GUESS WHO FAILED HER PERMIT TEST! AGAIN! I am not happy. Sorry for the lack of updates. Life is stupidly hectic. And BOTH of my beta's are not responding… do you know how annoying that it?

I should really go on a run…

Chapter 12

Just a Bit of Punching

I turned my mother's necklace over in my hands. The winter sun glinted off of it and turned the grounds a pale yellow that did nothing to help the bare grey trees.

I had hidden myself away in a window seat in the corner of the Library, I knew they were probably looking for me but I didn't want to be found. I wanted to be alone, to think. To process everything that had happened in the past week.

Yes, I had been at the school for a week. And all I wanted to do was go home. Go home to Ray and to sleep in my own bed.

I was pouring over a book as I had for the past week, turning the pages that my mom might have turned when she was here. What would make it even better would be if I could get a coffee from the coffee shop I saw while we were driving in.

But apparently I wasn't allowed to leave the building.

I ran my finger over the center feeling the picture engraved in it. "Cammie, there you are. Ready to start?" Flynn was there, his shirt pushed up around his elbows, a book under his arm. His hair had been cut just a bit shorter but it still seemed to get in his eyes.

"Cammie?" He said waving his hand in front of my eyes.

"Hum?" I looked up at him.

"Are you ready? You still have to learn you know." He said. I frowned.

"Then why can't I just go home and go to school?" I asked in a low voice.

Flynn sucked in breath. "You could, but than you would be dead." He said.

So that was how we ended up at a table by the fireplace. Some girls were sitting on the couched by and looking at us, talking quietly.

I tried to ignore it and focus on my Latin verb endings.

Finally I couldn't take it anymore. "Flynn, do you ever want to find Mary?" I asked.

Flynn stiffened and a shadow came across his face. "Yes. I did… I do. But… chances are she isn't alive anymore. It's been four years." He said.

"oh. What would you do if you ever did find her?" I asked.

"I… I… I don't know." Flynn said quietly.

I looked back down at my verb endings. "Touching subject?" I asked. Flynn looked up.

"Not really… anymore." He said looking at me. I nodded.

After I asked Flynn about Mary he was rather quiet and decided to end our session early. I watched him leave, his shoulder a bit more slouched than before.

I bit my lip and gathered up my supplies and a few extra books to make my way up to my suite where I was still staying with Bex, Liz and Macey. "Finally." Macey said getting off her bed as I came in and dumped my stuff down.

"What?" I asked looking at them. Bex pointed and Zach stepped out of the shadow. Oh no.

"Can we talk now?" he asked his green eyes down cast.

"Um sure?" I said.

"Bring a jacket. We're going outside." He said.

"you keep her safe Goode. She can't get lost on your watch." Bex said giving him a pointed look.

"Yes ma'am." Zach said as I slipped on my shoes and my jacket.

"Don't call me ma'am. It makes me feel old." Bex said.

"Ay, Ay, Captain.' Zach said smirking. "Just go."

Bex said shoving him out of the room. "You too." she said to me, pushing me out with her eyes.

As we walked out of the room and down the grand staircase I heard someone calling my name. I turned causing Zach to stop. Flynn came running up to us. "I think you dropped this." Flynn said holding up my mom's necklace.

My hand flew to my neck and felt its absence. "Thanks." I said taking it from him gently. "The clasp broke!" I said angrily.

Flynn put his hands on my shoulders. "It will be fine. I'll see if I can get clearance to take you into town and we can go the jewelers there. They can fix it for you." He said giving off a small smile.

I looked up at him. "I can get out of this place?" I asked.

"For like an hour and a half." Flynn said. I reached up and hugged him. Zach had been forgotten really, but he was standing there looking angry.

"I should go. See you Saturday that?" I asked Flynn.

"It's a date." He smirked before walking away.

The air between me and Zach was tense and the smile on his face was gone as we walked outside. It was the first time I had been outside in a week and it was bitter cold. In fact it was almost Christmas. Well a little less the three weeks I think.

Zach led me towards the woods and the wind dies down in there but I was still cold. The trees had no leaves and the leaves crunched underneath our feet.

"You have a bit of explaining to do." I said stopping in a clearing where we no longer had to bend down as much. Zach stopped and turned, his hands buried deep in his pockets. The bitter wind made his hair stick up as he looked skyward.

"And you have to look at me while you talk." I said crossing my arms, mostly to keep my hands warm but also to look a little menacing. I hoped it worked. Zach finally looked at me.

"So you have a date?" he said.

"You were there." I said.

"I know." His voice was soft.

"It's just to fix my necklace. You of all people should know how important it is to me." I said sharply. Zach looked back up at the sky.

"I still wish we were together." He said so quietly I almost didn't hear it.

"What!" I said my arms falling to my sides.

"I never wanted to cheat on you. I had to. Because of this stupid job if mine."

"You do this on a daily basis?" I questioned.

"For the past five months my daily basis has been you." Zach said smirking lightly at the ground. I looked at him dead on but he never met my gaze.

"I never wanted to cheat on you. Before this whole thing I had read your file. It was quiet extensive. A little trouble maker but good at heart your mom said. But then I actually met you and it was entirely different than reading you file. I really like you Cammie. Hell, I love you but you are dead set on hating my guts. Hearing that paper of yours… it hurt. I hated it. I wanted to run out of the room and hold you at the same time."

"I hate myself for it. I hate the lies. The web of evil that seems to wind its way around us. Cammie—" I cut him off.

"Zachary. You can say what you want but it doesn't matter anymore. You did what you did and nothing can change it. None of it. I don't care if it was your job but it's the fact you still did it. Something's I would have liked to know sooner rather than later you know."

"You don't get it do you. I had to break up with you somehow and get closer to Winter at the same time. I felt horrible when all of us took the place of Winter. She had been your best friend since forever. Getting closer to Winter, cheating on you with her was because if I didn't we would never be where we are today. I didn't want to go up to your face and say we have to break up and then the next day you see me with Winter."

"We had to work fast. Five months was the fastest we could work. To get you to trust us. And then your mom died. Which was a major setback. We were the only people from the CIA that had talked to her in 17 years. We knew she was safe if we were there and we were wrong."

"I don't believe you. I better see something of truth coming out soon. I know you all are spies or something like that or terrorist for that matter. But you cheating…it never seemed like a you thing to do but it its. You didn't have the guts to even come and break up with me to my face."

"BECAUSE I LOVE YOU CAMMIE! LOVE CAN CHANGE YOU! MAKE IT HARD FOR YOU TO DO THINGS YOU KNOW YOU NEED TO DO! IT HAPPENED TO ME! IT HAPPENED TO MY MOM! You said love was something but not everything. Well you know what, love is everything to me. Everything." He said loudly than his voice growing softer as he spoke.

He started at me for a minute but then walked past me. The anger in me had built up so much I felt it over take my whole body. I launched myself at him and punched him so are his lip split. Zach stumbled back a surprised look on his face.

"I wish you would go away and never come back. Because of you love for me is a thin strip of paper that could break at any moment. I wish you would die already and quit bothering me. Forever."

And with that I walked away.

There goes Zach trying to make things better and Cammie goes and ruins it. I know you all hate Zach but do you all really know what he's trying to do? Why he did what he did. Personally I feel sorry for him.

Plus this last pert is really important for a later scene in the story.

REVIEW! ….. I'm going to go read TMI now…