A/N: So you may or may not be mad about where I left you last chapter, but IT'S HERE! You finally get to know "Sarah's" true identity. Are you excited? Cuz I am, so I won't distract you any longer.
The faux hair dropped from her head and lay limp in her hand. Around her shoulders tumbled soft wavy dark brown locks with deep red tints scattered throughout her hair. Carefully, she folded the hair into the net of the wig and placed it in the box, then she turned to the owner of the voice.
"Hey…Z.E.," she said softly. Zach stared. She met his eyes, which were filled with confusion and guilt and disbelief, and gave him a look full of sadness and apology and weariness.
Everyone watched the two in silence; no one quite sure of what would happen. She took a step closer to him, then another, followed by a third. By then she was close enough that he grabbed her arm and pulled her into a bone-crushing hug, she slowly- as if afraid he'd pull away- wrapped her arms around him and they each buried their face into the other's neck. All, save one, looked on in shock. Cammie watched with a smile.
"You're okay with this?" Macey whispered to her.
"I'm more than okay," Cam replied-slightly confused.
The pair still in their own bubble began muttering to each other. Zach, who had been bending to reach the short girl, stood effectively lifting her inches from the ground; the girl let her feet dangle- neither of them willing to break the embrace for fear of the other disappearing. It was Bex, who finally broke from the stupor and reacted, "What in the bloody hell? How could you do this to Cam?"
The two broke apart, but neither full let go. "What on earth are you talking about?"
"Are you kidding!?" screeched Liz.
"You just find out that you have a son with Cam and now you're doing this?" Macey asked incredulously. The girl still hugging Zach, drooped to her feet and began laughing- hard. The three ex-roommates looked at the girl and then Cammie- who was trying to hide her own snickering- in confusion. When the unknown girl got herself together she straightened and walked over to the girls, "I should introduce myself. My name is: Annabeth Catherine Goode." She held her hand out to them, but all they heard was Catherine and they began backing away; Annabeth groaned.
"Oh please. I'm nothing like her, besides the bitch is dead- thank the universe. She's the reason the world thinks I'm dead."
"What!?" shouted Zach in a burst of anger. Annabeth sighed and turned, "You were her baby Z.E. I was the one that reminded her too much of herself as a kid and not enough of herself as an adult. I was a threat to her security in who she'd become I was a reminder that she turned her back on what she could have been- how she could have been. She hated me… So, when the Circle told her that having a daughter was dangerous for their security she agreed to 'eliminate' me, not knowing that I was in my favorite hiding spot and heard every. Single. Word. When she hung up she gave a breath of relief and muttered to herself 'I thought they'd want me to get rid off Zack… Thank God.' And so, I decided that before she could kill me… I had to die."
"How old were you when this happened?" asked Townsend.
"Seven."
"You faked your death at seven!?" Abby said amazed.
"It wasn't hard. I went and asked Zach to take me to the river about a mile from our house. At the time, he was a pre-teen and trying to establish himself- especially as the only guy in the house- and so whenever I asked him something he would say 'yeah, yeah, just gimme a bit' which is always a good thirty minutes and then he'd tune out so I asked if I could go ahead and he nodded, not really paying attention - like I knew he would - and I packed an extra set of clothes in my bag and went out to the river. The river is full of pointy rock and had a strong current so Z.E. would never let me go alone. I changed my clothes and then ripped my old ones and held them in the water for a couple minutes then I took one of the smaller, sharper rocks and made a cut in my arm," she gestured to the scar on her forearm, "I used the blood the coat some of the tears in the clothes and I ripped off the end of my shirt to wrap around the wound I hooked the shirt on one rock down the way and my shorts on another farther down then went back and made some scraping marks on the edge to make it look like I tried to get out. Then, I ran as fast as I could into the forest until it was dark."
Zach's eyes were ablaze with fury, "You could have asked me for help."
She looked at him with sad eyes, "You and I both know you would have tried to save me and the circle would have killed us both and then mom would have gotten crazier faster and she would have nothing that would make her pause to think about what she was doing. The only thing in the world that she ever thought about more than herself was you. You were the last shred of her humanity. You knew that when we were kids. Did you forget?"
"She had no humanity."
"If that were true she would have killed me, had you watch and killed you for the fun of it."
"She was nuts, killed herself to spite the school she hated."
"And she hated it even more when it was the place you went to defend, and went to for help. She viewed it as the place that took her sanity, her freedom, and then… her son."
"How so Annabee?" Zach said dryly, but still using his old nickname for his kid-sister.
"When you first started helping Cammie, she thought it was nothing, actually, she thought it would help her in her goals, but then you fell for her… and started to really hate mom and she couldn't take it. Common sense didn't exist to her anymore."
"And how do you know this?" asked Rachel.
"I found her diaries, they went from her being pregnant with Zach all the way to right before she turned herself into to C, and Z as a walk-in."
"So does it say who my dad is?" Zach asked curiously.
"It says who our dad is," she replied bluntly. All eyes turned to Townsend.
"There's no possible way. The only time I ever slept with Catherine was the once!"
"Actually, that's not true. You did sleep with her a second time… you just didn't know it was her…" everyone shifted back to the now nervous Annabeth, "You remember a mission you went on about fifteen maybe sixteen years ago to Cambodia?"
"Yes, but I only met one woman and she was blonde."
"Well, her wig was blonde- or at least that's what my mother's diary says."
"If she were alive now I'd kill her," both Zach and Townsend muttered.
"If you think you want to kill her now- just wait until I tell you about the summer Cam was missing…"
"You know what happened to her?" Joe asked in a way that more, demanded an answer, than asked for one.
"No, I was captured at the same time, but I'm as good as- if not better than- my mother at disguises, so they didn't know who I was. But she sent the order."
At that moment Cam gasped, "You never told me that part."
"I never wanted to. In fact I'd have been happy never telling that story."
"The order to what?" asked Grant.
"Not now, Grant honey, we have bigger fish to fry."
Grant looked startled at the term "honey" he slowly shook his head. Annabeth laughed, "Yeah, that was me."
"You couldn't have been more than thirteen."
"Thirteen and three months at the time."
"You looked my age!"
"I told you, I'm very good at disguise."
"He's gonna kill me."
"No he won't because Bex will probably get there first."
"WHAT!?" Bex, and Zach all shouted in tandem.
"It's no big deal. My specialities are specific, and Grant was the opposing operative at the time; I had to use my skills to get information. Nothing truly happened I just needed to get his keys and the reason he was there."
"And how," Zach began advancing on her, but glaring at Grant, "did you accomplish that?"
Annabeth sighed, "First, Bex and you both have to either agree to sit and listen to the whole story or be tied to chairs."
Zach glanced at his sister- and saw the same stubbornness that he always wore- and gave a resigned sigh, "I'll behave."
"I'm not making promises," Bex said determinedly.
"Okay, Joe and… what should I call you?" at this point she had turned to Townsend.
"Well your brother calls me Agent Townsend, but you could call by my first name."
Annabeth looked lost in thought for a bit, "Okay, Joe and Edward, if you would both please restrain Miss Baxter." The two men shrugged at each other and got up each using two hands on an arm of the fearsome Rebecca Baxter.
"I accomplished this by flirting with him until he was distracted, and then kissing the living daylights out of him so that he wouldn't notice me take his keys- plus he wouldn't be paying enough attention to what he was saying and he told me why he was there."
Grant rubbed an aggravated hand over his face, and then looked at the frightening look on Bex's face, "I was in a daze! I hardly remember what happened after she asked if we could go and talk!"
"Oh yeah…" Annabeth said thoughtfully, "There was a type of anesthetic that I put in his drink too- it was experimental… one of my own design, but in my experience you need both with more experienced operatives one won't distract them enough… I've only ever needed to use both with people from MI6, and Langley."
Everyone stared at her.
"So who do you work for then?" asked Abigail.
"No one, everyone, whoever pays me and isn't completely evil really."
"You're freelance?" questioned Jonas curiously.
"Mhm, and it's fun and quite liberating. I don't have to adhere to any laws by the Geneva Convention or any of that because I don't claim loyalty to any country so the other countries never have anyone to yell at- and they never know who I was hired by-, and I get paid a lot more by countries because they know I literally can do whatever it takes to get the mission accomplished. As long as I don't get killed when I get caught I can live by my own rules and my own morals."
"I don't like the thought of you doing something so dangerous Bee," said Zach.
"Well what else did you want me to? There's a reason no country knows my name the Circle was everywhere- and if they discovered I was alive… I wasn't gonna be for long. I was a ghost Zach, how else was I supposed to get money?"
"Create an identity."
"And you need money to get those papers for that- or an in with the government like... Oh I don't know, the CIA?" Annabeth relied sarcastically.
"But-"
"No, I had no money and no identity, it was become a freelance operative, or die. I kinda prefer being an operative."
"I still want to know what happened that summer!" said Jonas, now slightly annoyed.
"No, you don't," Cammie and Annabeth answered together.
"I do," Zach said; point blank.
Everyone turned to Annabeth who fiddled with her hands and stared at them contemplatively, a small trace of apprehension and depression evident in her face.
"Bee?" a now concerned Zach prompted.
Annabeth closed her eyes and took a deep breath, she straightened opened her eyes- but stared at the table in front of her, pressed her hands together, resting them against her bottom lip and said, "Okay, Blackthorne Boys, and by that I mean I'm talking to: Zach, Jonas, Joe, and Grant, pop quiz. What, in your persuasion course is the very last torture-slash-information extracting technique the tell you and teach you… when dealing with a female operative?"
"She wouldn't…"
"No…"
"There's no way…"
"It can't be…"
Each of the four former Blackthorne students looked at her with an expression that begged her to deny that it was true. Slowly Annabeth nodded, "Never thought a woman would be willing to give that order… and live with herself after… then again, she did kill herself," in the middle of her rambling Annabeth started biting one of her nails. Zach gently came up behind her and pulled her hand away from her mouth and made an attempt to lighten the mood, "Still declawing yourself huh?"
"I got used having them short, obviously they didn't want me to have nails to scratch at him with."
"Who is he?"
"Dead, he's dead."
"Who's dead? What did he do? Why are the guys so freaked out?" asked Liz in a ramble.
"Lizzie…" Cammie said gravely, "Don't ask."
"But-"
"NO! Remember when I came back that summer and we knew there were things going on in the adult level, and we said we wanted to know what happened; what did I say after that?"
"You said, 'There are something you just don't want to know.'"
"This is one of those things, Liz, trust me."
"Did they…" began Joe not being able to fully ask the question but gestured to Cammie, "to… to her?"
"No," said Annabeth quickly, "I actually saw the file they had for her when I broke in a little later. I wanted to destroy mine… for obvious reasons," the boys and Cam nodded while the girls and Townsend still looked confused, "Her file listed what they asked, what methods they used to try and 'persuade' her, and whether or not it worked."
"Really?" Cam asked intrigued.
"Yeah, you could probably handle knowing, but if it brings back those memories… once you've blocked it out that pain is non-existent. To bring those memories back would mean you reliving it… believe me I know."
"Wow…" Cam said in a daze.
"Seriously," said an irritated Macey, "What the heck was so bad that no one can say it out loud?" Her question went unanswered and Annabeth turned to Zach, "You know," she said with a bitter laugh, "After seeing mom work, I remember, we both said we'd never use ourselves as a way to get information… never really thought about someone else using themselves as torture devices on us did we?" At that moment the wall that this young fifteen-year-old had built over eight years slowly began to crumble. She bit her lip and leaned all of her weight against the couch, then back to her feet, and back to the couch again, and then she turned and stiffly walked to the back room. She came out moments later carrying Matthew and wordlessly handed him to Cammie and went straight back, closing the door.
Everyone left in that room was silent. The last words she spoke- vivid in their minds- made it obvious to the rest of them what had happened. Most were in shock, like Abby, Bex, Macey, Liz, and Rachel. Some were contemplative, Cam, Jonas, Joe, and Grant. Zach and Townsend however did neither- they got angry, very angry, and then they wanted to do anything to change the past, and then they were heartsick for the girl; they looked at each other and they knew. They knew that they were needed in that little back room. And so, with a unison nod, they both silently walked to the back room, opened the door, and walked in.
A/N: Yeah, that was a little vague. Next it gets real deep and goes a little into a sensitive topic if you haven't figured it out let me know and I can try to get you all an answer. Usually I'm more talkative but I always end up taking on the mood of my story so… yeah a bit depressed at the moment. But I will keep writing, as I said placing the warning now: Next chapter is serious,deep, depressing, and has a very sensitive topic. I am of course speaking of what happened to Annabeth (aren't you glad not to have to read "Sarah" anymore?). Let me know your thoughts.
