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She was right, but that didn’t mean I had to say so

"What does this have to do with Zach?"

"People go crazy in different ways," Bex said with a shrug "Liz took up baking--alround But Zach…well, the two of you really are a lot alike, because Zach…ran away"

"So…" I thought about the look in the old wo ht have found me"

I know it sounds weak and all, but the truth is, I had to lie down Maybe it was the lingering effects of being too thin and too banged up for ood, but it was more like the words were too heavy for me

"What does that mean?" I stared up at Bex "What does it mean--that he found me and then…left one teeks and then he ca with me not to jump to terrible conclusions

"But maybe, in the meantime, he’d found me," I said

"No," Macey said "He didn’t"

"You don’t know that," I told her

"No, but I know boys" She exhaled a half-laugh "And I know liars And when school started, Zach was as in the dark about where you were and where you’d been as anyone"

"We’ve got to call Moot to call her and have her ask him where he went"

"We did," Bex said There was a strange light in her eyes when she said, "He told us he went looking for you"

"What aren’t you telling ," Macey said, easing onto theelse you need to know"

She looked totally convincing--sounded totally convincing But I wasn’t convinced Maybe it was the spy inanyht, even as I slept, I saw the city streets They were eh Too dark Too cold So pulled me forward, down a path I didn’t know And beneath it all, there was a word that kept washing over ainst me like a wave

Cammie

Cammie

Cah the haze

Ca closer, and so I fled, past closed doors and heavy gates The fog grew thicker, and I ran

"Cammie, wait!" Zach yelled, but I couldn’t trust the words Didn’t trust my own mind There were sirens and horns and the feel of the wind

"Cammie, stop!" he yelled

Another horn The rush of air

"Carabbed me, pulled , but er struck the pavement I tried to toss and turn--to break free--but the covers led around me There was no escape

"No," I said to"No No No"

"Caher Girl, wake up!"

"No, no," I said, certain I could stop the dreae it I was so sure there were answers at the end of that dark walk, and I had to stay there--stay sleeping to find them

"Cammie!"

My back slammed into a wall, and only then did I bolt awake

A car horn screa traffic as Zach held me on a narrow sidewalk

"Ca ain "Tell me you’re okay Tell me--"

"Where a back to me I knehere I was, and most of all, who I was supposed to be with "Zach?"

"Cammie, are you hurt?"

"Why are you here, Zach? Why aren’t you at school? Why are you…" I remembered Abby’s hushed conversation behind closed doors, the look that had passed between Macey and Bex when I’d asked why one last summer

"You ran away" I wasn’t sure if I was talking about now or about last summer It didn’t really lanced up and down at the dark street "Looks like I was right to"

"So you just…left?"

Zach huffed "All the cool kids are doing it"

When he reached for o back the way I’d come Then I realized I had no idea which way that was I earing Macey’s shoes and Bex’s jeans and a T-shirt with a tear on the sleeve My hair was blowing all aroundto the corners of h the night

"Ca--"