I heard once somewhere that as long as you have hope, you're not anyone's prisoner.

Yeah, right. Hope can't cut through the four steel locks securing us into this dismal cell. Or knock out six armed guards that we knew were patrolling the corridors.

But maybe I'm just pessimistic.

"What's for breakfast today?" Liz mumbles as she wakes up, cradling the arm with the deep, jagged wound into close to her body. I can tell she's still in pain. I'll bet anything that the cut is infected and swelling.

I shrug my shoulders and push myself into a more comfortable position and try to get the pins-and-needles out of my foot. "Not sure. Twinkles delivered it earlier when you were yelling at someone in your sleep."

To lighten the mood a little, Liz and I had nicknamed all of our captors. All of which, we noticed curiously, were female.

"Oh." Liz crawls slowly towards the pathetic amount of food which has been shoved on a red tray. "I think it's Mystery Meat Monday," she comments over her shoulder.

I laugh quietly. "I wonder if the cafeteria lady spat in our food."

Later, as we poke cautiously at the food – which is, judging by the teeth marks in the bread crusts and chicken strips, leftovers – I say to Liz, "D'you think they'll find us?"

"Hey," she warns, pointing her floppy, white spork at me, "this is my fiancé we're talking about."

Raising my eyebrows, I reply, "I forgot about that. I can't believe you're getting married, Lizzie. It's just so…grown up."

A large grin lights up her dishevelled features as she hugs her knees to her chest, being careful to keep her injured arm out of harm's way. "I can hardly believe it either. It was just so perfect when he asked. I even forgot about you betraying us for a few minutes."

I playfully punch her shoulder on her uninjured arm lightly. "Hey, I'd have done anything to be there when you told everyone."

"Actually, Tina called Michaela at the agency, who then spread it everywhere before I had time to blink."

"Ah, good old Tina…"

We sit in silence for a few minutes, revelling in old memories of the good times we had at the Gallagher Academy.

"Cammie…" Liz throws down her spork and turns to face me, an excited glow evident in her pretty, blue eyes.

"Yes, Liz?"

"If we ever get out of here… do you think you'd… you know… want to be my Maid of Honour?" Her eyes are still shining with anticipation.

I open my mouth but nothing comes out, so I just close it and slide forward, closing the space between my friend and I. Into her shoulder, I whisper, "Of course, Liz."

It's an emotional moment, which is a little out-of-place in the bleak cell. Both of us shed tears, although, what for, I'm not entirely sure. When we break apart, Liz Is grinning like a lunatic, and I'm pretty sure I am too.

"You're the best, Cammie."

"Not as good as you, Liz, not as good as you."

A week passes strangely for Liz and I. Being in a cell without a clock or some way of distinguishing the time drives me crazy. My internal clock conked out days ago – or what feels like days ago. Only when the cold, metal door creaks open and a girl who can't be much older than fourteen walks in with two cups do I finally find out.

According to the girl's cheap, plastic watch – which illuminates both the time and the date – we've been prisoners for five days.

When I relay this information to Liz quietly, she whispers sadly, "Maybe they're not coming for us…"

"No—"

But the girl cuts me off. "E-excuse me, ma'am… you're to drink these."

I turn to face her and see that she's shaking, like she's afraid of us. I don't know why, but I give her a small smile and say, "Well tell them we're not thirsty."

The girl bites her lip and crouches next to me, placing the plastic cups down on the cement. "I'll leave them here." Then she does something that surprises me; she takes my hand in her bony ones. Between our palms, I can feel a piece of paper.

"Thanks," I tell her.

"Do you need anything else?"

It's like she's more of a maid than one of our captors.

"No," Liz interjects, shifting herself so that she's leaning against the rough wall.

The girl tucks a stray piece of dark brown hair behind her ear and nods. "O-okay…" Then she leaves the cell, only glancing back once with her eyes full of anxiety.

The second the clanging echo dies away, I unfold the piece of paper as quickly as I can. Liz and I read it super quickly before I shove it in the pocket of my jeans.

2030 hours. Be ready.

Liz's eyes are shining with excitement as she looks at me and says, "That means someone is coming to help us!" She scrambles towards me and pulls me into one of her infamous bone-crushing hugs. Even if it is only one-armed, she's still super strong. "We're going to get out of here!"

Obviously one of the guards hears her and opens the door. "Oi shut it!" she growls before slamming the door again, causing the clanging to once again echo loudly. Neither Liz nor I are fazed.

With my internal clock slowly returning to normal, it chimes eight o'clock. I pull my knees up to my chest and rest my chin on the coarse fabric of my dirt-covered jeans.

"Hey, Liz." She looks up from where she's drawing in the dirt and sand which has accumulated on the floor. "Does Zach hate me?"

Her expression turns sympathetic as she dusts of her hands and sits cross-legged. "No, no… I think he misses you too much to be angry. Although, that's just my opinion. Jonas stole my Boy-to-English prototype after we graduated, so even if we get out, I can't be scientifically sure of such a thing."

I laugh. "You're so lucky to have Jonas."

"I would be if he stopped putting the Parallel ATA cables with the USB and the External Serial Advanced Technology Attachment ones."

That makes me laugh even more. "Liz, don't ever take that boy for granted."

"What? Why would I swap him with Grant?" she asks, alarmed. Obviously she's misheard.

"I said don't get complacent with Jonas. He loves you." I take one of her bruised, bony hands in my own and squeeze it tightly. "And I'm going to get you back to him if it's the last thing I do."

Later, the voices outside the cell make Liz and I sit up straighter, tensed and ready for anything.

"Whadda ya doin'?" the gruff woman – Twinkles – asks roughly. "Oi!"

The sound of skin hitting skin reaches us. Whoever is on the other side of the cell has just taken down the guards. Quickly, I leap towards the door, ready to help whoever our saviour is open it.

The second all four locks are clicked open, I wrench it towards me and come face to face with the fourteen-year-old girl from earlier.

So maybe we aren't prepared for everything, exactly.

"Wh—what? She's the one who's going to get us out of here?" Liz cries out from behind me, voicing my own concerns. I can tell she's very apprehensive about trusting such a young, inexperienced girl with our lives.

The girl just frowns and doesn't comment. She steps over the bodies of the guards and walks briskly down the corridor. At the end where the passage forks out, she turns around and asks rather impatiently, "Well? Are you coming or not?"

After that, we waste no more time. Having had our shoes taken from us the second we were thrown in the cell, neither Liz nor I make a sound as we tiptoe along the cold floors, keeping our eyes peeled for any signs of activity.

"Where is everyone?" I question the girl. "And what's your name?"

"Names aren't important. They're all at another…interrogation."

Liz winces, and I don't blame her one bit. I can still see the bruises on her pale skin, only just starting to fade, not to mention the deep cut I haven't had time to redress.

"Fine." I decide learning her name isn't essential right now. I just want to get out of here and find our way to safety.

Luda peers around a corner and motions for us to stop. We all stop breathing and press against the wall. But I'm sure whoever is approaching is bound to hear my heart pounding loudly against my chest.

The footsteps are quiet and precise. From the duration between the times their feet alternate slapping against the floor, I can calculate the height of the person. By the sound of that slapping, I can also calculate their weight, roughly.

Mind and heart are two essential things in espionage. The thing is, which one is more important?

"Don't attack," I breathe extremely quietly to the teenage girl beside me.

Her dark eyes flick towards me and then back. She was definitely going to try something.

Usually I'm not very lucky, but someone seems to be on my side today, because when the owner of the footsteps comes into view, they have their nose buried in a thick wad of paper. Thankfully, they don't turn right, down the corridor where we're hiding, but instead continue straight ahead, not noticing a thing.

"Let's go," murmurs the girl, evidently eager to get out of this place. I wonder how long she's been here, and why.

There's no time for speculation, nor any time to really stop and plan. We scurry down the halls, hoping desperately that the people monitoring the security cameras are at this 'interrogation' as well.

"Where are we going?" whispers Liz. "We can hardly just walk out the front doors!"

"Oh, can't we?" The girl has a confident smirk on her face as she turns back to face the two of us. Maybe there's more to her than meets the eye.

When we skid to a halt, we're standing in front of a garage door – one you would expect to find on any regular suburban house. Confused, I watch the girl stride towards it, pull out a key and begin to unlock the three large padlocks at the base.

She drags the rusty door upwards very slowly. That way, the door doesn't screech and alert all the security personnel. The girl actually seems quite clever.

She gestures impatiently for Liz and me to roll through the gap between the bottom of the roller door and the floor. Liz crawls out first with some difficulty. Her infected arm seems to be extremely painful, but it's the least of my worries right now.

The girl waits for me to go before her but I shove her after Liz. There's no way I'm leaving her behind.

With one last glance over my shoulder at the deserted room, I follow the two of them out into the freezing, hostile night.

"You know," I tell the girl as we creep through the dense woods surrounding the complex, "I can just get Liz to run your face through her facial recognition system and we'll find out anything we want to know about you. That includes your name." I clear my throat. "So it'd just be easier if you told us now."

She shoots me a humoured glance. "Your friend is really that smart?" she asks as if Liz isn't right behind me, cursing all things outdoors.

And, honestly, 'smart' is such an understatement when referring to Elizabeth Sutton.

"Oh, you should see her dealing with anything electrical and high-tech. She's amazing."

Liz, from behind me, stops grumbling about the muddy, slippery ground and gives a feeble protest. She has never been one to boast about her unbelievable brain-power.

"But don't change the subject." Even a sharp stick digging itself deep into the heel of my foot can't dissuade me from pressing the question. "What's your name?"

"I've got some contacts coming to pick us up." The girl pointedly continues to ignore me, much to my utter irritation. As we come to a stop at a barely-visible dirt crossroad, she adds, "They should be here any second…"

Standing, breathing in dusty air, we wait in the freezing night, increasingly conscious of the flashing lights in the distance behind us. It feels like a lifetime before two headlights cut through the darkness, trundling at an alarming speed towards us.

By the pale light of the half moon, I can just distinguish a satisfied look on the girl's face.

The brown truck skids to a stop in front of us and the passenger side door bursts open. "Get in!" rumbles an unfamiliar voice from the driver's seat.

The girl climbs up first with Liz following closely behind and me bringing up the rear. No matter how hard I try to pin my hopes down, excitement bubbles up inside my chest at the thought of seeing the most important people in my life again.

Grant's muscular arms have never felt more comforting than they do now, but only in a completely platonic way. After lying on cold concrete for days on end, I'll take anything; even arms that have probably broken quite a few necks in their existence.

"Jesus, Cam," he scolds as we break apart. "Don't do that again."

I roll my eyes. "Oh, right, like I asked to be kidnapped."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a frantic Jonas panicking over Liz's injuries. It's so sweet how he forces her to be looked at by some of the Cincta's medical staff, even when she tries to sneak away to check on her computer.

We're back at headquarters, in the very same room I remember stumbling into with Grant, my arm bleeding copiously. Only it's changed a little bit; the area is slightly messier, with doors lining the circular walls and plenty of desks and piles of information stacked around. I watch Lerner speaking quietly to Macey, Bex and another Asian guy over by – what appears to be – a photocopy machine, but his face his obscured by Bex's unkempt hair so I can't read his lips.

"All right, debrief me."

Grant blinks, like he's got no idea what I'm talking about, before nodding slowly. "We've recruited everyone we can from all over. This clearly is a colossal task, and we need all the help we can get. That," he adds, seeing my expression, "includes Macey, Bex, Jonas, Liz and Zach."

I bite my upper lip and push my hands into the pockets of the sweat pants Areva let me borrow after all had settled down. I wonder, briefly, about where the girl who rescued us – the one hardly older than fifteen – has disappeared to. There was no time to question her further about anything, seeing as we were being bombarded with our own questions we had to answer.

"So," continues Grant, leaning against a doorframe, "you're bunking with Areva again because I know you can't stand Anne, and the others have already sorted out sleeping arrangements."

I'm not really listening any more because I still haven't seen a hint of the person I want to see most. He's either avoiding me – which doesn't make me feel too good – or isn't actually here at the moment.

As if reading my mind, Grant jerks a thumb over his shoulder, pointing down the passageway he's standing in front of and smiles slightly. I notice the hint of stubble growing on his chin and the dark circles under his eyes, and wonder if he's slept at all these past few days.

Feebly, I return a smile and walk past him, my heart beating faster and faster with every step. My footsteps are deafened by a dusty, deep purple-coloured carpet but I'm sure my pulse is echoing deafeningly loudly.

"Cool it," I tell myself, trying to stop fidgeting. "You're a spy, you don't get n—"

"Talking to ourselves are we?"

My heart literally flutters beneath the sodden, mud-splattered shirt that clings to my body due to its wetness. I swivel one hundred and eighty degrees on my heels and come face to face with Zach.

"No…" is my oh-so-intelligent answer.

"It's not good to be in denial about your madness." He laughs quietly, taking slow steps towards me.

I give a half-hearted shrug, still playing along. "Who says I'm mad?"

"Ah, there you go again; more denial."

His proximity is almost too much to bear; there's hardly two feet between us, and its making it hard to concentrate on anything else.

"Hey," Zach says, still grinning, leaning closer, "why don't we go in there and chat?" He nods his head towards a door to the right of us, labelled: CONFERENCE. "We've got a lot to catch up on."

Anything I felt before is multiplied by a thousand as Zach places an arm around my shoulders and directs me towards the room. Thankfully, it's empty and someone has left the lights on, so we don't have to feel around the walls for a light switch.

"So…" I drag out the word as I find a comfortable position – me sitting cross-legged – on the rectangular table. The room makes me feel a little panicked, after being trapped in a confined cell for several days. The chairs are all stacked in neat, orderly heaps of ten behind me and the whiteboard at the far end of the room is clear of any notes or diagrams.

"So." Zach pulls a chair from one of the stacks and sits directly in front of me. "What's up?"

My eyes widen. "After all these months, all you have to say is 'what's up'?"

He raises an eyebrow and is about to reply when the door opens slowly, a painfully familiar face peering around the edge. Ann.

"Oh, Camera, there you are," she says, walking into the room, completely ignoring the fact that Zach and I might just have been having an extremely important conversation before she butted in. "Jazz Hands says he wants you showered and rested by eight o'clock – your bed time. Although, I insisted even that was a little late for you."

Even after Liz and I have just got away from the people who captured and tortured us, Ann is still relentless.

"Sorry, Ann, that's not happening, I've got way too much to do," I tell her, frowning deeply.

She just scoffs and flicks some of her super-short, blonde hair off her face. "Just like your outfit today? But, then again, you've got no one to impress, so it doesn't matter for people like you, I presume."

"Stop presuming and get out of my sight. Tell Ian that I'm not a child; I'll do all that when I have time."

When she finally backs out the door with a horrible smirk on her face, I turn back to Zach who opens his mouth but is, once again, cut off by someone entering the room. It's Grant coming to tell me that I'm needed by Lerner. Apparently he wants me there when the questions the girl – the one who refused to tell me her name.

"Thanks, Grant," I say, and he obviously understands the dismissal because he leaves rather hastily.

Once again, I face Zach. "You're Miss Popular tonight," he remarks, pushing himself up out of the chair and walking forwards towards me. "Maybe you should go and attend to everything, your highness."

Breathlessly, I say, "Nah…"

He places his hands either side of me on the table and leans in close, so that our noses are almost touching. My breath hitches as I gaze into his dark, unfathomable eyes and see his mouth quirk upwards.

He knows how this makes me feel.

Just as I run one of my hands through his dark hair, the door opens yet again. Maybe I should have locked it. This time it's a bumbling, stick-thin assistant who turns bright red at our position. He stutters an indistinguishable apology and then retreats from the room.

Zach just laughs and then leans towards me again. His hands move from the table to the sides of my waist. Our lips barely touch before another knock interrupts. Zach pulls away and swears viciously – but quietly – in Farsi.

I peer around the side of him and see Lerner standing in the doorway. "Oh, don't mind me," he says, crossing his arms across his broad chest, grinning.

I roll my eyes and stand up from the table. "What do you need?" I ask, rather irritated.

Lerner jerks a thumb over his shoulder and replies in his deep voice, "Get showered, Morgan, and don't disobey me again."

"I didn't disobey you…"

"Don't be smart; be clean. Go."

Rolling my eyes, I spin to face Zach and mouth, 'Talk later.' He nods and pulls a small package from his pocket and places it in my own. Then I turn away and brush past Lerner, still tingling from his touch.

Later, as I lie alone in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable bed in a dark room, I gaze at the necklace Zach wrapped inside the package. It's beautiful, it's delicate, it's silver, and it's painfully familiar. My father gave me this necklace a long, long time ago, out of the blue. It was before he went MIA.

At the end of the thin chain there's a little two dimensional globe. My dad said it was there because I was his world, but if that was true, then he would never have left me. On the back of the globe a little '6' is engraved. I never understood why, but, in the words of my mother, "There are so many things in this world you'll never understand, kiddo. But you will spend your life figuring as many of them out as you can."

The thing is: how on earth did Zach get it? I locked it away safely in my most treasured jewellery box the day my mother and I received the news about my dad, until I finally wore it again one day as I accompanied my mum to the CIA headquarters and lost it somewhere along the way.

With questions flooding my mind, I find it absolutely impossible to sleep. Without much thought on the matter, I slide my feet out of bed and onto the rough carpet. It's a chilly night, so I pull on a grey cardigan and rub my hands together.

Thankfully there's no one in the hallways, so I'm not disturbed by anyone as I tip-toe through the silence, my hand clutched tightly around the necklace.

When I reach the door I want, I knock gently but don't wait for a reply. His room isn't as dark as mine, so I can see his sleeping form spread out on the bed, obviously having a rough night, too.

"Zach?" I whisper, causing him to jerk upright, fully alert.

"Cammie?" His face is in the shadows.

I walk slowly towards him and say, "I-I…Maybe we could talk now?"

"Sure," he replies, patting the mattress beside himself.

Not hesitating to get underneath the warmth, I slide in beside him and lie on my side. He copies my position and smiles gently. "I've missed you," he says, taking one of my hands in his own. "No matter what I thought you did, I missed you. Especially when I thought you'd died."

I cast my eyes downward. "It had to be done."

"Did it?" His tone makes me lift my gaze towards his. "Did it really? Or was that the easy way out? And what the heck is with this Chris guy?" Only, he didn't say heck, if you know what I mean.

Frowning, I reply, "He's my partner."

"Right… How long have—"

"We're not together."

Neither the shadows nor the fact that he's a spy can hide the relief on Zach face. That evident relief of his causes a wave of happiness to flood me.

"Oh." Zach's grip on my hand tightens ever so vaguely. "That's good."

As I bite back a smile, the reason why I creeped my way into Zach's room nudges itself to the front of my mind again. "But, Zach, I need you to tell me something." He stays silent, so I continue, "Where did you find the necklace that my father gave to me? It's been lost for years!"

I can tell he's reluctant to answer. "I have…sources. Can we not talk about this? Not right now, at least?"

Hesitantly, I agree. "Don't think I won't ask again."

"I wouldn't for a second." Zach laughs; a sound which fills me to the brim with love. "Do you want help putting it on?"

"Oh, uh, sure." I push myself into an upright position, sitting, and hand Zach the necklace, pulling off my cardigan all the while. He loops it gently around my neck, making sure the little globe at the front is facing the right way before fastening it at the back. Every single time our skin meets, shivers run down my spine.

"I really did miss you, Cammie." Even the way he says my name is amazing. It's like I'm a naïve teenage girl, giggling with my girlfriends over a crush.

"Ditto."

His hands brush my – finally – clean hair off the back of my neck and over one shoulder before his lips meet my skin. He kisses all the way down my neck and stops at my exposed shoulder. Zach spins me around so we're face to face, and I place my hand on his cheek.

When our lips touch, I get way more than fireworks and music and whatever else you're meant to get when the guy you love kisses you. Zach pulls me in close and rests a hand on my hair.

When we break apart, we're both smiling like crazy.

"I especially missed that," I tell him, breathless.

He laughs quietly. "Ditto."

Oh dear. A month and a bit. I am awful, I really am.

I've come down with some sort of flu-migraine thing so I'm not exactly meant to be on the computer. Oh well. And may I just say that the improved fanfiction log-in bit is just odd. I'll get used to it.

Oh and I'm hoping this is the beta-ed version of this chapter. If not, I'll fix it later, seeing as I really cannot be bothered. Right now I just want a tissue and a warm blanket.

So, the amount of reviews I get for this chapter will be the total of zammie lip-locks in future. Just because I'm horrible like that. And because I'm desperate to know people are actually reading this rubbish ;]

Mhm. That's about it from me. No real interesting news. So if you've met the queen or something since the last time I updated, please do tell. I'm pumped for some interesting stories. Any birthdays? Any new pets? Anyone else sick? Mmkay.

I'm out.

~Jen

PMs are very welcomed. Hey, sniffling all day isn't any fun. Got any ideas? Review them or something because I'm running low. Tata.