AN: Hello dearests!

Not going to lie, friends, I kind of love the next few chapters (including this one). Hope y'all enjoy the climax of this story!

Happy reading!

Disclaimer: Ally Carter owns Zach, Cammie, and the Gallagher Girl universe.

Zach's POV

I was an idiot. I knew that. I wasn't an expert horseman, or even a moderate one. I'd had exactly one semi-lesson and that had ended poorly. But it was either this or hurting Ryden in ways that had been illegal since the Geneva convention. And I didn't think that would help me get Cammie back (nor would it help me remain a free U.S. citizen).

I'd picked Dragon simply because he was the horse I was most familiar with. But now I was starting to regret that decision, because he was most definitely not living up to his fearsome name. Every time the thunder rumbled or we'd catch a brief flash of lightning through the trees, he would flinch or jump and prance on his hooves.

"We're almost there, buddy," I told him with a neck rub, trying to calm him down.

A relatively quiet roll of thunder sounded, and Dragon pawed the ground and let out a scared whinny. Well, if the whole spy thing didn't work out, I at least knew I had no business becoming a horse whisperer.

I felt bad for the animal, but everything was going to be fine. I just had to find the dang cow that got away, bring it back to the barn, and prove to Cammie and Grandpa Morgan that I could be just as great of a cowboy boyfriend as Ryden. At least…that was the plan.

Technically, the cow could've been anywhere on the ranch by now, but I was willing to bet that the troublemaker was still in the grazing pasture, thinking she could just slip away from the herd for some extra chow time. I had taken a rope from the barn, and I knew how to tie a lasso, so it shouldn't be too hard to catch her. Right?

At least it wouldn't have been if the sky wasn't trying to drown me, if the ground wasn't so mucky and flooded, if my flashlight's beam shone a little farther, and if my horse wasn't so skittish. But I'd been in worse situations than this. What was the worst that could happen?

The biggest and brightest lightning strike of the night suddenly flashed, illuminating what my flashlight couldn't. I was practically at the end of the trail. The gate to the field was only 30 feet away, and right before the light faded, I saw the lone runaway cow standing with her head bowed to the grass, grazing without a care for the storm.

Dragon jerked and neighed at the lightning, but I wasn't worried anymore. The cow was right there; I just had to grab it.

Thing was, I was too busy trying to be Cowboy Zach, making Spy Zach take a back seat, that I forgot how much the animal beneath me was scared of loud noises. And I completely forgot what came after lightning.

The crack of thunder was so loud, it sounded like the earth had split open. My body tensed, my pulse kicked into double-time, and my heart pounded in my chest. I was about to laugh the scare off because it had been quite a long time since anything, much less the weather, had gotten the drop on me. But any amusement I had dried up when Dragon shrieked and reared up onto his back legs.

"No! Down! Stop!" I yelled to no avail. "Uh, Woah!"

I kept my seat, clutching onto his middle with my legs and his mane with my hands. But in hindsight, perhaps it would've been better had I fallen off, because the second his front hooves touched the ground, he bolted. The sudden jerk forward made me lose my flashlight, which left me charging into the darkness on a spooked, uncontrollable animal.

New fear officially unlocked.

I gripped the reins tightly, pulling back as hard as I could without hurting Dragon. That only seemed to increase his panic, and he bucked wildly while maintaining his crazed run. One of his erratic movements slammed my head, hard, into what I assumed was a thick branch. It was hard to tell because of the rain, but I was pretty sure at least some of the liquid running down my face was blood.

The bucking stopped almost as soon as it started, but now we were just in a dead run. Real fear coursed through me as we raced at neck-breaking speed toward…I didn't know what. All I saw was blackness, and I was willing to bet Dragon could see just about as much as I could—which was not a comforting thought.

I had no idea how much blood I was losing (and it was blood—I tasted it on my tongue as it flowed past my lips), and my fingers were clutching the reins so tightly they were starting to cramp, but hell if I was going to loosen my hold. How had this night turned into such a nightmare?

"Zach!"

I jerked my head up at the faint sound of my name, but then hunched back down as raindrops pelted my face. I listened for another moment, straining to hear over the horse's snorting, the rain, and the pounding of my heart. Nothing. Am I imagining things?

"Zach!"

The voice was louder this time, closer, and relief flooded me when I recognized it as Cammie's. I turned my head as much as I could without putting myself in a precarious position and saw the beam of a flashlight bobbing and steadily growing.

When the light got close enough, I could see Cammie, fierce and determined, pushing the horse she was riding to run faster. One of her hands held the reins and the other held a switch of sorts, and she was using it to smack the horse's flank, urging it faster still.

My girl was insane! My girl was also really hot.

Her horse finally caught up with Dragon, and we ran side by side like this was some kind of fun race, and I was just a very, very, very ill-equipped jockey. You'd think I would have felt some sort of relief at being side by side, but now I was fearing for her safety as well as mine. What could she possibly do simply by matching pace with me anyway?

"Gallagher Girl!" I yelled. "Slow d—"

"Not now!" she yelled back. "Hop on behind me!"

My mind froze for a beat, not really comprehending her command. But when it did eventually catch up, I decided that she was leaning a lot closer to insane than hot in that moment.

"Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?!"

She packed as much irritation as she could into a brief glance my way before returning her focus to the path ahead. With her flashlight (a much better flashlight than mine had been) I could now see that we were running in the broad strip of open space between the woods and the fence to the grazing pasture.

"No time for this! Rascal is losing steam! Now, jump on!"

"Cam—"

"Zachary Goode! If you don't get on this horse right now, I will tell Grant that it was you who broke his lucky rocket launcher!"

I hesitated, debating whether it would be better to die by horse trampling or die by Grant's new rocket launcher. In the end, I found myself slowly easing to my knees on Dragon's back while holding a death grip in his mane.

"There you go," Cammie encouraged. "I'm as close as I can get now. You've gotta jump!"

I allowed myself one deep breath, then I jumped, crossing the few feet between the charging horses' backs. The wind was knocked out of me as I landed on my stomach on the horse's jostling flank. The move was about as ungraceful as you could imagine, but at least I landed on the horse and not the ground beneath it.

With me behind her, Cammie gradually slowed the horse, tugging gently on the reins and making calming sounds with her voice. When she got us down to a walk, I felt safe enough to right myself and sit on the horse properly. The poor thing was huffing and snorting deeply, but Cammie didn't seem concerned, so I said nothing as she finally brought us to a stop.

Without a word, she jumped down from the horse and led it to the slight cover of the woods, cooing the whole time about how amazing he did and how she was going to give his worked muscles a rub down when we got home.

I felt weird just sitting on the horse with her leading, so I hopped down too and stared on confusedly as Cammie took us to a spot in the woods that had no clear path and started tying the horse's reins to a tree.

Why weren't we heading back to the house? And why was she pulling a tarp out of her pack?

Her motive became clear when she threw the tarp over a long, low-hanging branch, and in less than two minutes she had a makeshift tent set up. She gestured to it with her flashlight.

"Get in," she said. "We need to talk."

AN: Thanks much for reading this chapter! You guys are the best in the whole world! As I mentioned, I love this chapter, but that doesn't mean you have to. If you think it could've been better, let me know in a helpful critique. Or, if you share my opinion, feel free to leave me an encouraging comment:) Regardless, gold stars and brownie points for all of you!

One thing I would like to mention is that you really don't have to be an expert horseman to know that Zach totally could've jumped off of a charging Dragon and (with his spy prowess) escaped with little to no injury. BUT where is the fun and excitement in that? So, for the sake of climactic action, let's all pretend that Cammie had to ride out to save Zach, and that Zach had no other option but to dangerously jump from one charging horse to another. Mkay?

Have a great week! Much love, Rachel