.o Revelations o.

Cammie POV

It took us exactly two days to find Zach.

Once we found him, we decided it would be better to tail him, than approach him- considering how much help he'd been when he was with us. We then set up a basic observation rotation.

That had been three days ago. So far, he, Grant, and Jonas have looked on edge. They seemed to be waiting for something or looking for something. After bugging multiple rooms and things of theirs, we had gathered that they were waiting for a second message from ACE, or really who they called Her. They, apparently, had gotten a message a day before we found them and were waiting to receive a meeting place.

Who they were meeting, was still a mystery. It was so frustrating. They wouldn't even say any names. It was always 'her', or 'she', or 'they'. From listening to them talk about this 'them' and 'her', it seemed they had known these girls for a long time. I tried to recall Zach telling me about any girl- anyone- from his past. But as I thought about it, I realized I knew almost nothing about my boyfriend's life before he came to Gallagher.

It was an unsettling realization.

"Chameleon, rotate."

I was knocked out of my mental ranting by Bex's voice. I had been tailing Zach as he walked through town for the past fifteen minutes. Bex was my backup, and Macey was the reserve, while Liz ran our comms and watched every security monitor in the city. I sighed and strolled across the street, away from Zach. In the window of the ice cream parlor in front of me, I watched as Bex turned the corner and took my place as Zach's tail. Now Macey was the backup, and I was the reserve.

I shook my head as I remembered my first CoveOps assignment. Tail Mr. Smith and find out what he likes with funnel cakes. All those years ago, it seemed like the most nerve-wracking thing ever. I could still hear Mr. Solomon's voice.

"There are three types of subjects that will always be the most difficult to surveil. People who are trained, people who suspect they may be followed, and people you know."

Understatement.

Well, I guess not an understatement so much as completely and utterly true.

It had been so hard to tail the guys. Finding them was no problem, but tailing them without detection? Hardest. Assignment. Ever. Harder than Paris- oh wait, you can't know about that. But, yeah, it was hard. Not only did the guys know us. They knew how we worked, how we rotated, what our giveaways were. I think one of the reasons we've lasted this long is because they were so distracted. They were looking for something or someone, yet they never noticed us. Or they did, and they ignored us.

Apparently, I had allowed myself to become so lost in thought, I nearly ran into a poor old granny. The poor woman was exiting the post office when I turned a corner and nearly ran into her.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" I said.

She merely shook her head. "It's fine, dear."

I was about to respond when I heard Macey call out, "Duchess, where are you? I've lost eyeball."

I whipped around to see Macey walking passed a jewelry shop. Scanning the area, I found Bex on the path leading towards the zoo, Grant, and Zach twenty paces ahead of her.

"Sweetheart, are you alright?" I heard the woman behind me ask.

I turned back to her, a smile slapped on my face. "Oh, yes, everything's fine. I'm just trying to find my way to the zoo." Sure enough, I watched in the post office window as Macey nodded and crossed the street towards the zoo. I said thank you to the woman when she gave me directions and disappeared into the crowd once again.

As I made my way to the zoo, I couldn't help but notice the complete lack of visitors in the parking lot. Strange, on a Saturday. I realized why a few moments later. Apparently, some vipers and black widows in the zoo had mysteriously escaped yesterday, and animal control was busy making sure none of them were missing. The zoo wouldn't be open until they were sure nothing dangerous was lurking about.

I watched as Zach and Grant made their way towards the entrance. A guard simply let them in when they approached.

"Guard?" I asked into my comms.

I watched as Bex casually walked passed the entrance towards the other side of the lot. "It's Jonas," she muttered.

A moment later, the guard turned and followed Zach and Grant into the zoo, closing the gate behind him.

"Peacock, can you get over the gate?" I asked.

There was no response, but a minute later the fifteen-foot gate slid open. I met my friends at the small gift shop near the zoo entrance.

When we were together, I called Liz through the comms. "Bookworm, what we got?"

"All of the camera's have already been looped. Give me one more- okay, I got the real footage now. They're making their way to the reptile house," Liz's small voice chirped.

"Thanks, Bookworm."

We made out way towards the reptile house, but when we got there, instead of walking in, we scaled the wall and came upon the slanted roof. The roof was perfect for our objective. It slanted up on the sides, but not enough for us to slide off. In the middle, the two sides met a glass pane that, from the inside, would make a beautiful skylight through the entire building. But for us, it was an excellent observation point to the whole house.

We soon found the guys entering the area for the unique (and most likely lethal) insects and spiders. It seemed the security was a bit lax. I could understand why considering no one would ever want to enter a place with deadly creatures creeping about. The guys were able the walk right up to the black widow display, where three large, deadly, jet black arachnids were weaving their webs.

The guys seemed to be discussing something.

"Bookworm, can you get us audio on their comms?"

Liz didn't reply, but twenty seconds later the boys' voices were in my ear.

"-told you they would be behind this," Grant was telling Jonas.

I watched as Jonas raised his hands in defense, "I never said they weren't."

"Yeah, you-"

"Guys!" Zach snapped. He pointed to the bottom of the display, where a small piece of paper was placed.

Grant shook his head. "No way am I sticking my hand in there," he muttered.

Zach chuckled. "Wimp," he said, earning a punch in the side.

Jonas rolled his eyes. "No one has to stick their hand in there. It's reflected, see?" Jonas motioned towards the mirrored back of the display case. Beside me, Macey took a hairpin (which also happened to be a camera) out of her hair and put it on the glass roof. She zoomed in an snapped the picture, while the guys did the same inside.

"Should we take it out?" Jonas asked.

Zach shook his head. "She got it in there, she can get it out."

Grant snorted, "Plus she's freaky with spiders." Zach smacked him in the side.

The boys didn't say anything else as they exited the reptile house, then the zoo. We followed them all the way to the hotel, waited a few minutes for them to get to their room, then made our way to the floor above them. When we opened the door to our room, we were met with about, oh, a hundred questions.

"Did you guys get it? What was in the zoo? Did you see anyone? Was there-"

"Liz!" Macey snapped. "Calm down and take a look," she said, holding out the pin/camera. Liz immediately snatched it out of Macey's hand and had it plugged into a computer. When the picture finished downloading, we were met with another note from ACE, only this time it was meant for the guys.

So it seems you're finally looking. Took you long enough, didn't it? Now, I'm sure you want to know what we're planning, so why don't we meet at our old hangout? I'll see you in the nightshade at the normal time. If you can still get in, that is.

-ACE

"Night shade?" Bex said. "Liz?"

"Got it!" Liz called from another laptop. On the screen was 'NightShade -Dance Club, Bar, and Entertainment'.

I sighed as Macey chuckled. "Looks like we're going dancing," she said.

"You hate me don't you?"

Macey merely laughed at my obvious discomfort.

"Come on, Cam, you look great!" Bex called from the bathroom. I was in a dark blue dress that stopped right above the knees, had thin straps over the shoulders, and a back lower than I thought possible.

"Why can't I wear the purple one?" I whined, pointing to the much more modest dress that was on the bed.

"Because it matches Liz's dress too much!" Macey snapped. I looked pleadingly to our small friend, who was braiding her hair.

Liz looked from me to Macey, to the dress on the bed, then finally down at her pale green dress that stopped at the shins and had straps crossing over her back. "It doesn't match that much," she said.

It really didn't. The only thing that was exactly the same was the back, which had straps crossing to the shoulder blades. The purple dress stopped a little above the knees, and the front was a lot higher than the blue thing I was wearing. Also, while Liz's dress had an empire waist that hugged her tiny torso, and flowed out around her legs whenever she moved. The purple dress had a natural waist that had hints of black and cascaded down in waves around my knees.

I turned back to Macey. "Ha!"

Macey rolled her eyes. "Fine," she muttered, then grinned evilly. "But now we have to redo your makeup!"

"Ugh!"

Two hours, three dress changes, and some intense hair situations later, we were ready.

Macey had decided to wear the dark blue dress; Bex was in a black dress that hugged her body and showed off her muscles in a way that made her look like a supermodel.

We watched and waited until the guys left the hotel. Seven minutes later, we made our way after them. Of course, we didn't make it obvious we were following them. We had already put trackers in their shoes, clothes, and I had to convince Bex that lacing their toothpaste was going to far. So we made wide circles around them, going into a few places and watching their movements from Liz's tracking watch.

At 9:57 pm, the girls and I found ourselves in the line to enter NightShade. Zach and the guys had just walked in. We had watched as Zach handed the bouncer a piece of paper, but what it was, we had no idea.

As we approached the bouncer, Macey took the lead and somehow got us in free. I don't think I want to know how. We were about to enter when something made me stop dead. From somewhere behind us, I heard a small voice.

"The horsemen lived in service to the castle and the crown-"

My head whipped around before my mind could fully register what was happening. Scanning the crowd frantically, I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around to see the bouncer gesturing to where my friends had entered the building. "Miss?"

I looked behind me, searching for the source of the voice, but saw no one in the crowd behind me that seemed to be singing the song that still haunted my nightmares.

"Cam?" I heard Bex call. Stiffly, I walked over to my friends "What's wrong?" Bex whispered. I just shook my head. I couldn't bring myself to tell them I was hearing one of the few things that scared me. But it wasn't just the song, it was the voice.

Whenever I heard the song, in my head, in my nightmares, only the first few times it was Catherine's voice. Then the voice changed. After a few times, the voice that would sing was the clear voice of a girl. The same voice that I heard now.

Suddenly, I felt a white-hot pain behind my eyes.

A steel chair. Green eyes. A spider. Knives and syringes.

Images I couldn't make sense of flashed through my mind. I hadn't realized I was shaking until Liz nudged me.

"Cammie, are you okay? You seem pale."

I looked at my friends. They were watching me worryingly. I forced a smile and shook my head. "I'm fine," I lied. "It must be the lights. Come on, let's find them."

As we made our way inside NightShade, I couldn't help being impressed. I was expecting a grimy, skimpy place, but NightShade was actually very stylish. On the left side of the building, there were seats, pool tables, and a bar. To the right was a large dance floor with neon and black lights. At the end of the dance floor, against the far wall was a stage where, the sign outside said, there was live music on Fridays and Sundays, but today, Saturday, was karaoke night. Wonderful.

It didn't take long to find the guys. They weren't really hiding. When we found them, Grant was laughing loudly at something while Jonas polished his glasses. Zach was scanning the crowd intently.

We split up to watch them, but they never got up. An hour later karaoke night was in full swing behind us. Some tipsy girl was having the time of her life singing Taylor Swift's "Trouble." I was currently alone at a table, watching the guys, while my friends observed from the crowd.

I was almost worried we'd missed our chance to find out who the guys were meeting when I noticed Zach was staring at something. I looked away from Zach for a second, but that was enough to see a flash of red hair disappear into the crowd. Red hair I knew I'd seen before. I froze.

In the corner of my eye, I saw one of the guys stand up. I looked back to them, only to see Zach striding straight towards me.

"What are you doing here, Cameron?" Zach growled. Cameron, not Cammie or Gallagher Girl or Cam. He'd never called me Cameron before, and the look in his eyes as he said it scared me.

"I told you to stay at Georgetown," Zach closed his eyes and pushed his palms into them. "I should have known you wouldn't listen. You never do."

"I couldn't just stay, Zach-"

"No. Of course, you couldn't. Even if it's to protect yourself, you never listen!" I'd only seen Zach angry a few times, but this wasn't it. Zach was livid.

"Zach-" I tried, but he wouldn't have it.

"Are the girls here?" He demanded. But he didn't even let me answer. "Of course they're here." He raised his hand to his ear. "Guys, find the girls. They're here somewhere. Keep them safe."

"They can take care of themselves, Zach," I tried.

Zach looked back to me. His eyes weren't as angry as they were worried now. He shook his head, "Not this time." We stood in thick silence for a few seconds. Then, it started.

The lights and music stopped. Zach grabbed my arm and hissed something in Farsi. A second later, the lights flashed back on. In the speakers, a girl's voice was giggling. The same voice that haunted me.

"Sorry for the interruption, everyone. We have a very special song to sing for you. And the person this is dedicated to, you know who you are."

Beside me, Zach growled. He pulled me towards the door, but we found two big guards blocking the doors. They took one glance at Zach and grinned.

The voice on the speaker laughed. "And it all burned down."

Zach muttered a few more choice words in Farsi. I didn't understand why he didn't deal with them, but instead, to my utter confusion, he pulled me to the dance floor and wrapped his hands around my waist as the music started.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. I didn't understand, but he wouldn't let me talk. He pulled me in and kissed me hard before pulling back and saying it again. "I'm so sorry, Cam. I should have told you."

I wanted to ask him what was going on. What did I not know? Why he looked so terrified. But I never got the chance. Along with the music, a girl had started singing, and I heard the voice from my nightmares. A spotlight fell right on us.

"Right now, he's probably slow dancing with a bleached-blonde tramp, and she's probably getting frisky-"

I couldn't see who was signing, but I felt Zach tense under my arms. Another spotlight zoned in on the bar, where Jonas and Liz had been having a drink. Jonas was looking terrifyingly at a little black haired girl, who was slowly approaching them, holding a microphone.

"Right now, he's probably buying her some fruity, little drink, 'cuz she can't shoot a whiskey-"

The black haired girl wasn't the same girl that haunted me, though her voice seemed vaguely familiar. The pain behind my eyes returned as I tried to remember where I'd heard it.

"Clara," I barely made out the whisper Zach didn't seem to realize he let out. But I didn't have time to think about it, because a third spotlight zoned in on Grant and Bex at the pool tables, and a tall, dirty blonde haired girl was striding towards them with another microphone. Grant looked uneasy as she started singing.

"Right now, he's probably up behind her with a pool stick, showing her how to shoot a combo... And he don't know-"

Again, I heard Zach's breathy whisper, "Evelyn."

I watched all three boys flinch as the three voices sang together.

The girl Zach called Clara picked up a glass and sent it flying near Jonas's feet.

"That I dug my key into the side of his pretty, little, souped up four wheel drive, carved my name into his leather seat-"

The blonde Zach named Evelyn sent a dagger three inches from Grant's hand.

"I took a Louisville slugger to both head lights, slashed a hole in all four tires-"

Zach suddenly pulled me to the side, just as a knife landed six inches from my leg.

"Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats."

I couldn't help the fear that was churning in my gut. I looked back to Zach, who was pale as paper. We watched as the guys stood up and lead my friends towards us, followed by Clara and Evelyn. I had no idea where Macey was.

"Right now she's probably up singing some white-trash version of version of Shania karaoke-" the first voice sang.

"Right now, she's probably saying 'I'm drunk' and he's thinking that he's gonna get lucky-" Clara continued from behind Jonas.

"Right now, he's probably dabbing on three dollars of that bathroom Pollo-" Evelyn sang, tapping Grant on the cheek. Bex looked like she wanted to do some illegal Brazilian maneuvers on her. Evelyn stared right back at Bex with the same intensity. Even in my fear I was shocked, impressed, and terrified that she wasn't trembling with fear. Even Bex seemed caught off guard. Then they reached us, and I heard the voice again. I still couldn't see the singer.

"Oh, and he don't know,"

I could hear the anger and bitterness in all three singers voices as they sang the next verses together. I just couldn't fathom what was going on. Zach, Grant, and Jonas held us close and didn't let us move. They just stared at the girls in front of us, a look of half fear and half amazement in each of their eyes.

"That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up four wheel drive, carved my name into his leather seat. I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights, slashed a hole in all four tires. Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats."

Zach pulled me closer as the crowd started parting behind the Clara and Evelyn. Her voice sang the last lines alone.

"I probably saved some trouble for the next girl, because the next time that he cheats-"

The crowd finally parted and a girl stepped into view. The girl that haunted my dreams. She looked my age. I gasped as I saw her. She had red hair, and her eyes were such a familiar shade of green. She was smirking as she stepped directly in front of Zach.

"Oh, you know it won't be on me. No oh."

The music stopped and everything was silent for five seconds as the girl who I'd never met, yet looked so familiar stood in front of Zach, smirking.

Zach finally let out a deep breath and stepped forward, letting go of me.

"Alyson."

Even though his voice was a whisper, I heard it as clear as a yell in the silence. The girl's smirk grew into a scary looking grin.

"Hello, Zachy," she said. The girl looked at me, "Hi, Cammie."

I finally found my voice, but it came out sounding like I'd just cried my heart out. "W-Who are you?"

The girl- Alyson- sighed and turned back to Zach. "Oh, Zachy. You never told your little girlfriend about your sister?"