Here is the next chapter. Feel free to comment and tell me what you think. Now enjoy reading!

Her thoughts are interrupted by Talon groaning. He slowly opens his eyes. "Penny?" he croaks.

Penny instantly jumps off the bed, bringing distance between them and getting into her fighting stance.

Talon looks at her confused, getting up and walking over to her.

"Stop right there" she hisses. Talon stops dead in his tracks, a hurt expression on his face. He sits back down on the bed, holding his head.

"The Talon from the past few days wouldn't have done this" she thinks. "Maybe my feeling was right, and he was under his uncles' control. And the mark on his wrist could be from one of the ticks. But do they even leave a mark?…" her thoughts trail off.

Penny slowly relaxes but still not putting her guard down completely.

"Is it really you?" she finally asks Talon.

"Who else am I supposed to be? Did you hit your head or something?" he questions, slowly starting to look at his surroundings. "And besides, no one is as handsome as I am…" he trails off, his cocky smirk slowly disappearing from his face. "How did we get here?" he asks confused.

He once again touches his head and stops in horror.

"What happened to my hair?" he asks brushing through it. He then gets up and rushes to the bathroom. Penny chases after him.

"What happened to the rest of me?" he asks in utter shock, glancing into a mirror, gesturing up and down himself.

"It really is you!" Penny jumps at him and hugs him tight. Talon hugs her back, still confused.

He lets go of Penny and pushes her an armlength away.

"You know you look hot in your combat outfit but why are you wearing it and why are you acting so weird? And first of all, why are we here and not in detention?" Talon questions her.

Penny's smile slowly disappears. "You really don't remember, do you?" she asks him her eyes starting to fill with tears.

"Remember what?" Talon asks, now looking seriously concerned.

"We are out of detention for over a week." Penny tries to go on, but Talon interrupts her.

"What? That can't be true. But how?" he asks weakly.

Penny pulls him out of the bathroom and gestures him to sit onto the sofa. When she is about to answer they hear a knock on the door to the treehouse.

"Who is it?" Penny asks cautiously.

"It's me, Jim. I'm here for Talon."

"Here for me, what does he mean?" Talon asks, taking the few steps to the door, opening it.

"Hey Jim, why are you…" Jim doesn't let him finish but instead jumps at him, pushing him down to the floor, and securing Talon's hands on his back.

"What the…" Talon says upset.

"Why didn't you restrain him Penny?" Jim looks at her accusingly.

"You said, you can handle it."

"Can someone please explain me what is going on?" Talon asks, getting angry.

"Get off me Jim!" He tries to shake him off, but Jim just holds on tighter.

"I'd like to know what is going on too" Jim says looking at Penny.

Penny quickly gets up from the sofa. "He doesn't remember a single thing" she says quietly.

Jim's eyes go wide. "And you believe him?"

"I don't know…" She looks over to Talon. He looks up at her, his eyes full of confusion, a glint anger, a bit of fear but most of all love and trust. Penny takes a deep breath. "Actually, yes I do." Penny looks at Jim in dismay.

"Would you now get off him please. I'm sure he isn't going to run."

Jim slowly nods and helps Talon back on his feet. He closes the door of the treehouse and sits down on the sofa.

"Now please tell me what is going on" Talon says, intensely looking back and forth between Penny and Jim. "And what happened to you?" he asks Jim, noticing the scratches on his face and arms.

"What is the last thing you remember?" Jim asks Talon instead of giving him an answer.

"I was in the detention room with Penny and you took my boots and bracelet cuff because you thought I had something to do with those robots. The next morning you didn't show like you said you would, so we contacted Kayla. When she was on her way…" he stops mid-sentence. "Ow" he winces, pressing his palm against his forehead.

"I don't remember what happened then" he shakes his head, trying to get rid of the pain.

Penny rushes over to Talon, looking at him concerned.

"I think he needs a medical screening" she announces, looking expectantly at Jim.

Jim massages his temples, an exhausted look on his face.

"I'm going to contact the doctor and tell him to come to your treehouse. Talon should stay here until we get behind all of this. I'll have to speak to the other instructors to decide how we'll move on …" With those words Jim packs his things and leaves without another word.

"That was weird" Talon states, moving closer towards Penny who is deep in thought. When Talon touches her at the shoulder, she jumps and slaps his hand away.

Talon looks at her in horror.

Upon realizing what she has just done, Penny instantly apologizes. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to …" she starts.

"What happened the past week?" Talon asks, his face frozen like a mask.

Penny sits down again, explaining him everything that happened during the last week. How the ticks controlled half of the agents in camp and how Talon controlled them with his bracelet cuff. Even how they managed to stop the ticks in the end.

Talon listens to her in silence. When she ends her explanations, Talon speaks quietly.

"That is terrible, I don't remember a single thing" he says his head hanging low. "I never thought my uncle would go this far to get through with one of his crazy plans."

"But what pains me most is to know I've done something to you too, didn't I?" he asks, although his question sounds a lot more like a statement.

Penny looks at him, eyes wide "Why do you think you did something to me?" she asks.

"I'm not stupid, it's not your normal reaction to jump and slap me when I touch you and you seem to be super cautious too …"

Penny slowly takes his hand. "Nothing" is Penny's short and brisk answer. "You did nothing."

Talon's brows furrow. "Please don't lie to me" he whispers, pulling his hands out of hers.

"I want to know the truth."

Penny hesitates but then starts to tell him, how he captured her, how he treated her and how she felt about it. During talking she doesn't look up, constantly kneading her fingers. Once she finishes there is nothing but silence. Cautiously Penny looks up, seeing Talon's face even paler than before and tears running down his cheeks.

Gently she places a hand on his cheek and wipes away the tears. "It's okay, you are fine now" she tries to comfort him. Talon turns away his face, wiping away the rest of the tears. Penny's hand slowly sinking down into her lap.

Talon takes a deep breath in and pushes back his shoulders.

"I understand if you don't want to be with me anymore. And that's okay. I will leave the camp as soon as Jim says it is okay. But before I go, I just want you to know that I'm done with M.A.D., I'm done with my uncle and I'm done with being the bad guy everybody blames for everything, I'm done with this version of me and most of all I never want to cause anybody so much pain as I did to you." He places a gentle kiss on Penny's cheek.

"Goodbye Penny" he says smiling sadly, getting up and turning to leave.

Penny who has been completely quiet during his speech, now grabs his wrist.

"And where do you think you are going?" she asks him, slightly annoyed.

Talon looks at her confused. "I just told you …"

"And I don't care" Penny says fiercely. "I won't give up what we have because of this … this incident. Maybe it will take some time for me to recover completely but I want to be with you. The last two months have been the happiest of my life. With you by my side, I can do anything. We will investigate what happened together and fix everything …" she looks him up and down. "Including you!"

Talon raises an eyebrow at her speech, a smile starting to spread on his face.

"I love you more than you can imagine" he says beaming at her. "Can I hug you?" he asks unsure.

Penny slowly gets closer, putting her hands on his chest. "You can even kiss me" she whispers, closing the distance between them and gently pressing her lips to his.