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Cammie's POV

Alright, that's enough, Cammie, I told myself and I hastily wiped away my tears. But my eyes weren't listening to my brain. They were acting of their own accord and tears spilled down my cheeks anyway.

I was sitting in a narrow alleyway, hugging my knees to my chest so tightly that it dug in painfully. The ground and the wall I rested against were cold, but the way I had played Zach was even colder, and now I was utterly full of regret. All I wanted to do is reverse the clock and redo it all. I would have promised myself that I'd see Liz once he was asleep, or just not go at all and visit once everything with the Circle had blown over.

It's too late now, a voice in my head sighed. You can't go back to the hotel, not right now. You might as well use that time to check up on your best friend. It would be wasteful to go into all that trouble to see her, and then just not bother.

I listened to that advice and stood up, using the wall as support for my shaken body. My light make-up running down my face in ruins, I stumbled out of the alley. The nearest phone booth was down the street and I headed to it. I dialled a number that I had memorised, along with an extra few numbers that made the phone untraceable.

"Hello?" her voice crackled through, intrigued by the unknown number that had somehow got hold of her emergency phone that only I knew about – she had bought it for me to get in contact with her if we were ever apart.

"Hey, Macey," I replied, but carried on quickly before she could say anything. It was always good to cover up your tracks, no matter how careful and secretive you think you are. "It's me, uh, Kayla McGregor, calling to say I'm all safe and good."

"Okay," she laughed, recognising my voice. She obviously saw through it, but was playing along with my improvised name. "Where are you? I haven't seen you since… um… the last party that my mom held."

"Yeah, I've been really busy with my ex-boyfriend," I said casually.

Macey burst into giggles. "Busy doing what?"

"Nothing," I tried to lie convincingly, but the memory of Zach shouting at me was raw and it came out more like a strangled cat.

Macey's voice went from laughing to serious in an instant. "Aw, honey, what happened? Was it another fight? And why do you care so much? I thought you hated him!"

"It's not something I'm proud about," I confessed.

"That's okay," Macey soothed. "We all make mistakes."

"Well, this one was huge," I struggled to hold in the tears in my eyes. "He didn't want me to do something, so I kissed him as a distraction and he got all mad at me and called me an uncaring, scheming bitch. He had good reason too."

"Don't blame yourself on that, okay?" Macey's voice was full of concern. "Whatever you wanted to do, you probably had a reason for wanting to do it. It's not all your fault."

"But I took advantage of the feelings he still has for me, and that isn't right." I sighed regretfully. "I'll talk to you more about this when I next see you. Right now, I want you to pass on a message to that geeky friend of yours."

"You mean Jonas?" Macey asked, and I could just imagine her eyebrows knitting together.

"Oh yeah, that's him. He's good at hacking and stuff, right? Can you ask him to hack into the security system of my daughter's friend's mom's house? I want to give her a surprise because I'm two blocks away from her and I'm leaving tomorrow."

"Sure," Macey grinned. "Tell her I said hi."

"I will," I promised, with my hand over the end call button.

"Oh and can I say one more thing, Kayla?"

"What is it?"

"If you don't tell me about your boyfriend" –

"Ex-boyfriend," I interrupted.

"Whatever," she replied. "If you don't tell me about your boyfriend within the next week, I will personally hunt you down and torture it out of you."

"Good for you, Macey," I laughed, but she couldn't see the tears running down my cheeks.

After that, I hung up, wiped my face clear once more and continued on my journey to the hospital.

Catherine's POV

How long had I stayed in this horrible cell? Time seemed endless here and it was doing my head in. At least I seemed to be perfectly calm when anyone came in. The Circle had been the ones to train me to be a professional at withholding information when being tortured… but then again, I had contributed many new torture techniques myself – I never thought my inventions would someday bite me right back in the ass. But here I was, lying in a cell I had once thrown other people into.

The door swung open. I looked up, and saw Joseph staring down at me coldly, with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Catherine," he smiled, with calculating eyes. "How do you like your new accommodation? Is it comfy?"

"I don't want the small talk," I glared at him. "Just get the whole torture thing over and done with, please."

"I like the small talk," he replied with an emotionless smile. "I find that they generally make the prisoner more nervous."

I tilted my chin up defiantly. "I'm not scared of you, Joseph. Give me your worst."

He tutted. "My dear Catherine, you make it sound like I'm going to listen to what you say. I think I'll stay with the original plan. I think you know it all too well, seeing as you were the one who created it. It is my personal favourite, if I say so myself. Perhaps you remember it?"

I scowled, but stayed mute. I refused to give him any satisfaction.

"No?" he raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps I'll enlighten you. The plan was to start off with a small lecture about how you'll start nice and easy, and how it will all go downhill from there. Torture sessions will get longer and crueller and much more painful for you. The gaps between each session will lengthen too, so you have time between each one to think about your options. And that's only the physical side of things.

"Then the second stage will come in – the mental tests. Your mind will be tried to its limit, through our exquisite stimulator. The hallucinations of your deepest fears will eat their way through your brain, until there's nothing left. You worst nightmares will come true in front of your eyes, or so you will think, and no matter how hard you try to fight it, we both know that only six people have got past this stage – one of whom is the father of your beloved Cameron.

"If you're strong enough to get past that level, next up is the emotional stage. Your mind and your body will already be weakened beyond belief and it will only take a small push to tip you over the edge. Anyone you have ever cared about will be brought back to flesh in front of you, but of course, our stimulator will make things more interesting.

"No one has ever got past that, but you were always prepared for the worst, weren't you, Catherine? You always had a back-up. So your interest in medicine and poison led you to the final stage. You created an anaesthetic to paralyze each part of the body and a cure to heal it. If we ever have to inject you with it, your veins will feel like they're on fire for one hour. Then it will suddenly stop. That body part is dead to you. We'll start with your feet, and move up the body. Last of all will be that wonderful brain of yours, but all through it, you'll know that you could just stop the pain with a few answers and we'll give you the antidote.

"And if you are resilient all the way until then, we will destroy the only functional part of your body – your heart. We will rip it out with this." He brandished a flashy silver dagger, Ioseph Cavan's original favourite, and tossed it in the air. He caught it and smiled at me cruelly.

I leaned back against the wall, raising my eyes to the heavens. "Joseph, please stop trying to intimidate me. I already know what my torture techniques are. You don't need to explain them to me."

He shrugged. "It shows that I do listen to your long, boring suggestions sometimes. Come with me."

He led the way and I followed him out of the meagre cell. The corridors, which were once my home, were now my prison. I knew where we were going. The Circle had three torture rooms, one small one, one big one and one for the people who really pissed Joseph off. Joseph's private torture room was where I was headed. He had kept the inside of that room highly classified. Nobody but his victims knew what was in there and people who were curious were too scared to try. Those who went in mysteriously disappeared.

There had been the rumours, of course. Many agents discussed how in there was a huge tank with a great white shark in it, although that sounded a bit much – even for Joseph. Others said that captives had ropes attached to their hands and feet, and they were stretched for answers, while Joseph did acupuncture on them in the worst places.

But no matter how outrageous the rumours were, no one could deny the distant screams they could hear if they walked past that room.

"Would you like to come in?" Joseph inserted his key in and twisted it with a jerk as a massive click echoed. He swung the door open and gentlemanly gestured for me to enter. Resisting the urge to gulp with fear, I strode in with my head held high.

Cammie's POV

The hospital's lights were much dimmer than usual, but I suspected that was all thanks to Jonas. He was probably the reason that all the camera lenses were shut too. There was some confusion at the reception desk and glancing at their screens, I could see why. Written across all the screens were the words THIS IS FOR… and then a picture of a worm with round glasses, reading a book that was three times its size.

They didn't notice as I ran up the stairs, silently thanking Jonas for everything he'd done. The route to Liz's ward was long, but I ran it within a minute and without detection. When I finally arrived at the right room, I took a huge long breath and opened her curtain.

She was as petite as ever, and still as beautiful too. Her shoulder-length blonde hair surrounded her head like a halo and her cheeks were rosy, almost buried beneath the hospital covers. She had her pillow hugged to her chest and her features were so innocent in her deep sleep.

"Liz," I breathed, rushing to her side. I took her hand in my own and just held it, feeling the strong wall I had built around myself crumble. For what felt like the millionth time tonight, the tears flowed freely down my cheeks and I squeezed her hand for dear life, though it probably didn't do much good.

"I'm so sorry, Liz," I sobbed, dismissing any thoughts about feeling stupid and talking to talk to myself. "I'm so sorry. I never should have done it. It was stupid and wrong, especially because you just wanted to help me out. I have no excuse for what I did. I'm a terrible best friend and I'm feeling so guilty about it."

Then an idea popped into my head, which would either have me jumping up in joy or rolling about in my own misery again. I said, "Squeeze my hand twice if you think that I'm not a bad friend."

No answer.

I mostly expected that to happen and I knew that I wasn't being fair to myself or her, but it was a way to torture my emotions more, so I did it. Asking her to make some sort of reaction was never going to make her suddenly wake up. It was a stupid idea, and it did not only disappoint me; it probably put a lot of pressure on Liz, who could probably hear me, too… unless she didn't want to squeeze my hand and actually thought I was a bad friend. I wouldn't blame her for thinking that too.

Besides, Jonas said that she only had a 22% chance of life. It might not even be her choice to come back. If she dies, I would be the one who stole that life from her.

"You can hate me if you want," I struggled to keep my tone level, and failed. "Just don't die out on everyone. Even if you can't fight death, fight it anyhow… for Jonas and Arianne, and Bex and Macey, and everyone else you love. I – they can't bear for you to go, Liz."

I touched her cheek. "I understand if you hate me. I totally understand if you want me to leave. Just…" I gave it another shot. "Squeeze twice if you don't hate me."

No answer, again, and I choked back a sob. "That's okay too… I guess I should go now. Goodbye, Liz."

I stood up to leave, my hand still wrapped around hers: Then I felt the tiniest squeeze. There it was again! I gasped in shock and grinned so broadly through my tears that my face muscles ached. I laugh escaped my lips and soon I was giggling and crying at the same time. She seemed to react to my hysterics with the small smile that appeared on her lips, even though it was probably killing her to do so.

"Liz!" I squealed, about to hug her. Then I realised that hugging her would probably crush her frail body, so I awkwardly sank back down into the seat next to the bed and carried on excitedly, "You did it, Liz! You made it! And you don't hate me! Oh Liz, this is amazing! You're going to recover and we're going to be best friends again and I'm going to finally forgive myself for what I did to you!"

"Well, I'm not." It was a voice that suddenly appeared at the curtain, high-pitched, cute and unforgiving. I turned in shock and saw Arianne standing there, glaring at me intensely in her hospital night-gown. I was speechless. I didn't know what to say to the girl who I barely knew, but I shot anyway.

"I… I…"

"Save the apologies." Her voice was cold. "You have nerve to visit my mother after what you did. You have even more nerve for thinking that she'll ever forgive you. Do you think after you shot her little girl and almost killed her that she will ever be your best friend again? She's already got a family and two best friends who would never desert her in the middle of a pregnancy like you did."

"Arianne…"

"She's already got everything she needs. You're only trouble, trouble that nobody should ever have to deal with. You don't deserve to have anyone in your life, let alone Mom. She's better off without you, Cameron. I just want my family back. And you're not part of it."

I withdrew my hand from Liz's, feeling anger and indignation bubbling within me… but knowing that somehow this girl was right.