Sorry, guys, but this isn't the chapter you were expecting. It isn't what I was expecting either, which is disappointing. I mean, I've been planning this chapter since May. It's supposed to be the crowning jewel in this fic, my masterpiece. But it just falls flat.

However, the beta services of SqueakyDolphin6 did help. Thanks! To Evanescence456 - I know you said you wanted to beta, but this has been sitting around for too long and I wanted to get it over with. Sorry.

Anyway, read it, and PLEASE REVIEW.

You have feelings for the girl.

That simple statement set Ian's mind whirling. It wasn't true. Of course it wasn't. It couldn't be. And yet it somehow explained things, like the way he hadn't been able to force himself into action when Hamilton arrived. And before that, long before that, those strange feelings of guilt and regret that had plagued him after he'd left Amy for dead under Pukhansan.

And yet it couldn't be true. It couldn't. If it was, then that would be catastrophic.

Ian's thoughts were spinning around dizzyingly fast, and he couldn't get a grip on them. So he settled for the only word he could muster up.

"What?"

"You heard me." Isabel stared at Ian for a moment, livid, then lunged forward and dealt him a furious blow that knocked him backwards on the seat and left a bloody handprint on his face. "You have feelings for the girl," Isabel repeated. "I had my suspicions before, but now... this is far more serious than I thought."

Ian didn't reply. Even if he'd been able to decide what he was thinking, the blow had dazed him. His face was on fire; gingerly he put a hand to his cheekbone and his fingertips came away red. It took him a moment to realize that the blood wasn't his, wasn't even human. Finally he found his voice. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about." The derisive sneer was absent from Isabel's cosmetically altered face, but evident in her voice. "I should never have let you go ahead with that assignment in Korea... you seem to have started to believe it yourself."

Again that unbidden memory of What Happened Outside The Cave At Pukhansan rose to the forefront of Ian's mind: Amy's face, speechless, eyes wide, right after he'd kissed her... No! It had been a ploy, a trick. He'd been faking it to gain her trust, and now that that episode was over, it was long since time to return to reality.

"It explains so much," Isabel went on. "Russia, for instance. You didn't give Irina an official kill order - "

"I told her to get Amy and Dan out of Russia." It was extremely dangerous to defend oneself against Isabel, but Ian felt he had to. "She knew what it I meant."

"Then why not just say it?"

Looking back on it, Ian remembered the moment when he'd made the call. He'd been about to tell Irina, flat out, to kill Amy and Dan, but Amy's face had appeared in his mind - just for the briefest instant - and for some unknown reason, he'd changed his wording. But he couldn't tell Isabel this, so he gave her the excuse he'd given himself: "The line wasn't secure. Someone might have been listening." It sounded feeble even to his ears.

"Of course." Isabel's voice didn't exactly drip with sarcasm, but the few drops with which it was infused were even more cutting. "I would never have believed it of you, Ian. To have feelings for one of our enemies! And not just any enemy - one of Grace's grandchildren, branch unknown, possibly the biggest variable in the entire Clue hunt..."

"Mother!" This was just too unfair. "Why would I ever feel anything towards that girl? She's an orphan, penniless - "

" - worthless, clueless, brainless, insignificant, and a coward. Not to mention, in a week or so, she'll probably be lifeless as well. She isn't even worth your notice!"

Ian had to clamp his teeth together to stop the unexpected retorts that rose in his throat against Isabel's stream of insults. Amy wasn't clueless - she and her brother seemed to have all the leads so far. She wasn't at all brainless, as he'd noticed in Korea; quite intelligent in fact. She wasn't insignificant, being Grace's grandchild; Isabel had said so herself. No coward either, as her bravery just now had attested. And she wasn't going to die anytime soon. Not with the resourcefulness she and her brother had shown.

Ian didn't say any of this out loud, though. That was what Isabel wanted. She was baiting him into it. So he simply repeated, "I don't feel anything for her."

"Oh, you do. I can only imagine. Sympathy?"

The stirrings of pity he'd felt upon closing the doors at Pukhansan...

"Curiosity?"

...the way he kept finding her so intriguing...

"Admiration?"

...how did she and her brother manage to be in the lead, with such limited resources?

"Perhaps even - " Isabel's voice was acid; caustic, sarcastic, wounding. Her scalpel voice. " - love?"

Love...

A tactic, a stepping stone... lovely...

No. It was ridiculous. "I don't have feelings for her." His voice shook slightly.

"You seem so certain." Still the scalpel voice. "Well, if you insist, then we have nothing more to say." Isabel turned away, ending the discussion, and fired up the motor again.

The boat roared to life, and Ian realized that, now that the adrenaline had faded, his stomach was not happy with the waves. Boats. He didn't like boats. A large yacht in the relatively calm canals of Venice - that was fine. But a tiny speedboat in the open water? As the boat shot forward, Ian felt his stomach clench, and he had to struggle not to be sick.

Love...

No.

Isabel seemed determined to punish Ian for his wavering loyalties. The boat slammed into waves, heaved up and down, and shot around corners at an unnecessary speed. Ian's stomach felt like it was trying to force its way up through his throat, and unless he wasn't careful, that was going to happen soon.

The boat finally jolted to a dead halt next to the dock, throwing Ian forward on his seat. Isabel stepped off gracefully; Ian followed, stumbling twice.

The car was waiting for them at the end of the dock, its motor idling. Natalie was sitting in the back seat. As Ian opened the door, she took one look at him and demanded, "What happened to you?" She indicated her chartreuse purse lying in her lap. "You're this color."

"Seasick," he managed, sitting down.

Natalie edged away from him. "Well, don't throw up on me. This sweater is new." She leaned towards their mother. "How did it go? Did you get the - " She seemed to guess the answer from the look on Isabel's face, as well as the fish blood covering her clothes, and fell silent.

The chauffer didn't seem to notice the blood covering Isabel - then again, he'd been paid a considerable amount not to notice anything. Instead he just started the car. Ian swallowed convulsively, and thought about lowering the window. No... too much of a security risk.

Without turning around, Isabel announced, "Ian had a few problems today." Her voice was still the diamond hard scalpel.

Natalie glanced at Ian. "What kind of problems?"

"Girl problems."

The sarcasm hit home. "Mother, I already told you - " Ian fell silent under his mother's warning look.

Natalie nodded as though she understood exactly what Isabel was talking about. Good God. Did everyone in Ian's family know his thoughts better than he did?

The nausea was starting to recede, but the confused thoughts remained. If he had feelings for Amy - if he'd been in love with her - wouldn't he have known it by now?

Four words slowly drifted to the forefront of his mind. I love Amy Cahill. A simple statement, yet so utterly bewildering. It was alien, incomprehensible. Those four words did not belong together, simple as that.

And yet, somehow, they fit together perfectly.

No. Ludicrous, foolish, impossible. Ian looked down at his fingers and realized that they were still stained brown with dried blood from when Isabel had slapped him. He scraped at the stains with a fingernail, but they wouldn't yield, so he returned his gaze to the window. The ocean was zipping by, a blur of blue-green, with his reflection in the glass staring back at him. His thoughts turned again to the boat, and for an instant, the reflection of amber eyes in the window gave way to another pair: jade green, wide open in terror...

Ian leaned his head against the window - not the safest thing to do, but the area had already been secured, and the glass was bulletproof. He suddenly felt very tired. All he wanted to do now was to get back to the hotel and rest for a while. Isabel's insults towards Amy ran through his mind again - worthless, clueless, brainless, insignificant, a coward - and he held on to them, trying to convince himself that they were true, to distract himself from the other words sneaking in at the edge of his thoughts: intelligent, resourceful, gentle, caring, trusting, quick-witted... And again that word: lovely... the moment before he kissed her... Had that been the moment when everything spiraled out of his control? Now Isabel and Natalie seemed to know something about him that he didn't know about himself. But they were wrong. Weren't they? They had to be wrong. He had to be wrong.

It was no use. He could argue with himself all he wanted, but those four perplexing words were still planted in his mind, and nothing he could do would get them out.

The car stopped outside the hotel. Isabel got out without a word, leaving stains of fish blood in the seat, and Ian and Natalie followed. The silence remained unbroken as they entered and rode the elevator to their floor.

Finally Isabel spoke as she opened the door to their suite. "We have to deal with Irina. Go change and get cleaned up - " she indicated the bloodstains on his sleeve and fingertips - "and when I come out, I'll expect you to act like the Lucian you've been trained to be." She strode inside her own room, leaving Ian and Natalie behind.

Natalie grinned. "I don't think Irina is going to have a very good afternoon." The fact obviously gave her cause for happiness. None of them liked Irina, with her silent, grim presence. "Then again, you probably won't either."

Ian nodded briefly. That, he knew, was true.

Natalie studied him critically. "What's gotten into you? Ever since Korea..."

"Look, whatever you and Mum think about me, it's wrong."

Natalie shook her head in annoyance. "Maybe you're the one who's wrong." She turned to go into her room, then turned. "Mum was right, by the way - you need a wash and a change of clothes. You have blood on your sleeve, your hands, your face and your shoes, and I can practically smell the fish from here."

Ian could smell it too. It wasn't him, it was the lingering odor from Isabel's soaked clothes. But he wasn't about to defend himself here - she might overhear him. Instead he pulled open the door to his room and shut the door.

His thoughts were still in turmoil, and he was starting to be seriously worried. He didn't usually have doubts like this - for so long, and in such intensity.

Focus, he told himself. Think about the Clue hunt. He ran over all the items they had that might be important, all locations that pointed to possible clues, all the weaknesses they could exploit in the other teams.. being careful not to think of one team in particular... Forget Amy. Forget all that idiocy. You're a Kabra and all that ridiculous sentiment is For Losers Only.

Slowly, Ian brought his unruly thoughts under control. But there was still an itch in the back of his mind, and he was afraid to touch it for fear that it would burst open and all the doubts would come flooding back.

An hour later, Isabel came to retrieve him. "Are you focused now?" There was an evident threat in her voice.

"Yes," Ian replied. "I'm fine."

Was it the truth? He had no idea.

I know. Hastily ended. Very, very hastily ended. But no matter which point I looked at, I couldn't think of anything to do, so I just went with my best shot.

By the way, today in Social Studies we were talking about Egyptian mythology and of course it was all I could do to keep from laughing the entire time. Especially when this one boy said "Hello, I am Khufu the great pharaoh." And when Mr. Miller was talking about Anubis... I lost it and started silently cracking up. Then when we were talking about the Rosetta Stone... you get the idea.

Anyway... please review. This is your last chance. If you had me on alert all this time and never reviewed, do so now. Tell me what you liked and what you didn't like, because this is the last chapter and I want your opinion.