Chapter 12: The Chase Is On

Cammie's POV

My pistol was out in front of me as I swiftly ran around the edges of Roseville, following my clues. When I had first left Zach, I disappeared behind a group of girls and made my way back to the fountain. The feather was hanging more off the side of the fountain to the north, now call me crazy, but Catherine never does anything without premeditation.

I started off to the north, my pistol hidden discreetly under part of my jacket, but ready pull up and shoot at a moments need. Inside, I was hoping that I could handle this with just my fighting skills, but Catherine plays dirty, so why shouldn't I?

The next clue came behind one of the buildings on the outer rim of the town square. A heel foot imprint, about a size 6, Catherine's shoe size. The good thing was that I couldn't see any other footprints accompanying her, so she could be alone. I hope, at least.

I followed a newly broken off leaf on a tree nearby the alleyway and continued tracking her. With each overturned rock and disturbance, I was led to the edge of the forest. My hand revealed my pistol from underneath my jacket, and I held it out in front of me as I walked into the shady coolness of the forest.

My senses sharpened as I tuned into the environment around me. I heard a flock of birds 45 degrees from the current position I was watching. A rat was scuffling along about 3 feet away from me, and all the people from Roseville were at least a good, half a mile away. But most important of all, were my senses finding things that didn't belong in nature. It's a simple tracking skill.

My eyes zone in on a piece of green leaf that was lying on the dirt ground. It was recently pulled off which meant that I had to follow the direction of the leaf. I took the path, upturned rock, and disturbed plants, swipes of moved dirt and packed gravel from the weight of a person. I quickly made my way to the top of a hill on the outside of Roseville, hot and sweaty, but yet to be tired.

"Oh, Cammie, nice of you to join me." I emerged from the green brush to a small clearing with the one and only Catherine Goode, right in the center. My hands fell loose to my sides, completely forgetting about my hidden advantage. Although I guess it wasn't an advantage at all in close quarters.

She fakely smiled brightly at me. Her bright red hair was in a loose ponytail, and small strands fell out stuck to her face, the wetness making her hair look darker. Her dark eyes, almost identical to her son's, watched me carefully, ready for any moves I would and could make. She wore beige canvas shorts, with a button up shirt that allowed the sunlight to hit her pale skin below the elbow. Her complexion could be compared to a china plate. Soft, delicate, and pale. She had her legs spread out shoulder wide, and leaned against a maple tree, enjoying the shade to protect her light skin.

"Where are the goons, dumb and dumber?"

She flicked her hand in an arc to reach a position with her wrist upturned and her fingers curved as if she was holding something, "Around... I wanted to handle you myself."

"And what does "handle" mean today?"

She gave me a sinister flash of her teeth, "Oh I just wanted to show you what I picked up the other day."

Her hands unbuttoned her shirt pocket and rummaged through it to grab something. I watched as her arm stuck out right in front of her and she slowly opened her hands. My awareness completely deserted me as I craned my neck to see what she was holding. That was my first mistake.

One of her bodyguards came behind me and and struck the base of my neck and I collapsed onto my knees. A big meaty hand grabbed me by the collar of my shirt from behind and shoved my face toward the ground. I mentally slapped myself for being so careless.

"Oh, and by the way, Cammie. I lied. I'm not here to handle you today. But I'll see you soon, and the next time we meet, I will get my information. And revenge."

I pushed myself up and found her watching me as I was swiveled around and punched in the cheek. The world spun, but that didn't stop me from evading a punch to the gut and producing a kick to the guy's gut. He stumbled back for a second before throwing another punch which I caught and then twisted his arm. My left leg flew up to kick again but was caught by his recently injured hand and twisted. I barely felt anything, just a little twist and a pinch of pain. While I was distracted with that injury, he socked me in the eye and I returned with a punch to the ribs. He moaned out in pain and his hands shot down to hold his midsection. I took this chance to punch him and knock him out.

I turned around and found Catherine gone. I sighed. We were still doing a cat and mouse chase, but the worst part was, this time around, I was the mouse. My eyes surveyed the damage as I sunk to the ground.

Blood dripping from my mouth. Most likely a forming black eye. A cut on my cheek. I lifted my shirt up just a little bit, and added another thing to my list of injuries. Bruised stomach. My eyes inspected my legs, possibly a fractured or broken ankle. Purple thigh. The fingertips of my right hand patted around my hair. Messed up, and a little bit of blood that didn't come from my head.

Mentally shrugging, I thought about Catherine's thug. To think on the bright side, he had more injuries than me. The thought reminded me of the big, burly man lying unconscious behind me. I laughed and threw a glance at him. With his size, he should have been harder to take down. But appearances can be deceiving, as anyone could see by knowing me.

Something glinted in the corner of my eye and I turned back to that position and focused on it before crawling over (because of my possibly broken ankle), and examining it. But there, lying in the dirt and grass was a necklace.

The sight of it nearly made me faint, and trust me, that's something I never do. I gingerly picked it up by the simple, silver chain, and held it out so the single charm on it dangled in the sun. My eyes became glassy as I traced the outline of the letter engravings on the metal circle attached to the necklace with the tip my fingernail. I turned the charm around to reveal the decorations on the other side. Little swirls on the outline, with a little dagger facing down into random lines that seemed to be unrecognizable. I knew exactly what it was. Catherine brought it to taunt me.

I quickly stood and tucked the necklace into the back pocket of my shorts before surveying the area for anything I could've missed. Nothing out of ordinary, except the muscle man who was slowly awakening. I hurried and grabbed some twine twisted the pieces into a strong-ish rope before tying his hands behind his back.

He finally regained his senses and I pushed my remembered gun into his side.

"Walk."

It took us about 8 minutes to get all the way back down the hill. Of course, trying to push a reluctant 200 pound man to walk was a slow process. At the base, I knew I couldn't go through Roseville all scraped up, holding a man at gun point. I had to take the long way.

Together, we made our way west to the very outskirts of town. This was the most deserted road out of town. We quickly passed it and hid under the forest again as we went back the opposite way, following the road from a distance, back to town.

I pushed the man as he trudged along, and listened to my internal clock. It was about 1600 hundred hours (3:00 PM). Only an hour ago, I was walking around the town square with Zach. Now, I was dragging a man back to school. The life of a spy. All children with the childhood dream to become a spy honestly don't even think about the hard parts. I shook my head.

My direction changed as I started to walk northeast, towards Gallagher. I would be there in about 30 minutes if we made good time. But alas, I'm a spy, and nothing is EVER that easy.

The meathead captive jerked back and shoved me, causing me to fall to the ground and drop my gun. I had no time to pick it up, seeing as muscle man decided to try to run away from me in the forest. I let out a huge sigh before picking myself up and chasing after his slow and heavy steps.

"Why do they always run?!" I yelled to no one in particular, "Where do they think they're gonna go?!" (AN: quote from Steve McGarrett in Hawaii Five-0)

My faster steps brought me up to his speed in no time. He was running west, back where we came from, and was not in good shape. The meat man was sweating and loudly panting to the point where I could hear him from 5 feet behind. As I got even closer I checked my pockets while dodging around trees. The search brought out one thing. My lipstick tazer.

When I was about two feet away, I stuck out my hand and fired. It struck him and he collapsed mid-leap into a heap on the dirt floor. We were half a mile from where my gun was dropped and now we had to make it all the way there, pick up my gun, and then to Gallagher. The best part? He was unconscious so I had to drag him.

After another over-dramatic sigh, and an inner mulling about the difficulties of spy life, I grabbed his feet and began to pull him through the forest the exact way that we came. After only 10 minutes, we were 0.1 miles closer to our original position. Considering my situation, that was pretty good.

For an hour, 5 minutes, and 24 seconds (including the previous 10 minutes), I dragged the heavy man through the forest and finally collapsed next to my gun. This situation reminded me of spy training, back when Grandpa Cameron was alive. He made me drag heavy, metal, rectangular containers filled with the groceries all the way from the store to his house. I wasn't allowed to eat until I completed the task. Apparently the strength training came in handy now, but I was still a little tired, and sweatier than before. Unfortunately, I still had work to do, and had to get a move on if I didn't want to be late for my "Firearms Usage and Handling" class.

The back of my hand wiped my forehead and hairline, wiping away the dripping sweat. I had 0.4 miles to go through the forest to get to Gallagher and it was time to woman up. My gun was replaced into the waist of my shorts and I was ready to go.

I grabbed the muscle man's limp arm and pulled him up over my shoulder to carry him. My knees buckled under the enormous weight and I wobbled for a little bit before regaining my stance. Careful not to drop the guy, I started trekking south, my pace a little bit faster than it was when I was dragging the man.

It was only 25 minutes later (and 32 seconds), at 4:38 PM, when I stumbled across the shooting range that Blackthorne had set-up for their arrival. Far enough away that none of the Gallagher Girls would see, but close enough so the boys could still get in their training. They were all shooting as I came behind and emerged into the clearing, 8 minutes late for my class.

"Hey, could someone help with him?"

Zach's POV

I woke up in the infirmary with a pounding headache. There was a cap of motrin on the bedside table with a glass of water. My fingers gingerly picked up the container and popped the lid open to grab 2 pills and pop them in my mouth.

After swallowing them with a gulp of water, I reset my mental clock using the amount of daylight shining in my window, and found it was 1:30 PM. I had been knocked out for 25 minutes and 35 seconds.

I sat up further in my bed as I remembered all these weird and ridiculous things. For example, that Cammie was the Chameleon and that my mother was here looking for her. It seemed like such a ludicrous idea and that I was just remembering a dream, but it felt so real.

I swung my legs from under the covers and off the side of the bed and pushed myself to stand. The cold tile floor stung my warm feet as I noticed that only my shoes were removed. I found them 2 feet away, by the side of the guest chair, and put them on.

As of now, I had nothing to do except homework until 4:30 PM. Since Cove-Ops had lots of missions, we didn't really have a set time for our class. The same goes for the research classes. It was actually a really nice design which gave us time to quickly finish homework before evening classes. The school really lived up to its luxurious cover, more so than Blackthorne did (AN: remember that in this version, Blackthorne has the same cover as Gallagher).

When I entered the hallway, I heard and saw lots of people in different crowds desperately whispering about something, and in some cases, freaking out and going over an "inside" voice. Confused, I made my way up to my dorm, where I found my 3 friends and roommates having an intense discussion.

"Oh hey, Zach." Jonas threw me a wave as I walked in, the other two just nodding.

"Hi guys," I greeted them back, "What's with all the whispering out there?"

They all looked at me as if I had lost my head and I awaited for an answer. Instead, all I got was a collective, "Are you serious?" from the whole group.

Nick stood up and put both hands on either shoulder and stated, "Cammie is the Chameleon."

"I thought that was a dream!" I gasped in realization. "I can't believe almost all the guys in Blackthorne have been looking up to a girl! It can't be true, but all the weird stuff with her is kind of making sense…"

"Yeah, she still hasn't gotten back though. It's only been 40 minutes, but I can tell that Mr. Solomon has been kind of worried." Grant commented.

I combed through my soft hair with my fingertips, more to relieve stress than to fix my hair. "I'm honestly worried about Cammie, guys. Chameleon or not, she's so small, and delicate, and a girl. I don't think she can go against the Circle."

Nick suddenly stood up, "We should go after her as back-up."

It didn't take long for all my roommates to agree and send us flying down the stairs and toward Mr. Solomon, who was coming out of the Headmaster's office. His eyes looked tired, although the crinkles around the edges didn't really help.

He turned to face us, "What can I do for you, gentlemen?"

"We want to go after Cammie as back-up." I stepped forward, a determined look displayed across my face.

Mr. Solomon immediately shook his head and our looks of determination and desperation disappeared, a frown on our faces.

"I know you're worried about her, I feel the same way. But she'll be fine. Cammie has handled harder situation by herself and came out alive. Just sit tight."

We watched as our teacher walked past us and down the long hall.

"And remember, gentlemen, she is the Chameleon."

The soles of his shoes made soft pounding noises across the tile as he continued to walk away. Our moment of bravado had left us to just do our homework and hope that a certain girl with blonde hair and blue eyes would be all right.

We found ourselves doing "homework" in the library. Of course, the work was kind of self-assigned. We were studying up on the Chameleon. Our view on him.. ahem, her… had completely changed. A teenage girl? Really? It was hard to believe, therefore we were looking for anything that ever indicated that the Chameleon was Cammie. Mr. Solomon's word wasn't good enough.

The challenge that we took on was harder than we thought it would be. By the time 4:30 P.M. rolled around, we filed out of the library with no enlightenments. We all were sullen as the boys from our school were ushered into the woods for some "group bonding activities".

That means we were going for our "Firearms Usage and Handling" class and trying not to traumatize the Gallagher girls to the ways of a wet work artist, or assassin, whichever you prefer. But it was my favorite class of the day and brightened me up despite the circumstances.

I pulled my rifle out of the bag that I picked up from the Blackthorne van, and assembled it. A smile brightened on my face as I screwed on a last piece: the silencer. Can't have the Roseville community, or the Gallagher girls hearing a bunch of gunshots, could we?

The gun felt comfortable in my hands as I got in position and began to fire at the target that was 200 yards away. an easy warm-up. My hands got into a regular pattern as I shot bulls-eye each time. It wasn't long before a sound interrupted the sound of gunfire.

"Hey, could someone help with him?"

AN: Sorry this update took forever! I've been trying to type this with one hand because I snapped the growth plate for my middle finger (fancy words for: my finger is seriously messed up) and I have this huge temporary splint on. I have to go to the hand surgeon tomorrow so hopefully writing will be faster in the future. Tell me what you think of this chapter, and thanks for reading!

NOTE: The last part of this chapter is kind of rushed because my previously mentioned injury makes it frustrating to type slow.