I shut my eyes and let my knees become weak. I felt El's and Niall's strong grip beneath my arms supporting me and keeping me upright as best they could but I honestly wished they would stop. Wished they would let me go.

I felt like my mind was completely alienated from my body, like I was drifting slowly through treacle and getting stuck at every opportunity. I reached a shaky hand up to wipe my eye and stumbled on, vaguely aware of everybody talking in quick, hurried tones. But I was mainly oblivious to it all. I felt like my world had completely caved in- it was worse than when I had been arrested.

My best friend had left me- it honestly felt like she'd left me to die outside all by myself. And even though I knew I was being overly dramatic and stupid, that was all I felt. Numb is the only word to describe it actually. My body went completely limp and I was having to be dragged around by my friends. My friends who hadn't abandoned me. Oh god, this would reflect badly on everyone else. I could just picture the headlines.

"Accused murderer loses her bestfriend- shock horror!"

"Get the inside scoop- why I abandoned my best friend, Kayleigh Michaels."

"We dish the dirt on Kayleigh Michaels; uncovering some surprising home truths while we're at it."

Alright, so I was being ridiculous. But Marissa and I had known each other since we were little kids. Her basically telling me to rot left a black abyss in my heart because there was nobody other than Niall that I thought of like I thought of Marissa. Absolutely nobody could hold a candle to her. But she'd left me and I was acting like this.

I forced strength into my limbs and made myself stand upright. I felt the blackness fade away and the arms wrapped around me slipping away. I crawled myself out of the hole I had fallen into and faced my friends who were looking at me worriedly and trying to get me out of the airport as inconspicuously as possible.

El dragged me into the back of her car and chucked Louis her keys, indicating she wanted a chat with me alone.

When we'd buckled up and my breathing had righted itself once more, she twisted in her seat so that she could shut the front part of the car off from the back and grabbed my face in her hands.

"Right, misses. A. If Marissa is just going to let her best friend go like that then she's mental and she doesn't deserve your friendship. B. We need to have a serious conversation about how you wear your hair and makeup, girl, because you look like a panda. Just saying. And C, you need to start from the beginning and tell me your version of things because all I know is Louis' and we both know about his little embellishing problem when it comes to retelling stories!" El grins widely.

"Well. Where to begin?" I slowly nibble my lip."First off, in the response to B, HEY! You try living with five boys, the press hounding you for days on end and having no sleep or access to new makeup. It's exhausting." I crack a small smile before continuing. "And for C, well, my side of the whole sordid affair is pretty boring."

El scoffs like she knows I'm lying but I realise she must be able to see in my eyes that I'm shattered and really don't need the stress of talking about it on my plate right now. It strikes me, suddenly, that El won't know about the sudden surface of my abilities, and Niall's, of course. I debate telling her and slowly ask her a question.

"El....if I were to say to you something totally and utterly crazy, would you believe me?"

"Who are you and what have you done with Kayleigh Michaels? You say crazy stuff all the time and you've never given me a reason not to believe you. Why, what's troubling you?"

She looks so concerned and loving but I truly cannot face admitting to her how strange what could have possibly come out of my mouth truly was.

"Nothing." I mumble. "How long will it be until we get back Kingsdale? I really need to get back to Essex."

"I'm not sure. I'm looking forward to coming with you though." El drops the bombshell on me.

"What!?" I exclaim, suddenly wide awake and delighted.

"I planned this as soon as I knew the dates for when you were coming home. I figured I could come and stay with you, I hope you don't mind, or go stay at some hotel and we could go shopping and have a good girl's week. Louis says he doesn't mind but I promised him I'd come back with you in tow. Sooooo......." She trails off, her grin suddenly becoming lopsided with anxiety.

"El! That sounds fricking awesome! Of course you can come and stay with me and my parents- I'm sure they won't mind! I can't wait to show you my favourite shop!" I try and make her feel better. "I wasn't planning on staying for too long anyway as the boys still have work and therefore I still have work so a week will be the perfect amount of time off for me!"

I haven't been this excited for ages and it almost makes me forget get about everything that's happened. Almost. El seems to sense what I'm thinking because she lowers her voice to a whisper even though nobody can hear us.

"I figured you wouldn't want too much time away from investigating the case, Louis told me." She hurriedly added, noting my confused expression. "So I thought we could do a little private research of our own, just the two of us. If you want."

"That'd be great. But shouldn't we tell the boys?"

"Good idea. Louis is the only one who knows about this since he helped me plan it and I'm not sure Niall would give you up so graciously."

"Yeah, what is up with that kid anyway? He's far too protective!"

"I don't know. But we should most definitely tell them. I don't want them going ape shit and yelling and screaming like little kids." El laughed, clutching her stomach.

"You're right- especially Liam. Sometimes you'd think the kid hasn't got a girlfriend the way he tags along with us both so often. How is Sophia by the way?" I smile.

"You know, same old, same old. I really hate that she and Perrie don't get along that well- it makes our girl weeks ten times harder but I suppose I do see it more from Perrie's perspective than I do from Sophia's."

"When did you last hear from Pez? She hasn't texted me in a week- I'm worried."

"Well I'm not surprised. Pez has been quite stressed lately, I meant to tell you on our last phone call but you were pretty upset so I never got round to it."

"Oh my god, is she alright? Have she and Zayn argued? Actually, no, scratch that, I know they haven't argued. What's she stressed about then?"

El looks downwards briefly before glancing back up at me.

"Remember Jesy? I think Pez brought her over once when you were with us but I'm not sure." El began as I nodded my head, getting vague memories from long ago.

"Well, Jesy found out she was pregnant last week. But Pez said she and Jake were considering splitting up."

I found my eyes widening in horror and panic. I didn't know Jesy that well but, from what I could remember about meeting her, she seemed to be a lovely person and way too young to be raising a kid by herself. Especially when she wasn't going to be at home due to her touring and signings and whatnot.

"So what's she going to do about it?" I nibble my lip.

"That's what's been stressing Perrie out. It's not the fact that Jesy's pregnant that bothers her, Leigh-Anne and Jade the most, it's the fact she's run off to the abortion clinic twice now without even talking to Jake once about it." El sighs. "Perrie loves her to pieces but she's so worried about other things right now that she can't deal with Jesy running away and having to convince her to at least talk with Jake about things first."

"Jesus. Life in Little Mix, aye?" I wiggle my eyebrows causing El to laugh. Honestly, my time with El has really help ease my problems of the past few days and I'm really grateful for the break. "Seriously though, that makes a lot more sense than believing she was just ignoring me."

El sighs and grimaces. She reaches up to pull the separating section down only for Niall and Liam to jump back in shock. They'd been trying to listen in, the little buggars. El and I glare at them for a second while they try and put on their meekest, most innocent faces. Unfortunately, it just makes them look as though they are constipated and El and I rarely forgive eavesdroppers.

"You know that slider thing is soundproofed right?" El rolls her eyes as the boys look at each other, clearly very annoyed. "Don't blame me though, you can blame Louis for that one. Insisted I might need 'privacy'," she made an extremely strange face that resembled that of a witch when she cackled and we both fell about laughing.

Niall narrowed his eyes at us, radiating the fact that he was defeated but not about to give up.

"So you'll tell El all your massive secrets but you won't tell me?" He pouts.

"Err....duh. You generally interrupt me with gasps of fear or stupid noises in the wrong places. Plus you never take anything seriously." I smile innocently.

Niall mock glares at me and places his hand over his heart. "Excuse me. You know I can very well take things seriously- especially since I now know what you were discussing anyway." I glance down and see Niall is gently touching my fingers. Damn him.

"Umm.......am I missing something here?" El asks, frowning at us. I gulp and shake my head hesitantly. As wrong as it was to lie to El, there was no way she'd love me if I told her while we were sitting in a car.

"No. Niall just thinks he knows what we were discussing. Right Niall?" I glare at him.

"Yeah, right." He nods frantically, looking away. El squints and looks between us both but eventually relaxes back into her seat, enjoying the ride.

An hour later, we pulled up on the outskirts of Kingsdale, my home town. El and I said our goodbyes, promising to text regularly and be on the look out for postcards with churches on the front. Zayn has some weird habit of buying one everywhere he goes and, since he's been here but hasn't had the time to look in any shops, he asked us to grab him one.

We clambered out of the car and grabbed our suitcases from the back, waving the boys off until they turned away and out of sight. Kingsdale is relatively small compared to other towns in Essex but it's still large enough to be a tourist destination and be home to a small shopping centre. It's pretty much your typical English town with four or five cathedrals within five miles of each other, blue skies basking the population in beautiful golden light most days and most of the locals knew one another. That was what made me anxious the most, the fact that everybody I knew would have heard about my arrest.

El and I walked down the pavement with a comfortable silence settling around us. Our trainers squeaked against the soaking concrete after the heavy showers had hit and puddles littered the ground. I wasn't surprised to see that nobody was outside as Kingsdale was notorious for its hatred of bad weather but it was a tad discerning to see that many of the local shops and newsagents hadn't opened up yet.

When we finally arrived at one that had flipped it's open sign the right way round, El informed me she had forgotten to pack tampons and asked if we could quickly pop inside. I simply just walked into the shop and glanced across at the girl behind the till. In the months that I'd been away, Pat Hamils (the owner of the shop) had clearly hired new helpers as a young girl, no older than sixteen, stood counting money. El wandered to the back and began scanning the shelves for something. But it wasn't tampons. El had come to a stop in front of the medicine counter and was searching high and low for what she wanted.

"I thought you needed tampons?" I pulled a confused face, letting my face convey my puzzlement.

"Oh, yes. Yes I do. Would you mind grabbing me the Orange Tampax please? I need to grab some paracetamol from here and I can't find it." El bit her lip.

"Sure. No problem. Give me a second." I wandered back to the front of the shop and back tracked until I found the women's hygiene section. Despite the shop being small, there was a large variety to choose from and it took me a second to locate the type El needed. I snatched the packet from the shelf and took it back to her.

She was waiting at the till, holding a small bag, and signing something for the star struck girl who looked in awe of her.

"Here you go." I handed the packet to her, which El accepted with a small smile, and I waited for her to finish paying for her items. As the till was closed, the girl glanced up at me and stepped back in shock. He face quickly turned to one of pure disgust and I sighed. I was not going to be having an easy week here.

My parents didn't mind El staying with us at all and, in fact, were all for it. They looked sympathetic as we recounted the sorry tale of the newsagents but my mum just shrugged.

"That'll be Yasmin you're talking about. She just moved here with her grandma and she's not been having the easiest time settling in," my mum explained.

"Even so Mr and Mrs Michaels, she still had no right to act in that way." El stuck up for me as I lowered my head in shame.

My dad tutted a little but didn't comment, instead getting up to tend to the dinner. El and I looked at each other but followed him, starving from our long car journey. I would just have to pray my parents wouldn't be difficult about everything that had happened.

---

I woke up the next day to ribbons of light streaming through the window. I sat up groggily and reached for my phone, noting the time was barely ten o'clock in the morning. I stepped out of bed and wandered to my suitcase, rifling through and selecting the day's clothes. It was at that point that El started to come round.

She looked at me, bleary eyed, and tried to puzzle out what I was doing. When she finally worked it out, I was lounging on my bed, picking up my phone and scrolling through my mentions.

"What do you want to do today?" I sigh, ignoring my hate filled wall and trying to put a positive spin on things.

"I was hoping we could go shopping, just the two of us. I looked it up online last night and, though your town is quite small, there's still some awesome fashion brands down there," she grins. Honestly, I think El would try shopping if she was on the moon.

"Well, I suppose it couldn't hurt. Let's do it," I decide, watching El's face light up in satisfaction.

Once dressed and when we had wolfed our breakfast down, I pulled my purse out and counted the money inside. I would have to be careful but I had enough to have a nice trip out. El and I walked into town as my parents lived a meagre five minutes away but we stopped for Slush Puppies from Ginnie's (my favourite place to get drinks from) as it was kind of a tradition I had whenever I got back home.

For two hours, we trailed round the sixteen clothing shops my hometown had to offer but El and I only purchased three things each as we had agreed before hand that spending too much would be ridiculous. When El finally conceded and agreed it was time for lunch, we selected the only restaurant, in my opinion, that was worth going to. Café Rouge.

Specialising in French cuisine, Niall had always teased me about liking the chain but I didn't particularly care. It was awesome and I would never pass up an opportunity to eat their mussels- never in a million years.

When we walked into the restaurant, we grabbed a table for two and dumped our shopping bags beneath our feet, El and I both laughing like little girls.

We grabbed the menus the waiter kindly left out for us and I scanned it eagerly, my hunger raging and kicking inside of me. I couldn't quite decide between a chicken burger or a Caesar salad, quite the contrast between the two I know, but finally settled on a chicken burger.

When the waiter returned, I gave my order and turned to El, giving her a wide grin.

"Um, I'll have the bacon and cheese burger with extra cheese, gerkins, peppers, olives on the side, jalapeños and lettuce please. I'll also have fries on the side as well as mashed potatoes and baked beans. Oh, and some carrots too." She requests brightly. The waiter struggles to get it all down in time and I gaze at her, astounded. That wasn't the El I knew- generally she'd never pass up an excellent chicken salad.

"What's up with you El?" I asked, narrowing my eyes and frowning. "Are you sure you can eat all of that?"

"Don't be silly! Of course I can! I'm going to need it soon!" El laughs, before widening her eyes and slamming her mouth shut.

"El............." I trail, beginning to panic. "Are you sure you're fine?"

El licks her lips nervously before placing her elbows on the table and resting her head in her upturned palms.

"Can you keep a secret?" El asks. I roll my eyes at her.

"Who am I going to tell? Niall will just simply interrupt me and I go to one party a year." I laugh at her and she cracks a tiny, minuscule smile.

"You're right, but this is important. If this gets out, then it's game over." She looks deadly serious and I lean forward across the table.

"What's up El?" I repeat my original question more firmly now, looking her in the eye.

She closes her eyes and throws her head back like she's in pain. She grips the table forcefully before steeling her gaze and looking back at me.

YOU

I was standing in the laboratory with Amil when the concoction for revealing a Match was finally presented to me. We had been collaborating to try and create a potion capable of snapping the bonds between two Matches. So far, nothing had worked.

The mixture to reveal a Match was coloured an especially nasty shade of mustard and yet I was assured that, when place into a drink, it would not be seen nor tasted. I couldn't test it out myself as my Match had been taken from me long ago but I had been informed that it had been tested on Matches for the past month.

To be honest, I had never actually fully understood the way Matching works. I had to ask Timothy who rolled his eyes but patiently informed me it was all to do with implanted DNA.

When a person receives the KJ-57 formula, they are injected with live strands of DNA that alter their genetic makeup. The resulting abilities differ from person to person but anybody that experiences these changes is called an Amalgamation. An Amalgamation is not automatically Matched. Sometimes, they never are. But, in most cases, a tattoo will appear twenty four hours later informing them of the amount of offspring they will produce and whether they have been Matched.

The Matchee may not be an Amalgamation and, if this is the case, then they will only develop abilities relating to the Amalgamation they are Matched with. In this instance, they are termed Amalgamatoons.
The next part was all simply theories and hypotheses but we believe that, if the Amalgamatoon is injected with the Amalgamation's DNA, then they too will develop abilities not connected to their Match. We also believe that this can happen through sexual intercourse but we don't know.

After Timothy had explained everything, I still didn't understand. But I was certain of one thing.

Kayleigh and her Match were the key to unlocking this mystery. Now all I had to do was find them.

Notes

Hiya!

Sorry for the filler chapter! Filler chapters were never in my original plan as this story is relatively fast paced but I felt like I had to explain El and Kayleigh's relationship a bit more!

There's plenty of drama coming up in the next few chapters and I am super hyped for the twentieth chapter (I think that's the right one) because shit is going to go down!

I'm sorry if you found this chapter a bit boring but I thought it was necessary to have it as Eleanor becomes important later on in the story.

Speaking of Eleanor, what's up with her? I know how I made it look but trust me, it really has nothing to do with that if that's what you're thinking!

Comment predictions about what you think's up with her and we'll see if anybody has picked up on some of the finer details in my story that could possibly explain what's happening to Eleanor!

Please vote and subscribe! I love that you all like my story!

Have a shamazing Friday! :)

P.S. How do you guys feel about the long chapters? I know some people don't like crazy, long ass chapters like I've been posting and writing seven pages is time consuming so I was wondering- is it appreciated? I can split chapters up in future now if most people hate how long they are but I really would like to know :) Thank you xxxx