Page 69 of Fatally Obsessed

“There’s nowhere to run, Father!” I shout down the corridor, and it echoes as I head towards him.

He’s yanking at the doors as I turn the corner, fighting to get out. I laugh out, and he startles, turning around with a letter opener shaking in his outstretched arms.

“I will kill you.” His voice is all shaky. He knows some of what I’m capable of, and he should be wary.

“Not with that, you won’t, dickhead!” I grumble at him. I pull out his gun and point it at him. “We only wanted to be loved, you know. I only wanted to be loved. But you got what you wanted. You created a monster.” I shoot him in the foot, and he drops to his knee, screaming when his hand touches the floor. I shoot that, too.

“You see, Father, you got what you paid for.” I shoot out his knee, and he flops onto the floor, gasping and screaming. I go to stand by him, reloading my gun as I push my foot down, twisting it into his blown-out kneecap as I push harder. I shoot into the side of his stomach. He jerks and screams on the floor, trying to drag himself away from me. I drop down and shoot out his other hand as I straddle him.

“Xav sent you a message, Father.” I shoot him in the shoulder, then force my thumb against it, pushing it into the seeping wound as he screams and tries to buck me off again.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Ten, please.”

I shake my head at him. “My name is Vic, Father. You know this. You found the tattoos, and you locked me in solitary with no food for three days. Don’t make out you don’t know my fucking name.

“Vic, please?”

“What were Xav’s last words before you slit his throat?”

“He said fuck you.” He gasps, and I put the gun against his chest and smile. “Any last words for you?”

He bucks and tries to throw me off. I climb off and step to the side, where he tries to knock me off my feet, but he’s pathetic. I step away from him. I shoot out his other kneecap.

“You don’t deserve any last words.” I shoot him in the bicep. “You can go to hell.” I shoot the side of his face.” I look up and see Xav standing next to Jacob, smiling at me and waiting for me. I reach out with my hand to theirs. “I’m coming home.” I smile.

“Our time is up, Father. They’ve come for me, and now I can go home.”

“You’re fucking insane,” he gasps out, wheezing and dying in a pool of his own blood. At the end of the day, he bleeds just like the rest of us.

I pull out a grenade in each hand, ripping the pins out and smiling.

“I’m done. I won’t live this abysmal life without them for a moment longer. You took everything from me, and now I’ll return the favour. You, Father. I’m taking you screaming with me.”

His eyes widen as I drop to my knees at the side of him. “The Collective is no more. I’ve disbanded them and burnt the whole organisation to the ground. Youwanted to create an unstoppable machine with no feelings, a ruthless killer without morals, but what you created was your own downfall. The government officials are being taken down as we speak. We’re the only ones left, Father. You and me. And I want to say goodbye, but what I’m going to say is,fuck you!”

I let go of the grenades, and he scrambles to try and knock them away with his bloody stumps. I tug the detonator out of my pocket and click it, and as the explosions ring out in unison around us, I smile.

As the flames engulf me, I see my loves again. I walk towards them, hold out my hands, wrap myself in each of their arms and hold them again. Their warmth spreads around me, piecing me back together till I’m whole again. We are finally together. I have missed them so much, and, at this moment, I am genuinely happy. I am home.

Shelley

Epilogue

1 year later

As I stand at the mound—or what’s left of it—a tear rolls down my face, and I scrub it away, angry at myself and devastated at the same time, only for it to be followed by another tear and then another. I drop to my knees. Fuck. This shouldn’t have happened. When I thought he’d ghosted me, I was pissed, but then to learn he died—no, he was murdered. It was the video footage at the airfield I was not prepared for. Losing him was hard enough, but seeing how he was ripped from this world was annihilating. I stutter back a sob.

It’s the first time I’ve been back here since that day, and the thud and tremor as the explosion hit, throwing us all to the floor before we realised how catastrophic it was all going to be. It feels like it’s ingrained in me. It’s almost like being back here, I canfeel it all over again: the vibrations, the devastation, and the loss. It’s hard to breathe, almost like the ash is still in the air.

In the aftermath, the documentation Vic and Xav had collected was distributed to every law enforcement agency worldwide. There was a worldwide manhunt for everyone involved. The evidence was overwhelming, and I read everything they went through and saw the videos of them as young children being subject to a whole array of experiments and torture, sleep deprivation, and training. A whole mess of emotions bubble to the surface. No child should have to endure what they did.

When the videos started, Vic was a baby, and Xav was about two or three. I don’t know what’s worse, knowing something better exists and not remembering or not knowing at all and thinking this is all there is.

Thinking it through breaks something inside of me as I sob. “We did it,” I whisper into the wind. As a slight breeze brushes my cheek, I close my eyes and imagine it’s him. “You did it. It’s all gone, everything. You destroyed the whole thing.”

There were a lot of suicides of some of the higher-up officials, judges, military officers and politicians. Those who didn’t take the coward’s way out were quickly arrested and sent to prison. Trials have been nonstop, and this morning was the final one. Not one of them got off. They all received multiple life sentences for their atrocities, and while it was the outcome we all wanted, it’s bittersweet to know what they did to bring this organisation down. Vic willingly gave up her life to save the others who were being targeted to be the nextgeneration. I wish I had more time with him, James, Xav, whatever his name was. I did love him, and I still love him. I don’t know if there will ever be someone who can replace him or even come close; he was made for me, and it took losing him for me to realise this. I wish I had time to get to know Vic. She was an enigma and so selfless in the end. She just didn’t want to live without Xav, and I know how she feels. It’s all hitting me now that it’s over, and I can’t hold back the emotions anymore. Did I apologise to them? For not being able to save them? For not being able to do this a different way, one that didn’t involve them both dying, and poor Jacob who got dragged into this and paid the price too?

The organisation is gone, the research is destroyed, and even the military base has been decommissioned. Everything happened so fast; even the hearings were pushed through. The amount of concrete evidence against every member of The Collective was undeniable, The Collective is no more.

Unfortunately, neither of them is here to bask in the glory of it all, if that’s what you can call it. The melancholy I’m drowning in now is terrifying. Where do I go from here? They trusted me, and I hope they know I did everything in my power to deliver everything they could have dreamed of. I hope they found each other. I hope they made it back together. That’s all she wanted, to be with them again.

I take a deep breath and wipe my face again and sigh, this is it, the end, and while I’m unsure what to do now I know I need to keep fighting for those who don’t have a voice, for the lesser fortunate, for those whohave no one, for the next generation. I will protect them whatever it takes, whatever it costs.

I will do it all for them.