Kaely was let out the next day; she had asked for a date and they had given her the 24th of March. That was five days; she had been unconscious for five days.
The nurse helped her out of bed and onto her feet before she thanked the woman and left the room, steadily to make sure she didn't stress herself. She made it down the corridor in a pair of loose tracksuit pants and a long sleeved top that she tugged over her hands and fingers. When she got to the end of the corridor, she managed to find directions to the Emergency Department, which also led her to the exit.
Where she found Jared sitting by the door on his phone.
He caught onto her before she could turn around and walk the other way and was walking towards her as he hung up the phone.
"I thought I told you to leave," Kaely sighed, rubbing her forehead as a headache started to press against the walls of her skull.
"And I thought I didn't listen," Jared replied with a shrug. Kaely nodded and pushed past him, going for the exit. She brushed her hair behind her ear as she walked, to get it out of her face but also so she could see Jared jogging up to walk by her side.
"Five days," Kaely announced as they left the hospital, coming onto Robin Warren Drive. They turned left; well, Kaely turned left. Jared was just following her. "I was out for five days. Five whole freaking days."
"Why are you shouting at me?" Jared protested, and Kaely glared at him.
"Oh, sorry," she replied sarcastically. "Did I step out of line? Did I make you feel unwanted?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Kaely," Jared sighed. "You're confused; you need to–"
"Please don't tell me what I 'need to do'," Kaely sighed, pressing ahead. "I've had plenty of rest, alright? I'm not completely useless."
"Where are you going?" Jared announced, jogging after her. She took his phone from his hands to call a taxi.
"I'm going to a hotel," she explained finally. "You say I need to, what, relax? That's what I'm doing. Have a shower or something. I'll sleep." The man she spoke to on the phone told her a taxi was coming her way after she informed him where she was, and she hung up after giving thanks. She chucked Jared his phone.
"Why are you being so blunt?" Jared asked oddly. "I don't even know what I did wrong; I've been here this whole time to make sure you were okay."
"I don't want the charity, okay?" she snapped. Bad move; she really needed to stop getting worked up; coughing hurt her head like that. "It's bad enough with everyone reminding me," she added in a mutter when the coughing died down, but it was more to herself than Jared.
And they waited in silence that was tense to say the least, until the taxi arrived on the road. Kaely got in; waited. Moments later, Jared slipped in beside her, and the man driving asked where they were going.
"Um, could you take us to Doune Place in Willetton, please? Anywhere on the street will be fine, thanks." He set off on the ten minute journey that Kaely had to spend in a dreaded silence beside Jared in a smallish car. Oh, if only he knew...
Kaely lay on her bed with her head in the clouds as Jared sat in a chair by the door. She didn't really know what he was doing; she didn't know why he was so taken aback by her. She couldn't help her emotions, and neither could he, it seemed. It seemed like he was only helping her because she couldn't help herself anymore. But even if that was the case, why did he care? It shouldn't affect her, what Jared thought of her. Nothing he did should've affected her. So the question was simple. If he didn't care about her, then why was he here, helping her? And she frowned.
"Jared," she murmured, and he looked up, surprised that she had spoken.
"Yeah?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair, and Kaely met his gaze unsurely.
"If- if there was something... going on," she began slowly, looking down at her hands, "like something that someone doesn't want me to know, you would tell me if it was important, right?"
As she looked back up at Jared, he was studying her. Curiously.
"Well, of course," he replied with a frown. "What makes you say that?"
Kaely tilted her head sideways. "I was just thinking about how I got here," she lied, "and a thought just came to me; kind of like it was telling me that something's not right. And it kind of dawned on me that I don't exactly know why you're all here. With me."
"Because you were in danger, remember?" Jared told her. "Are you sure you're okay? You might still be in shock."
She closed her eyes against how quickly he discarded her thoughts and breathed in carefully. "I'm not in shock," she replied coolly, opening her eyes. "I'm just curious. You didn't just randomly follow me to the Esplanade that night; you couldn't have. We didn't even know each other. You didn't know that they would come after me."
Jared sighed, rising from his feet before looking back at Kaely.
"You're thinking too much about this," he told her exasperatedly. "Look, get some rest, okay? We'll leave first thing in the morning."
"And where are you going?" Kaely asked irritably. He pursed his lips.
"To shower," he replied and entered the bathroom without another word. When Kaely heard the sound of the shower tap running, she growled frustratedly and sat up, crossing her arms. She hated that they were keeping things from her. Sure, she was the newest member of the 'team' but what point was a 'team' if someone was in the dark about what was really going on? She was determined to find out, but if they thought she knew something they'd cut her off straight away, change the subject or get in the shower.
Unbelievable.
Jared's phone beeped on the chair he had left it on and Kaely's eyes widened. She was on her feet and standing by the chair in an instant and she picked his phone up. It was Lexus, and what it said wrenched her heart sideways because she knew that she had been right when she thought they were hiding something. The message read:
I have eyes on them – coffee at Café Essen.
Kaely gritted her teeth; Café Essen was in Canberra. She knew, because when she had a class camp trip once, they all went to have lunch at that exact place before they went to the Parliament house. So what was Lexus doing in Canberra? Jared said Lexus was in Sydney with the boys only an hour earlier. Knowing something was wrong, Kaely opened Jared's phone; for someone who changed his phone every week, Kaely wasn't surprised when she didn't find a passcode on it. Her hands shaking, Kaely texted back, pretending to be Jared. Lexus couldn't exactly see who was writing, so she hoped it worked.
Who is there?
Playing it safe, she waited impatiently for a reply. The water in the bathroom shut off; a rather quick shower, which left Kaely with not much time at all. She tapped her fingers together impatiently, and finally, Lexus replied.
A & G.
Kaely frowned, returning to her bed with the phone in her hand. If he had the nerve to come up with another lie about it, she didn't know what to do.
He walked out of the bathroom minutes later, a pair of black jeans on his legs. He wasn't wearing a shirt and he looked tired but awake, like the shower had just rebooted his system.
"What's this?" she asked finally as she held Jared's phone up to him. He stopped in his tracks, looked at it for a moment and then looked back at Kaely.
"What did you see?" he asked eventually, and Kaely tilted her head sideways as she looked back down at the screen.
"Lexus has eyes on them," she replied. "In Canberra, actually. You mind telling me who 'A and G' are?"
Jared ran a hair through his wet brown hair and tugged a grey shirt over his head before he came to sit in front of Kaely. He was good at hiding emotions from people, but there was one emotion he couldn't hide from her.
He was nervous.
"Lexus has been... studying some people for us," he explained finally, looking back up to Kaely. "We, uh... we found the people who are supposed to kill the governor-general; it's his secretary; Allison Bryson. She's working with another woman; they've been something of a team for about twenty years, now."
"This has been going on for twenty years?" Kaely demanded. "Oh, that's not important; please, do leave out the minor details."
Jared swallowed. "We– God, I don't want to be the one to have to tell you this," he muttered, raking a hand through his hair as if he would rather be anywhere else in the world than where he was right now.
"What could be so bad that you have to hide it from me?" Kaely asked, the anger slightly dying down as she realised that she was about to be let in on a secret.
"Because it was... it's kind of about you," he admitted, glancing up nervously to see if Kaely was mad. She was waiting for more information.
"Keep going," she said. "I've got all day, cooped up in here."
Jared opened his mouth to continue but as he did, his phone began to ring, and it was still in Kaely's hand. Without hesitating, she answered and held it to her ear, seeing the pain in Jared's eyes as she did so. It made her want to give the phone back to him and forget about everything, but she had to know. If it was about her, she had to know.
"I have eyes on them both, what do you want me to do?" It was Lexus.
"How about telling me what's going on?" Kaely replied, and the phone went quiet for what seemed like an age before Lexus spoke again.
"That was you, on the text?" she asked quietly, and Kaely narrowed her eyes.
"Something's up with you two," she decided. "The others aren't as sceptical, but you are. You're anxious, all the time. Especially when I go somewhere alone. Why didn't you tell me that you've known Wade Smith's secretary was the one trying to kill him? Apparently, she's been working with some other woman for twenty years, and none of you thought it was important to tell me that before she set our room on fire."
"You weren't supposed to find out like this," Lexus warned, gritting her teeth. "I can't tell you; not like this. I'm sorry to put this on Jared, but I can't be cruel. I'm sorry, Kaely."
Lexus hung up, and Kaely put the phone down and sighed. She looked up, her gaze meeting Jared, keeping it calm but cold.
"You tell me what's going on right now," she announced, "or I swear to you I will turn myself in."
Jared's eyes widened and Kaely narrowed her own. He got up, began pacing. He was really nervous now.
"Kaely, you're going to hate me," he tried, and she struggled not to tell him to forget about it. This was more important than what she thought of him. She needed to know what he'd done.
"I don't care," she replied as she picked up his phone. "Tell me, or I'm calling the cops on myself and you'll have to tell me in jail."
Jared studied her for a moment, then visibly relaxed. "You wouldn't," he decided finally, and Kaely raised an eyebrow.
"Oh?" she pressed. "You think so?"
Kaely turned to the phone and dialled the police, holding the phone to her ear. Someone answered, and just as Kaely suspected Jared snatched the phone away and ended the call, keeping it in his own hands.
"Don't ever do that again," he told her firmly.
"Then why don't you just tell me what you've been hiding from me this whole time?" she exclaimed, laughing without humour. "I know something's going on, so why won't you just come out with it?"
"Because it is going to break you, Kaely, and I don't want to be responsible for that!" he shot back. "But you want to know so badly? Fine. The woman who's working with Wade Smith's secretary was identified seventeen days ago."
Kaely stared at him. "That was weeks ago," she hissed, the rage coming out through her voice. "You found out the day you met me, is that it?" Jared glanced up at the ceiling, as if asking for courage to utter his next words.
"We found out her identity the day before we met you," he replied quietly. "When we were in Canberra, they were the two women talking in the court room, the one's who must've told Richard Campbell that we overheard them. Lexus did some digging, and she found something about the woman working with Bryson; something that couldn't be right. We looked into it, and it led us to you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kaely demanded, uncrossing her legs on the bed as her curiosity got the best of her. "What, are you saying that you meant to meet me? That this woman led you to me, and that's why I'm here? For some kind of leverage?"
"It's not like that anymore Kaely, you have to-"
"Don't," she breathed, pointing at him. "Don't tell me that I have to believe you, because I don't want to. This was never about 'protecting me', was it? You were using me to find the secretary."
"Kaely-"
"Who was the woman?"
Jared raked a hand frustratedly through his hair and looked down, avoiding her gaze completely.
"She was- she's supposed to be dead, Kaely," he tried at a last attempt to stop her digging, but she rose from the bed and ignored the pain in his eyes, almost at breaking point.
"Who. Was. The. Woman?" she hissed.
"It was your mother," he burst out suddenly. "Okay? The woman was your mother; Genevieve Monsford."
Kaely hardly had the patience to blink before she was standing right in front of Jared, glaring at him dangerously.
"That's impossible," she hissed. "You've crossed a line, Jared. Using me to your advantage is one thing, but bringing my mother into it? Shallow."
"Kaely, listen to me," Jared pleaded as she pushed past him to get to the door. "Kaely, she's alive; she's in Canberra right now. She's been working with Bryson since you were born; they were both hired by Richard Campbell to kill Wade Smith. They were talking about it in the court room months ago, when we saw them. Lexus ran a background check when we recognised her on television once, and it led us straight to you."
She stiffened, frozen to the spot. She didn't turn, on the fear that Jared would see her expression. She wanted to kill something. Anything. This wasn't possible. But the more she thought about it, the more she found herself accepting it.
"Kaely, you have to believe me," Jared murmured as he stood behind her. She could hear the hurt in his voice. "Your mother did not die in that car crash; she's alive."