Hi guys! This is the last chapter, so the poll for deciding the cover of Exagora is now closed. Thankyou all of you for voting - I would have had a hell of a time trying to decide the cover without you all. The voting was even the whole way through, with Dan, Caroline and Mastermind tying for most of it. As it turned out, there was a tie in the end between Dan and Caroline (figures, it's the brother and sister who tie) so I got to pick which out of the two would be the cover for Exagora, and I picked our lovely Care. :) Once again, thank you for voting and for supporting this story and teh first chapter of Exagora will be up sometime in the next week. Enjoy!

"So you're telling me that he," Dan said, gesturing to Ains, "cannot remember his own brother and sister, but he can remember his mum?"

"He," Ains said in annoyance from his spot beside me, "has a name."

"Caroline," Zoe said, turning to me, "you said you had theories. What were they?"

I nodded. "I've got two. The first one's that Ains hit his head when the car crash and he lost parts of his memory, but it doesn't seem very likely. He would have worked it out before now, if that was the case."

"Fair enough," Vanessa said, her arms folded over her chest. "What's your other theory?"

I took a deep breath. "This is going to sound really crazy, but . . . I think James erased – "

"Wait, who's James?" Dan asked, cutting me off.

"Mastermind," Vanessa said, rolling her eyes. "Did you really think he didn't have a name?"

"Yes," Dan replied. Beside him, Zoe smiled in amusement.

"Well, he does have a name and clearly, it's James," I said. "Anyway, I think that James erased certain parts of your memory."

"What parts?" Ains demanded, standing. "What parts would he want to – "

"Eric and Susannah!" I cried, jumping to my feet. "You'd only known them for two weeks. You were a little kid, Ains, you'd just lost your mum, and now your brother and your sister. He'd just lost two of his kids, his wife, and his little boy, the only son he had left, was going through something that no little kid should have to go through."

Ains stared at me. "He erased my memory of my own brother and sister, to save me from pain?" he took a step back, shaking his head. "No. I refuse to believe that."

"Ains – " I started, but he shook his head, as if he were trying to clear it.

"I . . . " he glanced around, almost like a trapped animal. "I need to go. I'll see you later, alright?"

"Okay," I said quietly as he stepped towards me, his hand finding the junction between my jaw and my neck as he dropped a quick kiss onto my head. I closed my eyes, reveling in the feel of his lips against my skin, before he was gone, moving out of my room and out of my house. My first instinct, stronger than anything I'd ever felt before in my sixteen – almost seventeen – years was to go after him, but I dug my fingernails into the mattress as I sat down, forc myself to stay where I was.

"Are you alright?"

I turned to look at Zoe and nodded. "Yeah, just worried about . . ." I trailed off, gesturing towards the open door.

"He'll be fine," Vanessa said, dropping down beside me on the bed and putting her arm around me. "He just needs some time to think. He's just lost his best friend, nearly lost his girlfriend, found out that he had a brother and sister he never knew about, that his memory might have been altered and his father might not be as evil as previously thought."

"Why would that change anything? He's still evil now – "

"Ains has always believed that losing Natalie, losing his mum like that, it drove James over the edge and that was why he joined KORPS. But if he joined KORPS to save Ains from as much pain as possible, then everything changes." Zoe said quietly.

We were all silent for a very long time until Dan said, "Care, this idea, of Mas – James Mitchell erasing Ains' memory . . . it's crazy."

"You don't think I don't know that?" I snapped turning to face him.

"It's not even possible."

"Why not?" I asked. "Who's to say that it's not, Dan? They can clone people. Look around you. There are eighty-three clones of James Mitchell in this world. You're dating one and you've kissed another. Zoe, Kloe, Keri and Libi. He's cloned himself, Dan. With the intent of erasing them as people! We have no idea what he's capable of."

"For all we know, there's eighty-three people who have holes in their memory that KORPS experimented on before they erased Ains' memory of Eric and Susannah," Vanessa said quietly. "It is possible."

"It was so precise," Zoe said quietly, turning to Dan. "Do you realise how unlikely it is that a single blow to the head would erase his memory of Eric and Susannah that seamlessly?"

"It would be practically impossible," Dan said.

Vanessa nodded and took a deep breath. "I think we need to look into the accident."

Dan nodded and then ushered Zoe out, closing the door behind him. When they were gone, I gave Vanessa a tired look and flopped back onto the bed.

"Do you think it'll ever stop?" I asked. "Do you think we'll ever be safe?"

"Safe? No. But I do think we'll be able to fool ourselves into thinking we're safe one day." Vanessa replied.

"When?" I asked.

"When KORPS is gone." Vanessa replied, looking down and tracing an imaginary symbol on my blanket. Even without seeing what it was that she was drawing, I could just make out what it was – three spirals, all coming out of the same point. I knew it was a Celtic symbol, but I couldn't remember what it was called. I knew it was a big part of a show she liked.

Without thinking about it, I sat up and hugged her tight. When I broke away, Vanessa looked puzzled. "What was that for?"

"For always being straight with me," I replied. "A lot of people aren't. Because they think I can't handle it, because I'm small or blonde or whatever. And because I wanted know if you're doing okay."

Vanessa nodded and looked away, presumably so I couldn't see the tears in her eyes. "I just miss him. It hurts and I feel guilty that it does."

"Why would you – "

"Because I was going to break up with him. And he died thinking . . ."

Pokol eljön érted, szerelmem.

"Ness . . . " I said. "Camden told me to tell you something. Just before he . . . died."

Pain flared in my chest, even as I forced it down. Saying that Camden was dead, something about it made it real, made it sink in that he was gone and he was never coming back.

"What was it?"

I took a deep breath and then said, hoping I was saying it right, "Pokol eljön érted, szerelmem."

I expected tears. I expected crying.

What I didn't expect was for Vanessa to frown and say, "That's not funny, Caroline."

"Wait, what? What are you talking about? What did he say?"

Vanessa stared at me. "It wasn't you?"

"What did I just say?"

"Pokol eljön érted, szerelmem," Vanessa said. "Right?"

"Right."

"It's Hungarian. 'Hell will come for you, my love.'"

I frowned at her. "Wh . . . Why would Camden want you to hear that?"

Vanessa shrugged helpless, brushing tears out of her eyes. "I don't know. But I have a feeling it's somehow mixed up in the great gigantic mess that is why KORPS knew to try to drown you." At my slightly terrified look, she smiled and wrapped one arm around my shoulders again. "But we'll figure it out, okay? You, me, Ains and Oscar. We'll figure it out and we'll come out of it okay. Okay?"

"Okay," I repeated, and then dissolved into giggles. Somewhere inside of me, I knew Vanessa was right. I knew that although Camden was dead, and Ains was questioning everything he thought he knew, and KORPS wanted my head, I somehow knew we'd all be okay. I believed it. I had to, because the alternative was to allow my own pain and terror to swallow me whole.