"This is absurd." I whispered quietly as we walked through the busy airport. A brand new Spanish passport was in my shaking hands. I felt like we were so obvious as we wandered through the airport. Any second now I thought someone would call out my name and everything would crumble to pieces once more. Every time I saw a security guard I would hold my breath until they passed.I glanced at over at my friend for emotional support.

Sophie looked as cool and as collected as I had ever seen her. Those brown eyes were no longer wild and panicked and hadn't been since we had exited the government building that Alistair had kept me in. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail and she was wearing clothing that would fit in perfectly well at my office. It was a far cry from the frantic woman who kicked in the door and helped me escape from whatever terrors and torture were coming my way on behalf of Alistair, and eventually Josh. It had been clear from the start that she had a plan but – even though it had worked perfectly up to this point- I didn't know the whole strategy and that was making me anxious. I couldn't feed into the plan if I didn't know it.

"You need to get it together." Sophie replied evenly as my finger slipped into my mouth so I could gnaw on my nail viciously. "These people are trained to detect overly nervous travelers."

"I can't, you are now tangled in this whole thing with me, and this was never supposed to happen. If I was going to go down I was going to go down by myself." I ranted. Yes, I was worried for myself. But having her in harm's way was much worse for me. She never deserved this; all she had done was help me. The good Samaritan didn't deserve to go down with the crook.

"I was going to go with you no matter what." Sophie retorted as we wove through our terminal, finding an empty seat by our gate. "I made that choice when I got you out of Anaheim the first time. If this went any further than it did then I would be in the same position you were in. People like Kingsley don't leave loose ends, ever. He would've found me eventually. Through doing this now we are helping both of us, not just you."

Her words made me keep my mouth shut. She was right. Alistair had known that someone had put my documents in the system; it was only a matter of time before someone unraveled the web that Sophie had so delicately made and all fingers would be pointed at her regardless. And since she had use her access key to enter into the facility where I had been held and the few workers who were still there saw us leave together there was no way she was going to be getting away from this who dilemma without a scratch. I had done most of the law breaking but she had been the one to enable it. And Josh would be just as furious with my accomplice as he was with me, I was sure of it. She was the whole reason I was able to get away at all. Running away together seemed like the only reasonable option.

But staring down at the Spanish passport with my face and a new name I felt sick to my stomach.

I knew Sophie's plan would work. She thought of everything. She always did. I know that she had been formulating a plan since Josh had broken in to my apartment and she simply had to speed it up when my alarm system had alerted her to Alistair taking me into custody. The only addition was that she had to trace Alistair's movements as well as mine, but her plan was no less solid than before.

After walking out of the building as calmly as we could she instructed me to put on the clothes she had left for me in the back seat of her sedan. She drove as I wriggled my body into tight leggings that fit me very well and a sweatshirt with the name of a university I had never been to plastered on the front of it and a pair of sneakers. It was a little painful to move around with my wound, but that was the least of my concerns and to be fair, my mind wasn't firing on all cylinders anymore. I paid no attention to the luggage that was around me, but I learned soon enough that the belongings in those bags was all we were taking with us in our new life. When I made let out a soft whimper over my company- the beautiful creature I had built from the ground up- she reminded me that I had a wonderful employee elected to take over my position should anything ever happen to me. After I settled down she ordered me to review the paperwork she left in the backseat. While I was memorizing the new documents that she had printed for me- these ones based out of Spain- she navigated her own way to a small car dealership, selling her beloved sedan and using her own new documents to purchase a used Honda Civic. Then we set off for the Toronto airport in possibly one of the most common cars on the planet. It would be almost impossible to trace us now. We had a changed our clothes, our getaway car, and we had legal pieces of fraudulent identification.

When I had softly raised concerns about the government tracing her activity and knowing that she had done all of this on top of all her other crimes she responded by telling me that she wasn't that stupid and by the time they figured out it was her we would be off the map almost completely. I could do nothing but trust her, and she had gotten me this far, didn't she deserve my trust? And besides, if she tried to explain what she had done there was no way I would be able to follow her technology inclined jargon.

Still, looking down at the name 'Valentina Gonzalez' I felt nausea rise in my system. I knew in my heart this is what I had to do. And now I wasn't only doing it for me, I was doing it for Sophie as well. And the worst day without an abusive fiancé was better than the best day with him. There was no way that I would ever just give myself up; my encounters with Alistair had proven that.

But I was so tired.

I was tired of running. I was tired of changing my name and lying about a life I didn't live. I was tired of not being able to trust a single man who looked at me for a moment too long. I was tired of triple checking my locks at night before I went to bed. I was tired of texting Sophie when my heart tightened with panic at the thought of her being snatched up by a goon under my ex-fiancé's control. And I was tired of letting Josh win.

I just wanted someone to call me Camila. I wanted someone to tell me that everything would be okay and to mean it. I wanted to talk about the life I had before I left and I wanted to talk to my parents, to know how they were doing even if they hated me. I didn't want my old life back, but I no longer wanted to pretend to be someone I wasn't. I was an amazing human being and I was molded by my past, my parents, my friends, and even Josh. I didn't have to love where I came from, but I did want to embrace it.

I shook the thought out of my head and tried to focus on my success as we proceeded.

I thought we would be stopped at security, but we hadn't. I thought someone would recognize us in the airport, but we were hours away from the city where I was a moderately wealthy business woman, not at all important here. I thought someone would tell us we couldn't board the plane, catching a mistake in my fake passport that no one else had been able to notice, but we walked onto that plane and sat down in our separate seats without an issue. And before the plane took off I thought that emergency vehicles would pour over the tarmac, lights blazing as they demanded I exit the aircraft and give myself up. It never happened. We took off in record time and I sat tensely through one of the smoothest flights in my life, still anticipating the worst. Luckily no one was waiting for us when we landed in Newark either.

I glanced over at Sophie as we exited the plane. She gave me a discrete nod that made my tense shoulders slump ever so slightly. We had both bought tickets for Barcelona, Spain. Only one of us would make it there. She wouldn't get back on the plane, exchanging her documents for new ones in Newark, New Jersey. I would board the next plane that would take me to Lisbon, Portugal, then I would finally arrive in Barcelona where my passport would be valid.

Unfortunately, when I landed the passport would be have to be disposed of as soon as possible. It was traceable. I had no doubt that Alistair would be monitoring all the systems, looking for red flags like sudden flights out of a nearby city from a traveler who had never actually been properly documented to enter the country. He would see my flights, and it might take him a while, but he would hunt Valentina down. And if I had been found in Canada after quietly slipping away in the night I would be found in Spain after breaking out of a government building. But Sophie assured me that she would get new documents to me and Valentina Gonzalez would be just as forgotten as Celeste Davidson.

When I finally made it to Spain my cheeks were sore from all the fake smiling, pretending that I was happy to be home as I spoke fluent Spanish to the border officers as they scanned my passport and plane tickets. By some miracle I wasn't taken aside for more questioning or tackled to the ground because my passport had been flagged. My shoulders and neck were screaming from the tension and pretending to be thrilled did nothing to soothe that, but I forced myself not to care. I had to focus on every word that came out of my mouth, knowing very well that my Mexican Spanish was not very similar to the Spanish spoken here. I had never been so grateful that my parents had allowed me to spend a summer in Spain, learning the culture as well as I could. Somehow, that single summer and the years of faking were enough to get me through security.

I finally let out a breath I had been holding when I sat down in a taxi, telling the driver the name of the hotel that Sophie had demanded I stay in. She told me where I would be staying and for how long and I had no choice but to trust her. I was too exhausted, too scared, and too naïve to be making my own decisions right now.

I was safe now. I could breathe for the time being. And I needed to take this opportunity to collect myself because in a few moments I would be at my hotel and my newest life would begin.