.o I Don't like This o.

Alyson POV

Two days after Newman left, we were ready to take what we needed.

I took a deep breath. The moon was hidden behind the clouds, one of the most secure buildings in the world was waiting to be raided, and I was holding a gun. The familiarity was almost comforting. Almost.

"Is there a reason we're not moving?"

Without turning around, I pointed at Clara. She didn't look up from her laptop, fingers flying over the keys faster than I could follow. "Almost in," she said. "There's one last firewall." Behind me, Eva hissed under her breath. She'd started to worry me. I didn't like it. It was evident she was hurting; no matter how much she denied it. Ever since Grant left her, she'd been even more impatient. It was their entire fault. She let herself become too attached, but the worse of the blame was theirs. Of course, my brother hurt our group yet again. Evelyn was not someone I wanted to be hurt. When she's hurt, she's rash. Our mission didn't need anyone making rash decisions.

Clara's fingers finally stopped typing. "We're in." I looked at her. She was grinning while holding up a blueprint of the campus, including a layout of the new security systems, just like the ones we'd been studying for the past twenty-four hours.

Only this time there were little blue lights on every camera.

"We'll have five minutes tops before they realize someone's hacked, but that will be enough right?" she asked, brushing a piece of hair from her wide eyes.

I stood from my position at the head of the rundown table, a small smile pulling at my mouth. "Of course." Shoving Eva's feet off the table, I grabbed her arm as she stood. She looked up at me, annoyance radiating from her features. I met her glare with my own. "No rash actions. I don't care what you feel."

She seethed silently for a second, and then pulled her arm away. "We're wasting time." Narrowing my eyes, I handed her the comm, and she took it without looking.

There was a tense moment then in which Evelyn and I stood, seizing each other up, then-
"Ally?"

Snapping my attention from Eva, I turned to my cousin. "Yeah?" She was kneeling over her bag.
"Based on the route we plan on taking, which shoes would be more practical?" Clara held up a hiking boot and a running shoe by her ear.
Pulling my hair back into a ponytail, I considered the type of running we would be doing against looks. "Boots. Definitely boots."

I never liked the woods. There were many places to trip, it was almost impossible to move silently, and the bugs were awful. However, there were a few perks. Like cover from bullets, excellent burning ground for fire starting, and of course, hidden panels inside trees that let you access top-secret spy schools.

I had to admit when The Gallagher Academy remodeled, they did it right. New cameras with motion sensors were strategically placed in the most unpredictable places (which, of course, was so predictable). Laser grids wove through the trees like spider webs, and the latest in pressure-sensitive technology was implemented in every stone within fifty yards of the building.

Too bad they didn't know to keep the cameras off places so cliché and they sadly didn't know how to program a security system that Clara couldn't hack. Within ten minutes, Clara had hacked the code, disabled the laser grid surrounding the campus, and set an automatic timer to return all settings to normal in twenty seconds. After that, it was just a matter of getting through the motion-sensitive stones and branches, under the paralyzing barbed wire, and within a stone's throw away from the edge of the lake. We crossed into Gallagher Academy grounds without a single alarm being raised.

Of course, there were fewer challenges inside the campus because there was night vision testing tonight, which worked in our favor. There were fewer triggers to be activated, as the Gallagher Girls would be sneaking there perfect little training yard with their new little toys, having no idea what it was like in an environment where you were honestly running for your life. They would be here, learning to do this or grab that then go back to their safe beds not knowing what it means to be in the field. Not knowing the rush of adrenaline that makes your hands tingle when you're one wrong move away from a bullet to the head.

"Ally." Clara's voice ripped me from my thoughts. She and Eva were crouched behind two trees, and a split second later, so was I.
We'd made it to the edge of the woods, and twenty yards in front of us there were four girls crouched on the roof of a large barn. Another glance showed that there were also five girls near the other side of the lake, the moonlight glinting against the toy dart guns in their hands.

Eva snorted. "What are those? Tranquilizer guns? They seriously train with those?" I waved at her, silently telling her to shut up, even though I agreed with her. We used to play with those when we were ten.

Clara smiled slightly. "They're Gallagher Girls," she whispered. "They only hurt the bad guys." Her smile vanished, and her eyes dimmed slightly. "They only hurt people like us."

My chest grew tight, but before I could say anything Eva picked up a rock and launched it at the barn. Whatever unease I'd felt in the past two seconds instantly vanished.

"What the hell are you doing?" I hissed, grabbing her arm.

Eva shrugged and slipped her arm away. "They were taking too long."

A growl reverberated in my throat. She was getting out of line. I was the leader of this group, and Eva was jeopardizing our mission. Again. Why did no one know how to be patient?

Clara's eyes widened. "They're looking over here." There was a rising panic in her voice. I recognized the way she was balancing on the balls of her feet, ready to spring and run in a split second. She was fighting the instinct to hide, to run.

I glared at Eva. "I guess we're moving. We have less than five minutes. Clara, move to phase two." She was gone instantly. Eva snorted, shaking her head and muttering something I chose to ignore, and then there was static in our ears. Clara had activated our comms. Apparently, the Gallagher Girls thought we were one of them doing a bad job at hiding. As if.

Still glaring at Eva, I nodded once, and she smirked. I counted to five, then I launched myself away from the tree and started running towards the barn. Time to wreak havoc.

Running, in plain sight, surrounded by Gallagher Girls, while on a secret kidnapping job may seem like a bad idea to some people, but if we did things like normal agents, we would have been dead a long time ago. Our secret? We were simply better than the CIA. We were better than the Circle. We were better than the Gallagher Girls. We were trained by all of them. We knew all of their secrets.
That's why when I turned and sent a bullet into a girl's leg, there were five seconds where the only noise was the wind and the soft thud her body made when she hit the ground.

Five seconds in which no one screamed. No one moved. No one knew that the entire security system was deactivated. Five seconds for me to take control of the adrenaline that flooded my system. Five seconds for my racing mind to shove the memories back into their corner.

Then everyone snapped back into reality. There were girl's screams, and about ten people were running at me. Swarms of darts were flying through the air, and I was grinning as they hit my skin, only to fall off and leave me unaffected. Clara's defense syrup was as effective as the day we robbed her father's lab. I turned and raced towards the barn. More girls and guards were starting to shoot, and my heart was starting to catch up with what I was doing, its racing an accelerating rhythm in my chest.

"We got her." Clara's voice whispered in my ear as I crouched on the roof, Gallagher Girls seconds from following. It was evident they had realized the security was hacked. I could hear the Code Black sirens from here. Glancing at my tingling hands, I breathed in the panic around me. Phase two complete.

Climbing to the point of the roof, narrowly avoiding the real bullets that were being fired, I pressed the small button wrapped around my wrist and ignored the clench in my stomach. Three small pellets rolled into my hand. Turning around, I scanned the chaos under me. Girls were surrounding the barn, and traps were activating everywhere. It was, in every way, the most impressive lockdown I'd seen besides that one time we invaded the CIA headquarters. "Now let's pray they kept our escape route," I muttered.

Some of the girls were only feet beneath me now. Looking down at them, I grinned as I scraped the top off one of the small pellets and tossed it below. There was a split second before a small trail of smoke floated up as the pellet fell. The Girls fell like flies.

Someone grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back. My body reacted instinctively, shifting my weight and flipping the girl over my shoulder. I moved to kick her off the roof when she looked up, eyes wide. She couldn't be older than fifteen, meaning she would have just started training. Breath hitching, I turned mid-kick and switched targets, instead of hitting the guy about to taser me. My foot connected with his temple, and he fell like a brick.

The girl was still there, staring at me with wide eyes. Scowling, I activated another sleep pellet and sent it over the side of the barn. Girls and guards fell, leaving me untouched.

"Black Widow, we're out." Evelyn's voice was hushed in my comm.

Keeping my eyes on the Gallagher Girl in front of me, I pressed two fingers to my ear. "Copy, Viper." Glancing at my watch, I let out a relieved breath. We were still on schedule. "Pixie, initiate exit plan four, five, nine." There was no response, but a second later, the Code Black sirens stopped.

Grinning, I carefully made my way to the edge of the barn roof. Everyone within a twenty-yard radius was knocked out. The only reason I was still conscious was the serum we took before breaking in. It was one our personal achievements from the good old days when we were still training under the Circle.

"You won't get away."

I spun around. The girl was sitting with her knees pulled to her chest and her nose and mouth covered by her shirt. She wasn't fighting, she wasn't trying to stop me, and I couldn't stop myself from taking a step towards her.

"What?"

She stared at me. Her eyes were still wide, despite the obvious struggle she was making to keep them open. When she spoke, it was just loud enough for me to hear. "Whatever you're taking, we'll get it back. Our sisters will find you." She didn't say it as a threat, but fact, as if she was telling me the color of the sky.

I let out a slow breath before smiling a slow smile, the smile I used to have before the bitterness set in. Killing would be easy, a simple push. Why not send a clearer message to the others? I bit my lip in question. Why not? I couldn't come up with an answer.
Leaning towards the girl, I whispered, "Oh, I'm counting on that." After a second, I added, "In fact, would you call Macy McHenry for me? I think she'd like to know about this."

The girl's eyes narrowed in confusion before I reached over and yanked the shirt from her face. The girl gasped in surprise, then slumped forward, unconscious.

Shoving the confusion, and whatever else there was back, I ran to the edge of the roof and jumped, releasing the last pellet as I landed. Girls and guards dropped around me. No one heard Evelyn and Clara taking one of their own through their secret passageways and into the woods. But it didn't matter what anyone heard. It didn't matter what they did.
We were already gone.

Macey POV

"I don't like this."

"I know."

"I really don't like this."

"I know."

"But I really, really don't-"

"Liz!" Bex sat up from her position on the couch. "We know."

Our blonde friend just shook her head and kept pacing, nervously chewing on her thumbnail. Bex and I shared a glance, but there was nothing to do. None of us liked sitting and waiting, but once again, that's what Zach said we should do. Why Cammie was actually doing what he said, I didn't know. She had been distant the past few days since the zoo incident, and from what she described, she had reason to be. That didn't mean I liked it and having Joe, Abby, and Townsend with us didn't make it any easier to handle.

Joe and Zach kept acting as if they knew some dangerous secret, we all were avoiding talking to Townsend because Zach still hadn't told him about Alyson, and we were all getting fidgety from staying in one spot while ACE was out there doing who knows what. The entire hotel suite was a minefield- and not one we were trained to navigate.

"You know, there's an eighty-five percent chance Townsend will find out before Zach wants him to," Liz said into the silence. She'd finally stopped pacing and was standing in the middle of her pile of papers that she'd spread out to calculate and document the past few weeks.
Bex shifted to look at both of us. "I think he needs to grow a bloody spine and tell him already."

"You're right. The longer he waits, the longer we have to tiptoe around everything." I glanced down the hall. "How long do you think we have until Cam erupts?" It had been a freezer between her and Zack, and I was beginning to worry. There was only so much tension we could take. Someone was bound to make a wrong move and set off a chain reaction. Everything could unravel in seconds.

Liz pulled a few papers out from her piles and fanned them out on the ground. "I've come up with about five different possibilities. One is that Zach and Joe will stop avoiding the rest of us, and Zach will talk to Cammie. The second is Cammie will become impatient and confront Zach. Third, Zach will tell Townsend and the rest will work itself out, and another is we," she gestured to Bex and me before continuing. "We lock Zach and Cammie in a room and talk to Joe, Abby, and Townsend ourselves." Liz paused, a whisper of a smile appearing on her face. "That one is my favorite."

Bex nodded. "I approve. When Goode gets back from scouting, we shove him into Cam's room."
I rolled my eyes. "I think that will result in a screaming match."

"So?" Bex swung her legs around the arm of the couch so they dangled off the side. "If it gets them talking and out of this brooding silence they've got going on, I'm all for it." She grinned. "If we're lucky, they'll be loud, and we'll find out what exactly has been bugging both of them."

I glanced at her. There was bitterness in her voice that was becoming all too common with us. Grant leaving had hurt her too, but of course, she refused to talk about it. We all wanted answers, and there were too many questions. I was sick of it. We knew that somehow, Cammie had seen Alyson in Rome. We knew that Alyson wanted Zach to pay for leaving them when they were younger. We knew that Alyson was going to keep playing games until we stopped her. It seemed simple... until you asked why, how, when, and why again.

"What's the last scenario?" I asked.

Liz looked up. "Huh?"

"You said there were five, and you only named four. What's the last one?"

She bit her lip, shuffling her papers in her hands, before they slipped and fell on the floor. Bending to reorganize them, she said, "Well, it's the least probable, but the last possibility would be for-"

A loud thud cut her off. The three of us twisted to look at the door. Sure enough, there was a second knock, followed by a more urgent pounding.

Bex and I were out of our seats in an instant, and Liz scooped all her papers together. Down the hall, I heard a door open. I nodded at Bex as Cammie appeared in the corner of the room. Getting into position behind Bex, I gestured to Liz. Cam nodded and helped her pick up the papers.

Bex glanced through the peephole, only to stumble back. My muscles tensed. Bex. Stumbling back? I watched her carefully as she shook her head and scowled. In one fluid motion, she swung the door open and lunged.

There was a yelp, and when I moved to see what had happened, I wasn't surprised to see Bex pinning someone down. I was surprised, however, at who was caught in her hold. Behind me, there was a gasp, and I turned to see Liz holding a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. Cammie glanced through the doorway and sneered. It wasn't a look I liked to see. Cam didn't waste any time before crouching in front of Bex's prisoner and holding a knife to his throat.

"You got a lot of nerve coming here, Newman." I didn't like it. Her voice was too harsh, too cold. There was something really wrong.

He didn't flinch at the knife, but there wasn't any defiance or sarcasm in his voice as he replied, "Not nerve, Morgan, more like an unhealthy sense of self-preservation." He looked up at her, and I couldn't help but notice how miserable he looked. "I have some bad news you'll want to hear." There was definitely sadness in his eyes as he looked at me and said, "All of you."