.o Imaginary and Waking Up o.

Clara POV

The building looked like a castle. I liked castles. Castles were fun. I used to live in a castle... before we started hiding. Hiding was not as fun, but I had my friends. We were not hiding now though. Now we were the ones looking. Looking, finding, running, and looking again. What were we looking for, again? Eva kept saying revenge, but why did we need revenge?

My breathing picked up. It felt heavy in my chest. I wondered if I was forgetting something. There was that small nagging feeling in my head again.

"Clara, you okay?" I turned to see Ally's silhouette against the lamplight. It was funny, seeing her like a shadow. I giggled and nodded.

There was a fairy floating above Ally's head. It fluttered down and sat on my shoulder. The nagging feeling went away. My lips curved into a frown. I liked the nagging; it almost felt like knocking- no, pulling. Yes, pulling. What was pulling? Why did the pulling stop?

Someone groaned. "This town is so- so weird." A small knife hit a box next to me. "I mean really, who lives somewhere like this?" Eva pointed out the window to the little houses below. From up here, they seemed like movie sets.

Ally sighed, taking off her spy sunglasses, and turned to look at Eva. "People who don't know we're here and I would like to keep it that way, so if you don't mind, stop yelling." I smiled. Ally always had a comeback to Eva's questions. It was fun to hear them argue, though sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes it was loud and dangerous.

I shook my head, and the fairy on my shoulder flew off, sending sparkling dust everywhere. It floated around the room, over the boxes and through the beams across the ceiling. Then she came back to float over my head.

Eva grumbled and pulled her knife from the box. Ally put her glasses back on. The wind blew through the open window and my hair flew into my face, making me shiver, and clearing out the musty smell the room had. Turning to Eva, I whispered. "Why are we here again?"

She glanced at me and did that funny thing with her eyes. She made them go in a circle, like a loop in a rollercoaster. "We have to get the girl, and then wait for Zach to show up." Eva tugged on the hair over her eyes, and her voice got quieter and angrier. "Why we have to go through this stupid game, I don't know. I think Ally's losing it, like you."

"What did I lose?"

Eva snorted. "Nothing you miss."

I pouted. The pulling in my head returned. It was as if I was being pulled by a rope, unable to see was ahead or behind me. The further it pulled, the more the tugs felt like throbs. The rope was getting tighter.

My little fairy whizzed around my head. She was pretty. It felt like she was trying to loosen the rope. The throbbing was calming, leaving a fuzzy feeling in my head.

"Clara, how many cameras surround the campus?"

I blinked. The fairy stopped, and the small tugging was still there, getting stronger again. Blinking again, I looked for the fairy.

"Clara?"

My head turned to Ally. "Huh?"

Ally reached out and pulled me by my arm towards the window with her. She pointed to a distant building, farther than the groups of houses and stores below us. "How many cameras surround the campus?"

I pressed my lips together. "Fifty-two." How did I know that? I bit my nail as the throbbing got harder. It almost hurt now, and I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. I wished my fairy would come back. She made it stop. Instead, I twirled to the throbbing beats. I wanted to move, to run, to climb because I had to get away. I had to run, to hide. Why?

There was a rope hanging from the beam on the ceiling and a few boxes scattered in the small room we were occupying. Where were we? Oh, right, the attic in the castle. I had to move. The throbbing was hurting now.

Jumping onto the first box, I let out a giggle, only to make sure I could. My throat was starting to burn and I wanted to make sure I could still make noise. Because I needed to be able to yell, to scream. But why? My fairy still wasn't back. I jumped and flipped onto the next box.

Behind me, I heard Eva sigh and walk to Ally. I grabbed the rope and started climbing, wrinkling my nose from the moldy smell.

"Why do we have to break into Gallagher?" Eva asked. She tossed her knife up and caught it. "This is so boring. I'm getting sick of games, Alyson."

Gallagher. That name sounded funny. What was Gallagher?

The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women. Spy school. Enemy. One hundred and twelve students, thirty-two staff members- home to Cameron- it was where Zach stayed when he left-

I shut my eyes. The pounding hurt. The pulling wasn't just pulling me up anymore. It was pulling me through thorns- no water. My ears were clogged, but there were needles in my head. My heart pounded in my mind. I couldn't breathe. I had to move- had to run.

"Frankly, Evelyn, I don't care what you're tired of," Ally said. "I'm in charge and if you can't deal with an actual plan for once then it's not my problem."

"Oh, is that it? I was under the impression we were a team," Eva hissed. Her voice was icy.

I couldn't hear what Ally said. The pounding was too loud. I let go of the rope and flipped so I didn't hurt myself when I landed. How long was this going to last? It hurt. The needles were spreading, over my neck, down my arms. There was a muffled roaring in my ears. Where was my fairy? She always stopped this.

No. Don't stop. So close.

That was my fairy's voice, but I couldn't see her. Why couldn't it stop? What was I close to? My hands gripped my hair. The pulling was so strong. I felt myself sink to my knees. My breathing was shallow, and I couldn't move. It was wrong, unnatural. He was supposed to be dead. Why was the pain here? He couldn't be here. Ally wouldn't let him.

There were soft voices with the throbbing now. I couldn't recognize them though. Faces followed. Wave after wave. Ally. Eva. Zach. Him. Jonas. Zach. Cameron. Grant. Ally. Mom. Eva. Zach. The pulling was hard now, but it felt lighter like I was close to the end of the rope.

Then it stopped.

It all stopped, the pounding, the needles, the pulling. They were just gone, taking the voices, roaring, and clogged feeling with them. My head was clear.

I sat up and glanced around. Where was I again?

Attic. Old theater. Roseville. Planning a kidnapping.

I blinked, once. Twice. Thrice.

My head was clear. Not just of the pulling, but of everything. For the first time in months, the fog was completely gone. There weren't any pixies. Was that good or bad?

Needles and music. Burning. Smoke and- no. No. I wouldn't remember. I would not go back to that dark place. Not now. There were things I had to do, to say. There wasn't any danger. No one was hurting me.

I was safe now.

A knife flew by my head.

Turning around, I saw Ally and Eva standing head to head. My eyes flicked from their livid faces to the daggers in their hands. Their hair was loose like they'd both just whipped around. Maybe that was why there was a dagger in the box behind me.

What had happened in fifteen seconds?

There was a creak, then a slam behind me, followed by a draft that blew my bangs into my face. Two steps, then, "What happened?"I glanced over my shoulder at the boy who'd just walked in. "No idea- well that's not true, I have an idea, but I'm not sure if I'm correct or not yet."

Grant stepped over a box, and then sat on it, a small smile on his face. "When did you wake up?"

I shrugged. "Roughly two minutes ago." Turning back to the two girls about to kill each other, I raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"

Eva shrugged and walked away from Ally, twisting another knife in her hands. I turned my attention to my cousin. Her eyes were watery. That wasn't right. Ally didn't cry.

Bathroom floor. Holding Ally while she cried. Eva getting mad. I blinked away the memory. Now wasn't the best time to dig through the misty memories I wasn't able to think about properly when the Imaginary took over. How long had I been under this time? I used to be able to control it, but now it was taking over.

Ally took a quick breath and turned back to the window. Grant and I shared a glance. He nodded subtly, in an 'I got Eva' gesture. I nodded and moved towards Ally.

She didn't move when I stepped next to her. "Not now, Clara." She wrote something in a little notebook on the windowsill. I sighed. The only one worse than Ally with feeling emotions was Eva. However, none of us were exactly the most stable people on the planet. Eva refused to feel anything for anyone. Ally was bitter to any attachment, and I felt everything to the point where they took over.

Yeah, we were so stable.

"You need to stop letting Eva get to you." I leaned back on my elbows, against the windowsill, studying her face. "Or is this about Zach? I'm still foggy on the memories at the moment."

Ally finally looked at me, her eyes, back to normal, widened as they looked over me. "You're awake," she exclaimed, shock flitting over her features. I nodded, pulling my fingers through my hair.

"When- How-" she stuttered, which was a funny sight in itself since Ally was the most precise person on the planet.

I shrugged, simple enough gesture to explain what I didn't understand. The Imaginary used to be an emergency protection I created for myself. At least that's what Jonas had determined. He said that the chemicals and… things he did to me when I was little, mixed with what I went through as a child messed up my head. How- I'm still not sure. No one really told me anything about it. They just said I acted weird. After a while, I got used to them referring to it as the Imaginary, and me 'waking up.'

It is not that I was completely normal when I was "awake" either; I could just think like a normal person again- well, as normal as any of us get.

Ally's lips turned up in the smallest of smiles. "It's nice to see you awake." She placed her hand on my shoulder and squeezed with the smallest of pressure. I smiled back at her for a second, and then turned to look out of the window.

"So…" I trailed off, picking up her pen on the windowsill. "Let me get this straight." I pointed the pen at her. "You had Cameron alone in a room, then you had Zach and Cameron at gunpoint, but you let everyone there walk out alive?"

Ally didn't respond. She just put her Zoom-in glasses back on and stared out the window.

I continued, "You let Zach walk away without hurting him. Now we're back to where we started- getting his attention by throwing a fit, and she-" I pointed to where Grant and Eva had gone with the pen. "She is mad at you for not doing anything when you could have."

Sighing, Ally took the glasses off again, reached over and plucked the pen from my hand, then marked something in her notebook again. I leaned over the edge of the window and looked down at the grass three stories below, a small smile pulling at my lips. "You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say you're stall-"

I was cut off by Ally's glare. "I'm not stalling, Clara."

"Yes, you are." I shrugged. "You can't hurt him, not directly anyway, because you still-"

Ally slammed her hand on the windowsill, and I flinched. "I'm not stalling." She said each word slowly, almost as if she were trying to convince herself more than me.

Sighing, I nodded. "Yes, you are." I put a hand on her arm. "You know it's okay. He's your brother. You need-" I was cut off when Ally pointed the pen at my face like a weapon, which in her hands, it was.

"Let's get something straight here, Clara," she said darkly, her voice low and dangerous. Her eyes were murderous, but there was a glassy shine to them that made her next words void. "I do not feel any attachment to Zachary Goode. He is not my brother. He is not my family, and never, under any circumstance have I, nor will I ever need him." With that, she pulled away and made another mark in her notebook.

Sighing, I shook my head. Attachments were nooses to Ally. The only ones she allowed herself to have were to Eva, and me and, though she would never admit it aloud, I knew the break off with her brother was still hurting her. She needed him. He was a part of her, and she hated that- no. She loathed that.

Zach hurt her. He hurt all of us; he left, but that didn't mean he didn't care about us. He did what he needed to do in order to survive. Ally and Eva couldn't see that. Ally couldn't get over the fact that he'd left- that he'd chosen someone other than her. She was surprised at how much it had hurt and hated Zach for having that effect on her. It wasn't anyone's fault, and it was everyone's fault. However, for Ally, it was her fault for allowing herself to be hurt, and Zach's fault for hurting her. But even now, she couldn't hurt him.

Why were we so messed up? I inwardly smirked. Sure, I had memory problems and flinched at almost any contact. I may have seen fairies and lived in my own world, but I knew well what was outside my dreams. I understood the nightmare that was reality… most of the time. That's why I needed my own place to escape. I saw too much. I understood too much and comprehended too little. My mind was a puzzle to myself.

I glanced at Ally's notebook, frowning. "Don't we already know all of this? We stalked this place enough when we were younger."

Ally shook her head. "They rebuilt after the-" she bit her lip. "After the fire burned it down."

"It burned down?" I asked, remembering too late, what had happened. Ally closed her eyes and exhaled through her nose. So much for understanding more than people thought. Guilt knotted in my stomach. Slowly, I sank down until I was sitting down with my back against the wall and the window over my head. We just stayed like that for a while. Neither of us talking, neither of us acknowledging the elephant in the room.

There wasn't a sound for the longest time. Then finally, Ally opened her eyes and looked back down at the notebook. I barely heard her whisper in the air.

"And it all burned down."

Evelyn POV

Grant stared at me from the other side of the room. "Start talking." His tone was even, but the hard set of his jaw and look in his eyes were daring me to refuse. I had to peel my eyes from staring at him.

Inwardly scolding myself, I looked at the floor. "I don't know what you mean." He snorted. There were thirty seconds of silence before he pushed off against the wall and took a step towards me. Instinctively, I pressed myself further against the opposite wall.

"Eva." That's all it took.

I threw my arms up. "I hate this!" Pointing to the closed door we'd come through, I scowled. "I hate hiding. I hate waiting. I hate playing these games." I pushed off the wall and started walking around the boxes of junk that littered the small room, glancing at the night through the open window. "I don't understand why we have to wait. She had them cornered. She could have ended this, but instead, she wants to play a kid's game. It's infuriating!"

Grant grabbed my wrist as I passed him, pulling me to him. His eyebrows were pulled together, and his eyes questioning. "Do you really want to hurt Zach? He's your best friend."

I glared, pulling away from his grasp. "He left."

"Yeah, but have you ever thought about what was happening other than him leaving?"

"It doesn't matter what's going on, you don't leave people who are counting on you." I shook my head, my hand instinctively reaching for my dagger. My heart skipped a beat when I felt nothing against my hand but my belt. Looking down, I inhaled sharply when I saw nothing in the small slit where my dagger was supposed to be.

A glint flashed in the corner of my eye, and I turned to see Grant twirling my dagger. My eyes narrowed, and he smiled in amusement.

"Give it back," I hissed.

"No."

I took a step back. "No?"

Grant nodded. "No." He slid the knife into his belt. "Not until you tell me why you're really mad."

I snorted, and then lunged.

Grant dodged and grabbed my wrist, twisting it back. "I know Zach shouldn't have left, but could you really hurt him like that?"

Pain tugged at my arm. "It sounds to me like you're on his side, Newman," I hissed, kicking his leg right under the knee and shifting my weight to reverse his lock hold. "Need I remind you, that you're the one who joined us?"

Grant shrugged, sliding under my arm and shoving me against the wall. "I believe you three need help. I don't think hurting Zach is the best way to heal."

I growled, shoving my elbow into his ribs. "What do you know about healing?" I twisted around but he had fought me enough times to anticipate my strikes. Grant held my arms above my head and leaned his weight against my legs, firmly keeping me in place.

We stayed there for a few seconds, staring at each other, and I tried to resist the shiver that trailed down my spine as his dark blue eyes pierced mine. It felt like he was staring into me- like he knew what I was thinking. It made my stomach squirm. My chest rose and fell in time with his breathing. I shoved against him, but he just shook his head slightly.

"I know enough, Eva." His breath was warm against my face. I hated the fact I couldn't even bring myself to get out of his grip. Grant smiled slightly, his voice a whisper. "I know what Zach did; I know how much it hurts to be left, but this isn't the way to go." He shook his head. "Revenge is never a good way to go. It's deadly, Eva."

I narrowed my eyes. "What else is there?"

Grant lifted one of his hands from my arm and brushed my bangs from my flushed face. "Forgive. Move on. Talk to Zach."

"What would you know about that?" I hissed. "You're as mad as we are. We heard your fight."

Grant smirked. "And I knew you had a bug on him."

The air left my lungs. "S-so?"

"So, I knew what you wanted to hear. I knew what to say in order for Alyson to let me in." Grant sighed. "I was hoping I could talk you out of this, but I don't think I can."

I growled, ice splinters spreading across my chest. "You never wanted to help me," I said that because I couldn't face what I wanted to ask. I couldn't have him confirm that he hadn't come for me. That he was as big a traitor as Zach was. That he was leaving me too.

Grant smiled the tiniest bit. "That's where you're wrong. Eva, I wanted to help you most of all." The smile faded. "But I can't let you do this." He leaned down and, before I could shove him off, he pressed his lips to mine.

It was short, but I hated every second. I hated what he was doing. I hated what he'd said. I hated that my eyes closed. I hated what was coming. I hated the ice that melted and froze all at once in my chest.

But even more, I hated that I kissed him back.

"I'm sorry, Eva." He released my arms and I slid down the wall, my eyes still closed. I could hear him moving swiftly across the room to the window, and I opened my eyes just in time to see his silhouette against the moonlight as he opened it.

My body felt empty except the ice that was seeping from my chest to my stomach. Slowly I stood up. "I'm going to kill you."

"I know." Then he was gone.

I'm not sure how long I stayed there, standing against the wall, staring at nothing. There was only the repeating echo in my head.

He left.

I'm sorry, Eva.

He left.

He left me.

Grant Newman left me.

My hand trailed up my hip until it found the sheath of empty leather.

He stole my knife.

The ice and hollowness of my chest thawed in an instant, slowly being replaced with a burning that started in my throat and seeped all the way down to my gut. The stinging in my eyes vanished, and the numbness in my limbs turned into fire.

I pushed off the wall and walked to the window, slamming it shut so hard the glass vibrated against the frame. Turning around, I swung my leg and sent one of the stupid boxes flying against the wall.

This was why caring was bad. This confirmed I couldn't trust anyone. This proved any connections you think you have are imaginary. It was time for me to wake up and see that everyone, even Grant needed to pay- whether Alyson was willing to do it or not.

Shoving the door open, I sped down the hall to find Clara and Alyson sitting with their backs against the wall. They almost seemed asleep. Slackers.

I grabbed one of my other knives from the box I'd thrown it into earlier and sent it between their heads. Their eyes snapped open instantly, and Alyson raised an eyebrow. A silent question. I raised mine in return. A defiant answer.

"We have a problem."