Authors note: SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING. I know it's been TWO WHOLE DAYS. I just didn't feel like writing ;-;. I've just been scrolling through the void that is tiktok and lying in bed doing absolutely nothing.

How's your day? What do you guys think of the book so far? LMK if you have any suggestions.

At this point I realized the best way to find Cammie is to follow Macey McHenry. She was going to be in Philadelphia for another convention, and although I didn't think Joe would risk having them do an assignment I had no doubt in my mind that Cammie would do anything to make sure one of her friends were safe.

The problem was, it wasn't her friend in danger.

The train station didn't look like a train station. It was a huge roman-style building with giant columns sprawling across its entrance, adorned with a giant banner that read: WINTERS-McHENRY: PUTTING AMERICA BACK ON TRACK.

The rain fell hard against the sidewalk, the white wig and suit I wore getting drenched quickly. I ran to the side of the east side of the building where (according to the blueprints) there's an elevator access panel. Surprisingly, there were no guards in that area so I was able to slip inside easily.

The station was like another world; the ceiling was 50 feet tall and covered with intricate carvings. A string quartet played Tchaikovsky's String Quarter no. 1 in D major, the music echoing off the stone floors, and I thought back to a very different night, where I wore formal clothes while listening to a string quartet and pretended to be someone else. The ball, the Gallagher academy, and Cammie seemed like such a world ago, but I missed it.

There were at least 500 men and women in the room, eating, drinking, talking. But every pair of eyes in the room was on one girl. She wasn't tall, but she wore stiletto heels paired with a very short dress. She walked with confidence, like every step she took just demanded we look her. She had waist length sweeping black hair that swished when she walked.

The crowd started getting excited, and I knew the candidates must be arriving. A sort of energy was coursing through the old station while the rain pounded against the massive windows.

An ancient looking train with an old-fashioned red, white, and blue bunting hanging from the caboose was slowly moving into the station. Every member of the crowd started screaming loudly.

Governor Winters and Macey's dad stepped out onto the stage behind the caboose, and then their wives. Macey and Preston were one step behind them.

I looked back at the girl from before, but she wasn't smiling. She wasn't waving or screaming for the candidates. Our eyes met for a split second and I knew that the reason I couldn't stop looking at her wasn't because she was sexy... it was because she was Cammie.

I ducked my head into the crowd running towards where Macey was standing, trying to get into the train. I looked into the reflective service and I saw Cammie bump into Preston Winters. She looked at him and smiled, grabbing his arm.

I eased down the length of the train and into the stone tunnel from which it emerged and I ran into Joe Solomon.

"Joe" I said

"Zach? What are you..?"

"No time to explain. I just need you to know something." I said

"What?"

"Macey's not the target. She's never been. It's been Cammie all along."

"Why didn't you say this before?" He snapped at me

"Because... because it's my fault." I looked at him "They're after her because I hacked into the Gallagher Academy records and found her CoveOps report. I don't know why they want her, but they do and-"

"Well, she's safe at the school. I'll make sure headmistress morgan keeps her that way." Said Joe.

"She's not." I said

He looked at me, bewildered. "What do you mean?"

"She's here."

He turned around and walked away, back towards the party, varying his pace in order to hear the footsteps of anyone who might be following in the dark tunnel, a textbook countersurveillance procedure if ever there was one.

The Secret Service was standing guard at the ends of the tunnel, but a small service hatch was open, a cart loaded with trays of food and crates of beverages was waiting to be wheeled on board. I walked slowly toward it, and then in a flash I ducked inside the compartment, knowing Cammie would go in to see her friend.

I grabbed a clipboard and read it's contents. Macey would be in compartment 14. I darted inside and waited for her to come in.

I heard the lock turn, but I had locked it, knowing that wouldn't stop a Gallagher Girl from coming in, and I was right. I grabbed for her, but she ducked out of my reach. I pulled the wig off of her head looking at the wig and then to her wondering why she didn't have the sense to bobby pin the wig on.

I looked her in the eyes, and I was mad. How could she be so stupid? So careless? "You aren't supposed to be here, Gallagher Girl." I'd never been as mad as I had been then. But I wasn't only mad at Cammie. I was mad at myself, for letting this happen.

She looked shocked...then angry. She looked at me coldly and said "You're telling me that I shouldn't be here?"

"It's dangerous," I said, not wanting to explain more. I shouldn't have to explain more. She should be able to trust me. If she loved me, she wouldn't have to question why.

"But she doesn't love you" a small voice inside me whispered.

"In case you haven't noticed, I can take care of myself." she said, just as the trained lurched forward. She lost her balance and I held her in my arms, inhaling her scent of vanilla lotion and cherry chapstick. She started to pull away, but I held her tight, never wanting to let her go ever again.

"Shhh," I said as the voices in the hall outside faded for a second. I looked into Cammie's eyes and then they darted down to her lips. I wanted to kiss her, to freeze time hold her in that moment forever. But I couldn't. She deserved better than me. So instead I smiled at her.

"Nice disguise," I told her.

"You too," She said "It looked even better in Boston."

She saw me in Boston?

I didn't know what to do or what to say. In that small space, my arms still wrapped tight around Cammie, I was completely frozen.

"Yeah I-" I began but was interrupted by someone knocking on the door of the compartment. She looked at me, eyes wide and I looked around the room for somewhere, anywhere to hide.

And finally my eyes landed on the collapsible sleeping bunks. Cammie and I darted inside of it, pressed up closely against one another.

"What's going on, Zach?" she whispered through the pitch blackness of the little collapsible bunk.

My arm was around her waist. My breath was warm on the back of her neck. I could hear a woman in the tiny compartment saying, "Macey, I don't want to argue about this anymore. Just wait in here," but Cammie didn't really feel like being quiet.

"You were in Boston, Zach." she said

"Shhh," I whispered, pulling her closer with a jerk around my middle.

Outside our tiny bunk I heard more voices coming from compartment fourteen. I recognized Macey's voice, but not the man she was with.

"You know," the deeper of the two voices said, "I've been told this is my best suit."

"That's how you knew about the laundry chute," she hissed. "Why were you there, Zach?" she whispered, growing desperate.

"Not now." I whispered firmly.

"And don't say it was because we were in danger, because at the time we weren't in any danger."

"You want to take a nap or something?" I whispered.

"Yeah, and while we're on the subject, why are you here?"

"I could ask the same thing of you, Gallagher Girl, except we should be shutting up now.

The voices outside had stopped. Macey and the man weren't talking anymore, but they were still out there. Because there were sounds. Sounds I recognized. Sounds I really didn't want to think too much about. Because I think they were the sounds of kissing.

"What were you and Mr. Solomon talking about?" she said a little too loudly.

"You don't get it, do you?" I twisted her so that our faces were inches away from each other in the black. "This is dangerous"

"Cammie," I said "This is—"

"Yeah. I kinda figured that out the day I woke up with a concussion." she snapped

"Don't make light of this."

"What about 'concussion' is synonymous with 'making light'?"

"You shouldn't be here," I said again slowly, trying to make her understand.

"You're here," she snapped back.

"Listen, this is no place for…"

"A girl? A student?" she said. "What, Zach? Tell me what you are that I'm not."

I looked at her, not wanting to lie, but not up to the full truth either. "I'm someone who doesn't have anything to lose."

Everything else went away then—the noise from outside, the rocking of the car, the pressure, and the fatigue. I wanted to kiss her, to tell her the 3 words that had been ringing through my mind since we met sophomore year that night in D.C. And maybe she would have said them back.

But we'll never know.

Because just as I touched her face, the world fell out from underneath us. Gravity took hold. One moment I was holding the girl I loved in my arms, and the next I was landing like a ton of bricks on the hard, cold floor of a moving train while Macey McHenry stared down at me. And the girl underneath me. And said, "Well, this wasn't on my agenda."

"Ms. McHenry!" a male voice shouted from the other side of the door. "Secret Service! Is everything okay?"

I was splayed on top of Cammie, one of my legs tangled with Macey's backpack. A tray of food had fallen with us and was now splattered all over the floor.

Macey looked at us, the most unusual look on her face, as if she knew that, with a single word she could bring that door—and our entire world—crashing down. She smiled, savoring the moment before she slowly said, "Everything's fine. I just knocked over a tray."

"Shall we send a porter to—"

"No!" Macey snapped. "I want to be alone, or is that too hard to understand?"

I heard retreating footsteps.

Macey dropped to the bench across from us while Cammie and I tried to right ourselves.

"Hi, Zach," she said, her right leg swinging as she sat with it crossed over her left.

"Hey, Macey," I said, as if I fell out of ceilings and into the private chambers of the most highly protected girl in the country every day. ( I didn't) "Sorry to drop in," I said, looking over and Cammie with a mischievous glint in my eye "but Cammie just had to be alone with me. You know how she gets."

She smacked my arm.

I flinched. "You know, you're going to hurt me one of these days, and then you're going to feel really bad about it."

"Yeah," she started, "well, maybe if you would be honest with me for one—"

"Um, just so you know," Macey said, cutting Cammie off as she leaned back, enjoying the show, "Abby will be back in approximately two minutes, so you lovebirds might want to make this quick."

I totally expected the Cammie to recoil at the word "lovebirds." But she didn't. I grabbed the bag I've been carrying and turned to Macey. "Thanks." I placed my knee on the bench and leaned toward the dark window, staring into the black as I said, "This is my stop anyway."

"Hey, McHenry, you mind?" I gestured to the door then stepped back as Macey opened it and checked the aisle.

"Oh, officer," she called to the sentry stationed in the hall outside. "Can I see your gun?"

As the man turned his back on us, and I dashed out into the hall and to the door at the end of the car, Cammie followng. I stopped suddenly and turned to her. "Hey, Gallagher Girl," I said, looking at me more deeply than he ever had, "promise me something."

The train was faster now. Night streamed through the windows. I stepped closer to her.

"Be"—I reached up and gently touched the place where her bruise had been as if it were still fresh and swollen—"careful."

And then I stepped to the end of the car and slid open the door. The noise was overpowering for an instant. We were going over a great ravine, nothingness streaming on both sides as I spread my arms out wide. I looked back at her for one fleeting second.

"I love you" I thought

And jumped into the night.