Mae stood up from the computer, breathing out a sigh of relief. "That's another one home safely."

"How many do we have so far?" Kelly asked, busy typing on her own computer.

"Luckily the message got to us in good time." Mae replied, clicking away. "There's one hundred and sixty-two home. They all managed to get rid to the agents on their tail. There's a number who we don't know about yet, and then there's eighty-seven who's rings have been deactivated. It is almost certain they have been taken by the government."

"One hundred and sixty-two?" Kelly paused for a second, disgusted. "Only that amount?"

Mae looked at her sternly. "Think about it this way. It would be one hundred and sixty-two Cupids less if that government official hadn't had changed sides and told us what they were planning."

"What was her name again?"

"Betty." She answered. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, and the stopped with a sudden clack. She sat back in her chair. "That's the last portal opened. Now all we can do is watch and wait."

***

My eyelids lifted groggily up, to reveal a window with trees moving fast around it. It took a few seconds for my brain to register that I was in a fast moving car.

My gaze flickered over to Harriet, behind the wheel. Her face was white, making her hair stand out something shocking, and her foot was glued to the accelerator. For a moment I thought she hadn't noticed me, but then she said calmly, "you're awake."

"Yes I am. No thanks to you," I retorted, remembering how she had pressed a sleeping drug up to my mouth in the bathroom. "What are you doing, Harriet?" I tried to sit up straighter to make myself more comfortable, but then I realised my hands were bound tightly around the car seat. "Is this a dream?" Even as I said it I knew it wasn't. It felt all too real.

Harriet rolled her eyes. "Look, I'm sorry things had to be like this, but I had no other choice."

"Start explaining yourself, or I'll make you." I knew I was in no position to be making threats, and she knew too. But I played on her guilty expression, and sure enough, after a few moments she caved in.

"It's my employers. They said I had to do it like this. It would take too long to explain everything to you properly." She said, and I kept myself quiet for once because I knew there was more. "Do you remember your first day at WA? Do you remember the things Kelly told you? Well, one of them was to stay a secret, because we couldn't let the government catch onto us."

I was about to nod my agreement when my blood ran cold. "Wait. How do you know that?"

Harriet looked up at the car roof. "Come on, Rosie. Haven't you figured it out by now?"

"Are you someone from the government?" I whispered, forming the only logical explanation I could find for this strange behaviour.

To my surprise, she laughed. "I can't believe you think that badly of me. No, I'm another Cupid."

The breath caught in my throat and I choked unceremoniously. "Wait? What?"

"I'm a Cupid." Harriet shrugged, pressing her foot down even further. "What, you didn't think we'd let you go this alone, did you? We didn't even know if you could be trusted! It's common practise, believe me. But now that the government's after us, it because even more important for me to keep an we out for you. So in a situation like this, we'd be well prepared."

I shook my head. "You can't be. Julia's known you her whole life."

Harriet smiled to herself sadly. "Julia thinks she's known me her whole life. It's called a blending in ring." She wriggled her finger. "It helps create an illusion. In truth, I arrived about two hours before you."

I stared at her, suddenly seeing her in a whole different light. To me, she really didn't look like someone who would happily spread love. But there was more to it. "So was your coming out just part of the pretence?"

Harriet sighed, her hands slumping slightly. "It's... Complicated."

"In our business, when's it ever uncomplicated?" I laughed harshly, gazing out the window. "But still... Why am I tied up here?"

"Because there are people from the government here." Harriet told me, a steely glint in her eye. "And they know everything about us. They want to capture and kill us. Worst of all, they've come disguised as someone else, having copied the design of our ring. Think about it. Who only appeared in the group recently? Who has been acting extremely oddly?"

With a heavy heart, I knew there was only one plausible answer. "Kat."

"Exactly. Kelly and Mae have set up a portal for us to go home. It's at the train station, one a lot further into the city." She drove on, racing down the semi-dark road, her headlights shattering light several metres in front of us.

It was a lot of information to take in all in one go, but I did my best to try to process what had happened. Kat wasn't real. Somebody else, someone who wanted to harm us, was pretending to be my best friend.

But here's the creepy part. Kat - whoever she was - had known so much about me. She had been able to recount my first day of school with complete accuracy. She'd told me about my sixteenth birthday party using the exact same words I had spoken over a year before. Who exactly was this who knew so much about me?

Harriet pulled up to the train station in a sweeping movement, parking haphazardly across two spaces. She grabbed a pair of scissors and motioned at me to move. For a moment I stared at her like she was mad, before realising she was going to cut my ties. I turned around obediently and sat patiently for a few minutes while she attempted to cut through the ropes. After more than a few minutes, she cast the scissors aside and ripped the last of the rope off my hands.

I leapt out of the car immediately, running alongside Harriet into the train station. Despite the fact it was night time there was still loads of people milling about killing time before their train. "Where's the portal?"

"On the next train to the centre of California." She replied, walking briskly up to the ticket machine. I doubled my pace to keep up with her. She typed in a few details into the machine, and two tickets came out. She sighed in relief. "Great, it leaves in half an hour."

We walked over to the newsagents, where Harriet promptly went and bought a stack of newspapers and magazines. When I looked at her oddly, she shrugged. "We'll be stuck on lockdown in the agency for a while, so we won't get much contact with the outside world. Trust me, you'll want to go get a few things while you have the chance. Kelly and Mae insist on healthy eating up there."

I shrugged, and scanned my eyes over the shelves of chocolate and sweets. I picked out a huge bag of pink and white marshmallows, a Galaxy Salted Caramel bar, Oasis orange juice and a big share bag of Thai Sweet Chilli Sensations, which weren't very aptly named as I had no intention of sharing them. Harriet raised an eyebrow at me, as my pile of snacks looked meagre in comparison to the junk food spilling out of her arms. Over the next several minutes she got me to choose several more items before swiping our cards and going out of the shop with armfuls of bags.

We walked in silence down the stairs to where the train was arriving. I was again shocked at how many people were waiting for a train down here. It was bustling and busy. "There's a lot of people here for it being in the middle of the night." I remarked.

Harriet frowned. "It's near seven o' clock, people are here to go to work. You were out for longer than you think." She checked her watch. "Fifteen minutes. Let's just wait here."

I suddenly spotted a flash of pink hair in amongst the crowd, and my blood ran cold. Kat had followed us here. I prepared myself to run when I caught a clear glimpse of the girl's face, and realised it was just a pink-haired stranger. I scanned the crowd over quickly, finding myself recoiling at the many features Kat shared with these people. When it got to the point that I was freaking out when I saw any girl, I realised the situation was playing on my nerves more than I thought.

I turned to Harriet with a fake pained expression. "I need to pee. Really, really badly."

She frowned at me in reply. "We only have eight minutes..."

"I'll be quick!" I promised before sprinting away, dodging in and out of the hordes of people. I reached the bathroom in record time, and stood in front of the mirror, amongst other women touching up their make-up.

I didn't need to go at all, but I felt a little claustrophobic back there. I needed an escape, and this, although not a perfect one, would do for now. I breathed in deeply, the held up my wrists. The marks around them were worse than I had anticipated. I winced at the large, red, jagged lines cut deeply into my skin, and a general hush descended over the women next to me as I touched the huge bump on my temple that must have occurred when I hit the floor.

"Honey," the women said next to me. "Are you okay?"

I realised at that point they were all staring. "Yeah!" I laughed, brushing off their concern. "I'm fine."

"You don't look too fine." Another woman pointed out. "Did... A husband do this?" At my horrified face she added, "or a boyfriend perhaps?"

"It's okay to admit it." A third woman stated. "I loved my husband when I first met him, and I married him with no clue of his behaviour. But he used to beat me, in the places you can't see..." Quietly muttered words of sympathy flowed gently over her. "He even made me lose our child." Many of them gasped dramatically as her fragile hands cupped her tiny stomach. "I got help though. Now I'm married to man who would never dream of things likes this, and I have two beautiful twin daughters. Things can get better if you speak out." There was general chorus of agreement.

"Look, I don't even have a husband, or a boyfriend for that matter-"

"I knew it! You're still in last night's Halloween costume. Did someone drive themselves upon you?"

Everyone gasped in overdramatised horror, and I started receiving gentle hugs from people I didn't even know
"Nothing happened!" I insisted. "I just fell and banged my head."

They exchanged looks. The beaten wife said, "I always used that excuse," and suddenly the hugs got harder, with frantic promises to help me in whatever way they could. I was about to argue more, but then I remembered the train would be here any second. I didn't have time to formulate an escape plan.

"Look, thanks for your pity, but you've got this all wrong." I backed towards the door, my hand gripping the handle. "Bye." Before any of them could stop me I had whisked open the door and fled.

"Platform Four." I muttered to myself. "Platform four..." The train wasn't there yet, much to my relief as I ran up to the side. I could see the bright lights blaring through the tunnel, indicating it would pull up at any second.

I looked around me, straining for a glimpse of Harriet. However, she and all the bags of goodies I'd left behind were nowhere to be seen.

Fear immediately caught hold of me, and I had to breath deeply to stop my heart from bursting out of my chest. What had happened? Where was she?

The train stopped right in front of me, and people pushed impatiently past to board. I dithered anxiously. Harriet wasn't here, but should I still take the train? It was the sure way to safety, and I did have my ticket...

"Either go on the train or get out of the way." Someone snarled, putting me on the spot to make a decision. Slowly, uncertainly, I let the crowd swallow me up and I continued in the direction I thought was right.

Cliffhanger... Did she board the train or not? I'm tired and I can't be bothered to write an authors note, so I'll just leave it here.