A/N Hey everyone. Please enjoy this chapter. I thought that we needed a mother daughter scene and so here it is. Don't forget to review. Also, for those of you who haven't heard yet, GG6 will be called United We Spy and is supposed to be released in September.
I hold her back as she screams in grief. She had just watched her son bleed out after a bullet aimed at me hit him in the chest. There was nothing I could have done to save him once he'd been hit. Nothing either of us could have done, so I hold her back as she screams and cries and begs. Mourning a son that will never come back. Never grow up. Never go to prom. Have a first kiss. Get married. Have kids. Never. All because of me. All because of the Circle. I feel a crack starting in my shield.
The scene changes.
I reach for the gun at my hip, gingerly taking it from it's holster. It feels foreign and dangerous in my hands. I lift it, aiming at a piece of paper I had pinned to a tree. I fire. The gun jumps in my hands and my arms swing back from the recoil. The bullet came nowhere close to hitting the target. I raise the gun again, keeping a tighter grip this time. I aim and fire. The bullet just grazed the corner of my target. I breath in sharply, in my hands this weapon could kill somebody. I think of Zach.
"How far are those targets?" I'd asked him upon seeing the Blackthorne shooting range.
"Far." He'd answered me. He'd been trained to take lives, me to save them. Right now it would have been better to be trained as a killer. No, not a killer, an assassin. I pull my thoughts away from Zach and focus on the gun in my hands and the target in front of me. By the end of the afternoon, my aim was near perfect. I don't want to think of what Zach would say if he could see me now.
The scene changes again.
"Oh, Cammie. Here Cammie, here Cammie." Catherine. I hate her. I'm hiding behind a blue transport truck. Well, I think it was blue at one point, it looks like the driver had a nasty accident, and although his remains aren't here, the truck is and looks like it has been for several years. I have my gun in my hand, but it only has one bullet left. I have promised myself to save it for me. If they are going to take me, it won't be alive. I'm somewhere just outside of Rome. I have been trying to ditch the circle all day, but Catherine is very good at tailing people, even if they are pavement artists like me. I have a suspicion that before she took the job of evil assassin lady, she was very much like me. A pavement artist. I almost want to laugh at the thought. I hear a loud bang, the sound of a bullet hitting the truck. I can't run anymore. I new this day was coming for weeks now. You can only run for so long before you have to stop. In my case, it wouldn't matter if I could run anymore because I hear a bang and feel a bullet enter my leg. I go down onto one knee and without thinking, lift the gun in my hand, aim and fire. It enters Catherine's arm, but she doesn't waiver. I realize what I just did to late. They will have me alive now. I hope they'll kill me. I have to much blood on my hands to ever go back to my life the way it was, not that they'll ever let me. I picture Zach. Zach jumping off a train into the middle of nowhere. Zach his hands in my hair, pressing his mouth to mine. Zach. A hand coming from behind me presses a sickly sweet smelling cloth to my mouth. I'm to tired to fight. I let the chloroform wash over me, let it force me into a black oblivion. I welcome it.
The scene changes again.
We take off and as we leave the roof, I hear a loud bang and the hospital below us starts to burn, then explodes. I stare out my window at the chaos below that I have caused by being there, by staying there and by leaving there. I turn my head with tears in my eyes to look at Mr. Solomon. "You once told us that people do things for six reasons," I tell him.
"Love, faith, fear, boredom, greed and revenge. You missed one."
"Which one would that be?" He asks me.
"To send a message."
I wake up with a scream and somebodies arms immediately come around me. I breath in the familiar scent until I can breath again.
"You okay?" Zach asks, his arms still around me.
"Just give me a minute," I answer into his shoulder. Eventually my minute is up and as I pull out his arms I give him a kiss. "I'm good," I murmur against his lips. He nods and kisses me again. Somebody coughs and we split apart, both of us groaning in pain as our respective injures object to the sudden movement.
"That is my daughter," my mother says.
I'm suddenly angry at her. "Really mom? Because if I remember correctly, you could barley look at me, let alone talk to me before we went to Paris."
"Cammie, I'm sorry. I was scared, so scared. You killed seven men and when you came back you not only had the son of a newly dead ambassador in tow, you didn't seem to feel anything for the people you had put a bullet in. Cammie, their bodies weren't even cold yet and you didn't seem to feel a thing." Mom yells the last part and I stare at her as does every body else on the helicopter.
"I didn't feel anything?" My voice is low, even and dangerous. "I didn't feel anything?" I say again. Zach's arm tightens around my waist, as a restraint or a support I don't know. "Mom, I felt so much it was better not to feel anything. It still is. Do you know what I spent my summer doing?" She shakes her head. "No, of course you don't, but I've been remembering. There was a day that I was running from some people who where tailing me and they had just gotten so close, to close. I had been staying away from crowds even though they made it easier to lose the tails because they where trigger happy bastards from the circle but I didn't have a choice anymore. "I am yelling now, letting every bit of anger I'd been feeling towards my mom come out into my words, letting every bit of anger I'd been feeling towards the circle come out in my words. Everyone is staring at me because it isn't very often that I lose my temper like this. "I didn't have a choice and so I ran into a really busy part of the town I was in. I was crossing a street when I heard the shot and then I heard a body hitting the ground and when I turned around there was a little boy, still holding his mother's hand lying on the middle of the road. The mother hadn't even realized what had happened yet, she was just standing there. When her brain finally processed the scene in front of her, she started screaming and crying and praying and I just held her. I couldn't do anything else so I just held her as her son bled out on the ground in front of us. I tried to save that little boy but there was nothing I could have do so I just left him there and held his mother. I didn't care if the circle got me right then. I was done. Mom, because of me that little boy died. Killing those circle members that day, it felt amazing, it felt like I had finally done something right." My voice breaks. "They weren't the first people I'd killed mom. After you kill once, you learn to push back the feelings. To fight of the grief and the pain and the anger. You learn to move on, to forget, to ignore. They weren't the first and I doubt they'll be the last." When I finish, I stare of into space well everyone else stares at me, slack jawed. They have never heard that story before. The only person who looks normal is Zach who heard a version of this the night before in the hospital. I lean my head against his shoulder and close my eyes. Nobody talks for the rest of the flight.