FALLON
I should be nervous, right?
I should be feeling that fluttering in my belly, or have shaky hands as I gear up in something resembling a war uniform, maybe even feel a constant wave of nausea plaguing me, keeping me on my toes throughout the day – but I don’t .
I’ve been preparing for this day for weeks, months even, and now that it’s finally here, I’m relaxed.
I’m going through the motions, dodging questions from Oliver and Ozzy who have been checking on me constantly to ensure my mind is right, but there’s no doubt about that.
I’m not nervous, and my focus is dead set on the target.
Truthfully, I find this whole process tedious, the waiting, moving cautiously, and appearing out of thin air like ghosts — it’s all just delaying the inevitable.
The thing is, I don’t care if he knows it was me. We’re going in masked up, but that’s something I agreed to in order to be on sight, to placate everyone else.
The truth is, Aaron Amos will know it’s me who is ending his life, and frankly, I don’t care who else is privy to that information either.
Maybe I’m being reckless, gambling with my life even, but I do not care.
For the last week, revenge has been on the tip of my tongue, so close I can almost relish in its bittersweet satisfaction, and admittedly, it’s all I’ve thought about.
I’ve lied to Ozzy, to everyone, promising that I’ve been sleeping and eating right, keeping myself hydrated and ready for action, but that couldn’t be further than the truth.
Once everyone is asleep, I sneak downstairs and pace the floors until sunrise, my mind racing with possibilities and memories. Then, I sneak back into bed, pretending to wake up alongside Ozzy, and acting as if I had a restful nights’ sleep.
I do the same while we eat, picking until nobody’s looking, then tossing it in the trash and nibbling on snacks when I feel like the emptiness in my stomach may take me out.
I can’t sleep or eat properly until this is done.
The mission is everything , and besides a few protein bars here and there, nothing can take me away from the hunt.
Now, I’m floating through the air, leading the way through a mansion as we inch closer and closer to the target.
I’m not taking in my surroundings, or admiring the beauty of his art collection. I’m trained on the large oak door that’s standing between me and him, and when Ozzy waves his fingers to signal the breach, I’m the first one through the threshold.
The abrupt noise brings Mr. A. out of his trance, he quickly glances up from his laptop, reaching his left hand toward a desk drawer, but Oliver is right behind me, and his gruff voice beneath the mask pierces in the otherwise empty room.
“Don’t, my man. Stand up,” he orders, and the target obliges, nodding slowly as he raises his hands.
“Who are you? How’d you get in here?” He asks, shuffling his steps until he’s in the center of the room.
In a move that wasn’t cleared, I lift the mask, showing my face to the man responsible for every ounce of pain I’ve felt over the last six months.
His eyes widen, and I shove the butt of my gun into his neck, dropping him onto his knees.
“ Fallon ? What is this, I thought we were –” he starts, but I knock my knee into his teeth, watching with delight as he spits blood onto the bright white carpet.
“You stole everything from me. You kidnapped me, came for my family, but worst of all,” I pause, the tears creeping in and choking me, causing my voice to crack.
Suddenly, Oliver and Ozzy are beside me, one handing me the zip ties, the other steadying me back to reality. I can’t differentiate the touches, who’s helping me with what as my eyes are only locked into his .
While large arms detain him, tie his hands behind his back and search for weapons, my gaze doesn’t falter — I barely blink.
While I’m touched, asked questions, and begged to take a step back, I keep my body locked into place.
There’s nothing getting in between this, and even though Lex promised a window of five to eight minutes without cameras, I’ll stay here all night if that means my heart finally gets the justice it deserves.
“But worst of all, you stole our chance of having a baby. You remember what that was like, don’t you? When your wife found out you were expecting for the first time, the doctor’s appointments, the tracking of the babies size compared to fruits … you fucking took that from me, when you took him,” I finish, gesturing toward Ozzy as my voice grows stronger.
I’ve found my footing and the courage to continue with the speech I’d prepared.
Earlier, Ozzy asked me what I planned to do or say, but I lied to him by saying I had nothing.
In reality, I’ve had this moment on replay for months, conjuring up the perfect way to get revenge and closure for every tiny molecule of suffering I’ve endured since this man entered my life.
“Fallon, I … I had no idea at the time. I would’ve never blackmailed a young, expecting couple if I did. Alina and I were pregnant at your age,” he says, but I lose my control, only to be scooped up by Ozzy as I lunge for our prisoner.
He drags me to the side, a hand on my chin to keep my eyes trained into his.
“I know, Fallon, okay? I fucking know what this means, but you can’t lose it like this. Please! We don’t have much time,” he says, his voice almost groveling as he waits for me to say something.
“I’m not leaving until I finish what I came here to do,” I tell him, attempting to push away, but his arms are locked above my head, effectively pinning me against the wall.
“Neither am I, but we can’t be here as long as we want. We can’t inflict the pain that we think will absolve our own sadness, Fallon, we just can’t! Please, I can’t lose you,” he begs, his voice cracking as tears slip down his cheeks.
He’s not playing a game, or using emotions against me, he’s genuinely afraid that if we stay here longer than the allotted time, I’ll either die, or be sent to prison.
My heart thuds in my chest loudly, almost like a sign, and I close my eyes, feeling a warmth spreading over my body that feels familiar.
It’s exactly like when I recognized Angel, and his little hand touched my heart.
Suddenly, I believe he’s agreeing with Ozzy, filling my body with the same warmth he did in my dream, and letting me know what I should do.
“Okay. For Angel” I nod, breathing deeply as I suddenly feel more power in my body than I ever have before.
I was visited by something outside of this galaxy, and he’s here with me while I take care of the business I was brought back to carry out, why I couldn’t stay with him longer.
This is still my destiny, but I need to get back on track, fulfilling the life we have planned beyond this.
“For our Angel,” Ozzy repeats, releasing me and adjusting my mask before I walk back into the common room.
Oliver still has his gun trained on the detainee, his posture slumped and defenseless until I walk back into the room.
Immediately, my footsteps garner his attention, and he searches until his eyes meet mine.
“Fallon, I never meant to hurt you. Your choice to abort the growing baby in your body was yours to make, many single mothers make it happen, and your cowardice isn’t of my doing. You need someone to blame, but I’m –” Bang .
The room is silent again.
His rambling is stopped, and my thoughts slowly start up again, a sense of calm washing over me.
The gun with the silencer attachment is still pointed, but my target has fallen, and my hands are surprisingly steady, even after pulling the trigger.
Before I can take in the sight of his slumped body on the carpet, large hands are whisking me away, leading me toward the same door we entered through.
One of them takes the weapon, but my finger is still crooked as if it were wrapped around a trigger, almost stuck in a stance that’ll always remind me of the revenge I finally deserved.
He’s dead, and I’m alive.
“Fallon! Focus! You’re wandering. We need to go back the way we came,” Oliver whispers, shaking my body so violently that I’m ripped from the victory lap in my mind.
“Olly, I need you to help me,” I whisper, not wanting Ozzy to hear how debilitated I truly am.
Now that this is over, every emotion and feeling is coursing through me, and I’m so weak, I’m afraid of taking another step.
It’s as if I was outside of my body for days, watching from the sidelines, but now that the task is complete, I’m back in control of something that’s barely hanging onto life.
I’m steps away from collapsing, the high of eliminating my mark rapidly fading, but I feel two arms loop into mine from each side, and I instantly feel at ease, like I might just make it.
The journey back to the van feels ten times longer than it did when we were navigating through these woods on the way here, but adrenaline has taken over, pumping blood through my veins and I feel more alive than I ever have.
The thrill of the kill has completely consumed me, and so much of my life has been controlled by men, but now, none of them are left breathing.
They say it’s lonely at the top, but I’ve got my family beside me, and I’m free now .
* * *
I’m not good with goodbyes.
Now that the mission is complete, we’re all moving in separate directions, and it’s really fucking sad.
When I met these people I had no idea how important they’d become to me, how we’d truly ride together as a family, but today, that’s ending.
That’s the thing about closing chapters, once the story is complete, it’s time to open the next one, and even though it hurts, we all have to do it.
Max has to go back to his hometown, being close to his family and their gravestones is his way of attempting to absolve himself of the sins he’s committed.
Pepper and Lex are starting over somewhere new, with Lex wanting to become a legitimate business owner with his tech skills.
Olly, Ozzy and I are traveling, seeing new places and living off whatever we bring with us.
Our stories are different, but we’ve promised to always come back together every so often, and stay in contact.
“This is for the three of you, each of us gets a cut from the fake cash,” Lex says, handing us each an envelope with our names scrawled on the front.
Since the night of the mission, we’ve laid low, dividing assets and recuperating after such a tough job.
We shredded the evidence, erased the searches on our hard drive, and hopefully, covered our tracks completely.
I received a lot of flack for going off course, revealing my mask and pulling the trigger so abruptly, but Ozzy has since thawed out, realizing that no matter what I did, it’s done now.
“Wow, so this is it, huh?” Oliver asks, trailing his eyes over Lex, Pepper, and Max.
“It feels right,” Max says, pulling him in for a hug.
We all swore there’d be no tears, that we’d see each other soon, but it doesn’t take long for Pepper and I to break, swiping our sadness away as we hold each other tightly.
When I met her, I never could’ve imagined how close we’d become, or how she’d be the best friend I’ll ever have.
My spice girl, my number one.
“Promise me we’ll always be friends?” She flips her hair over her shoulder, fanning her face to keep anymore tears from slipping out.
“Always, Pep. Always ,” I tell her, gently kissing her cheek.
I step back, watching as the boys hug and pretend they won’t miss each other, but I know they’ll probably be calling and texting more than us girls.
“I have something for you, Fal,” Lex says, handing me a few printed documents stapled together.
“What is this?” I flip through them, but the legal mumbo-jumbo is flying right over my head.
“I had the website shut down and liquidated. Legally, you can go after every name on that list for retribution, meaning they’d have to pay you back for all the images they downloaded, but of course, you’d have to come out as the victim. You don’t have to, though, those papers are for you to hold onto,” he explains, and I stare at the documents in shock.
I didn’t know any of this was possible, nor did I ask him to do that, and I’m once again floored at the lengths these people will go to for me.
“This is incredible, Lex. Thank you so much,” I choke out, holding back the tears threatening to spill down my cheeks.
“That’s not all. I was able to access the bank account held by your stepfather, and well, it’s yours now,” he says, handing me an envelope with a check inside.
It’s written out to me, but the amount nearly drops my jaw to the floor. Over one-hundred thousand dollars was in the account, and it’s all mine .
“You didn’t have to do any of this,” I stammer, my mind frozen as I try to process how much money this is, and how fortunate I am to have friends like him.
“You deserve it, Fal.”
We leave it at that as Ozzy comes over, taking my hand in his, and when I show him the check, his eyes nearly pop out of his head at the sight of all the zeroes.
This is enough to truly kickstart our lives, for us to take a negative and turn it into the beginning of something beautiful.
I couldn’t be more grateful to Lex for taking the liberty of doing this — it’s one of the nicest things someone has ever done for me.
I know the internet is forever, and some pervert out there has my pictures on his hard drive, but this feels fresh, like the clean slate I’d been dreaming of since I was a teenager.
I’m no longer on display, my body belongs to me again, and that’s priceless.
Well, it does come with a hundred grand, but I consider that a bonus, something I deserved for a long time.
“We’ve got a plane to catch,” Max interrupts, bringing the six of us together for one final group hug.
“I love you all,” I say as we break apart, the horn from their taxi cutting through our final moments.
Ozzy holds me as we watch the three of them go, and I close my eyes, knowing that all good things must come to an end.
If something makes you sad when it’s over, that means it must’ve been pretty great while it was happening , and that sentiment couldn’t be anymore true, even if I am quoting Winnie the Pooh .
“So, where to?” Ozzy asks, smiling down at me with red eyes from the tears he swore he wouldn’t cry.
“Anywhere, baby. The day is ours.”
We’re no longer controlled by the fates of others. We are finally unchained, allowed to go wherever the hell we please, and I can’t think of a better reward.
Since the day I met Ozzy in a stupid eighties themed diner, my life has been turned upside down, flipped around, and shaken up in every way possible.
We’ve lived through some of the darkest things two people can face, but we’ve also brought out parts of each other that we never knew existed.
It’s almost like I became who I was meant to be the second I found him, and everything the universe threw at us was its way of molding me, ensuring I was strong enough to carry out my destiny.
I found my other half, the man that was literally written in the stars for me, and together, we became a powerful force, something that can’t be matched.
I fell head-over-heels in love with the most precious, kind-hearted man, and fuck , he loves me too.
I’ve been marked, claimed by oaths, and am undoubtedly his , until the end of time.
We would’ve never made it without each other, but I have a feeling that even if I didn’t follow him across that restaurant, fate would have intervened until we got it right.
After all, what’s a Goddess without her God?
Worthless .