She woke up in a dark cold place, there were dim light glowing around the corner, she wanted to get up and inspect, but her body was so sore she could hardly move.
"Well that was a disaster!" the voice said.
"Where am I?" Chloe asked, her own voice echoed, like she was in a cave. "And who are you?"
She heard footsteps, light but clear, then in front of the dim light revealed a figure.
"Have you forgotten who you are?" the figure approached. "Or who I am?"
Before her stood a reflection of herself, with long blonde hair resting on her chest. She dressed in denim jacket and matching jeans, standing beautiful as ever. Seeing how far it became of herself, Chloe broke into tears.
They were on a family vocation in Europe, visiting from country to country. JoJo joined them by the end of the tour, invited them to her yacht. Clara had to get ready for school, so Chloe stayed while her family travelled back to the State.
No one expected the plane went down shortly after took off from Rome, taking all passengers with it.
Officials said it was a terrorist act, and Chloe became obsessed finding the group responsible for the two hundred and thirty-seven lives in the lost, but after Morris, Garrison, even JoJo failed her, she shut herself from the world, refused to see anyone, refused to eat and sleep, until one day she decided to sell everything and went on a path of revenge.
"I tried to steer you away, many times, until you shut me out too." her reflection said. "Now look at you. You're nothing but a freak!"
Chloe sobbed. With what her parents left her, she could still live a good life, instead she spent it all on her obsession, leaving with nothing but the clothes she was wearing, in a dark cave in the middle of nowhere.
"You should give up."
"Get out! I don't need your sympathy!" Chloe cried.
"Aren't those my words?" a new voice asked.
She looked up and saw Kalani, the tall Columbian girl sat across from her, placing a can of water on a rock. Chloe immediately covering with her hand, feeling deep shame of her disfigured face.
"Look on the bright side, an eye patch will make you look like a really bad ass!"
Somehow Chloe was glad that it was Kalani seeing to her, the gangster girl has seen all kind of ugliness. Anyone else would find her hideous now.
"Maybe I should shoot myself too? I'll make sure to do it the right way." Chloe said, remembering the unfortunate story of Kalani's best friend.
"I'm glad you still have your humor!"
Chloe picked up the can and took a drink, water taste ever so sweet in this part of the world.
"Are the others all right?"
"What? D'you think you are the only one who can make it out here? They're having a barbecue right next door!"
Chloe chuckled, relief that everyone was safe.
"And they are waiting for you. Paige won't start without you." Kalani stood up.
"I'm not hungry." Chloe shook, thinking how she must look to them now.
"But I'm starving! So if you don't join us, I'm gonna shove a gazelle's leg down your throat!" she helped Chloe to her feet.
"Wait." Chloe stopped her. "May I borrow this?"
Chloe slipped the scarf off Kalani's shoulder, wrapped it over her head and her lost eye. Her memory has returned, so did her dignity.
"Really? Do you need a blow dryer too, Princess?" Kalani sent her a glare.
Round the corner, everyone was sitting around a bonfire. By the glowing flame Chloe made out an old cave, around the fire was Brooke, Paige, Kendall and JoJo, just like the camp fire they had a long time ago, or a life time ago.
"Chloe! You're up!" Paige was the first to jump to her feet, then Kendall, then JoJo.
Chloe turned her face away, wanting so bad to hide her wound. She has isolated her friends for so long, but now they all hugging her like it was yesterday.
"I'm sorry!" she sobbed. "I'm so sorry!"
"I miss you, Chloe! I miss you soooo much!" everyone said.
She hugged them one by one, their voices, their smell of hair, bringing every loving memory back. And then she looked up.
"Brooke!" Chloe jumped into her embrace, like a long lost sister, who she almost killed. "I'm sooo sorry!"
"It's all right." Brooke nodded.
"But I almost killed you!"
"Yeah!" Brooke cocked her head. "I bet you thought of that the time I beat you to the pyramid!"
Her words surprised Chloe, but it made her laugh, something she also forgotten long ago. They invited her around the fire, where Paige began cutting the meat like a chef.
"What is this?" Chloe looked at the roasting meat.
"It's a gazelle!"
"Paige ate half a gazelle all by herself yesterday!" JoJo explained.
"The gazelle that I shot!" Brooke added.
"No, you didn't! Your gun shot it!"
Chloe laughed watching the sisters fought, like she hasn't left the team at all.
Over dinner they exchanged stories, but mostly just Paige and Kendall updating gossips from back home. Chloe listened quietly, she hasn't felt so peaceful for a very long time. It made her questioned whether her doing was worthy, she took revenge over the lost of her family, but this is her family right here.
She looked at the tattoos over her arms, each of them marked a step towards insanity, they were now forever imprinted on her skin. Is it too late to turn back?
"These are so cool! This is like Prison Break!" Paige touched the tattoos. "And you know Arabic?"
"It's not hard when you're living in it." Chloe smiled.
"I want a tattoo!" Paige turned to her sister.
"Say that right in front of Mom and see what she says." Brooke threw her little sister a look.
"Something smells good." Morris' giant figure came casting over the girls. "Too bad I forgot to pick up some spice from the market, they are quite famous around here."
Chloe jumped up to hug him, burying her face to his chest, thinking he was the only adult member of her family now.
"I'm glad to see that you're okay, Chloe." the big man looked down and brushed her poorly shaved head.
She held onto him for a long time, never wanted to let go, sobbing hard in his embrace, soaking his shirt with her tears.
"It's all right, cry away. This is not my favorite shirt." his word made her chuckle. He always did.
Settled back around the fire, Morris asked her to explain her original plan. Chloe bit her lips for a while before putting them into words.
She has spent everything on tracking down the source, bribing officials and criminals, tracing the path of the weapon, supplier and buyer. It all came down to one man : Abdullah Azzam, a separatist from the ISIS group, wanting his own power and land.
Under false identity she posed as a rich girl from Ukraine - Jacque Salenko, and for over a year she has been buying his trust, supporting him with money and small arms, until recently he agreed to meet in person, under her offer of two hundred French surface-to-air missiles.
"Where did you come up with that name?" Kendall asked.
"Iana Salenko, the famous Ukrainian ballerina." Chloe answered.
"Where did you get the missiles?" Paige asked.
"You can get anything in the black market. Am I right, Morris?" Chloe turned to him.
"How did you end up in Bakufa?"Morris asked.
Chloe let out a sigh.
"I was on my way back from Telskuf, there was an attack at a church, I was trying to save the children. I think I was hit by a RPG."
"Always a hero!" Kalani snorted.
"How are you meeting Azzam?" Morris asked again.
"His men are expecting me in Lalish." Chloe touched the tattoos on her arm. "They will instruct me from there."
"That's up the mountains, at his territory. He'll probably trap you and shoot you once they got the missiles. How were you planning to get out?"
"I wasn't." Chloe shook. "My plan was to set off the missiles and go down with him. I know how to do it."
Everyone stunned, but Chloe simply stared into the fire.
"It sounds silly, I know. But there's nothing out there for me now."
"An eye for an eye! What an artful way for a dancer's revenge!" Kalani praised, but everyone glared at her, as if the "eye" word was a taboo, everyone except Chloe.
"Yes." she nodded. "Taking him down the same way he took my family."
There was a long moment of silence, everyone just staring into the fire, thinking of the past, of the present, how things turned out so unexpectedly.
"What about us?" Kendall broke the silence.
"What?"
"I mean, aren't we your family too?"
"You should have come to me." JoJo said. "My father could have helped you."
"No, JoJo. The last thing I want is to get you guys all involve." Chloe said.
"Kendall is right. He hurt you, he's making enemy with all of us."
"No!" Chloe said firmly. "This is exactly why I didn't want you to be part of this. You guys are too important to me, I don't want to lose any one of you!"
"That is exactly why we can't let you do this alone!" Kendall was on the brink of tears.
"Does this Azzam know you are traveling alone?"
Everyone turned to the voice, almost forgotten that Slava was smoking in the dark.
"We communicated through encrypted mail. We never spoke, and he didn't ask."
"So he isn't expecting you to come with a convoy." Kalani nodded.
"What are you getting at?" Morris looked at the two girls.