I looked around. "And why do you have blood on your shirt?"
"Smith Mountain Lake." Zach replied standing up, only answering one of my questions.. I know it was inappropriate at the time but Zach's long sleeve cotton shirt was sticking to his chest, and I couldn't help but notice his abs.
"How d'you know that?" I asked, distracting myself from Zach's toned body.
"Sam told me." Zach said, heading quickly down the pebbled path away from the lake and to the twinkling lights of houses nearby.
"Sam?! And you trust him?" My teeth chattered.
"I kind of have to right now." Zach confessed. "He's the one who helped me – helped us – escape."
"Can you… explain?" I asked, as we walked down a street decorated with Christmas decorations. The chilly December air made my wet clothes heavy and icy. I swear my fingers were starting to turn blue.
"Sure- this house." Zach pointed to a house with no lights and very few decorations. He went round the back and checked all the usual places people hide spare keys. "I was in the viewing room, watching Stephen Cavan talk to you, and then Sam came in. He knocked out that woman who was holding the gun, and untied me. He told me how to get out, but the woman was waking up, so Sam shot her. He then went away to remove the security tapes and locked us in the room so no-one could get in while we escaped."
Zach found the key and after a few tries, managed to get the key in the lock. His hands were shaking really badly.
Inside the house it was warmer. I searched the rooms for clothes, finding a teenage girls' room. She seemed to love the colour black. I changed out of my wet clothes and into a black vest, shirt and pants. It was quite weird, but I found a pair of unopened underwear, so I took some plain black undies. I couldn't afford to leave a trail; I wringed out my wet clothes and found a bin bag to put them in.
I met Zach downstairs. He was twirling car keys on a keychain round his index finger. "Ready?" He asked. I nodded. Zach had loaded some food and his wet clothes into a black 4 x 4. We were lucky that it had a full tank of gas, and we were soon eating in warmth as we were cruising down the highway.
"Why do you think he did it?" I wondered aloud. "Sam, I mean. Why did he help us?"
" I don't know. Maybe he felt guilty, maybe he was annoyed at the Circle, maybe he was on our side all along. I don't know." Zach confessed."Cams, I have a question for you."
"Yeah?" I said cautiously. God, please don't let his question be—
"What did Cavan mean, 'you wouldn't want any more guilt over your head regarding Zach'?"
Dammit. "OK, Zach, I want to be honest with you, so I'm just going to tell you," I took a deep breath. "I kissed Sam."
I could hear my heart pounding in my head. Zach didn't say anything. "Oh, God, it's not what it sounds like, I mean, yeah, I did kiss Sam but I didn't mean to—I mean, I did mean to, but. Oh, God. I was drowsy and then Sam came in and I thought he was you because you look identical, and he was upset so I kissed him and as soon as I realised what I'd done I felt so guilty, and I'm sorry, Zach, I'm so, so sorry!" It all came out in a rush. To my surprise, Zach took my hand and squeezed it.
"Cammie, it's OK." He whispered. "You didn't mean to, and right now I'm just glad we're alive, I'm not going to be upset over something minor."
"Zach, I love you." I said solemnly.
"I love you too."
And then, I was crying again. Silent sobs, because we were alive, and I was so scared, and I had a whole family and history I didn't know about. I was crying because I was going home, and I was finally safer than I had been in weeks, and I was exhausted, and because I love Zach and he loved me.
It took us 3 hours and 57 minutes to get back to Roseville. My heart sped up as I saw the familiar lights of my lovely Virginia town. We drove down the path to Gallagher, stopping the car when we got to the metal gates.
"At least they finally updated the system," Zach said casually. The fence was 12 feet tall, and it looked harmless, unless you listened and you could hear the rhythmic buzz of electricity running through the metal spokes. "Now the only problem is, how do we tell them we're here?"
"I guess, we have to trigger the alarm." I said, cracking my knuckles. This is what I do best. "Now, the fence electrifies every 10 seconds, and the electricity runs through it for 5 seconds. So we have to climb over the fence in 10 seconds."
"Easy."
"OK, 3… 2… NOW!" I counted down after the 5 second hum of electricity finished. Me and Zach found foot and hand holes in between the spokes. 6 seconds left. We were at the top. 3 seconds left. We dropped down just as the hum started again, but I was a little late. "OW, OW, OW!" I hissed, eyes tearing up from the pain.
"You OK?" Zach asked worriedly.
"Yeah, yeah, let's keep going. Now what." I refused to let a little pain stop me now.
"Now we walk." Zach said, and hand in hand we walked forward. Nothing happened, until—
Me and Zach groaned as the piercing sound hit our ears. It was a high pitch wail, something I recognised attacked a part of your brain to make it overload. It was painful. We dropped onto our knees, clasping our hands to our heads in attempt to block out the noise.
It seemed to go on forever, but it finally stopped.
"STOP! THAT'S MY DAUGHTER!" I could barely hear my mom's familiar voice over the shriek ricocheting off my skull.
Then I was flooded with faces and voices, and Mr Solomon was picking up Zach's limp body off the grass, and Abby's strong hands lifted me up. We were carried to the infirmary, and even though we had migraines, and we couldn't move our bodies we were still conscious. We kept looking at each other.
We were exhausted and there were so many people surrounding us, even though personally I wanted to be alone with Zach.
But it was OK. We were home.