Page 78 of Shifted

"Joely deserves at least one of her parents."

"Hope..."

"They got my name wrong, Amartolós. I'm not the angel of death as they say; I guess I’m really the angel of Hope.” she teases weakly, a broken smile on her lips. “I felt like you deserved to know who your accomplice was," She clicks the gun, pointing it at me, "Get in the helicopter, Theo." I look at her wound, and blood drips down her torso. I was barely processing most things as I could only focus on the blood, her blood.

"I can't leave you," I’d left her already, and I left our child, too—two things I could never repay or forgive myself for. The shock was an understatement of what filled me—after all this time, seeing that first day on Thanksgiving. I wanted her to be mine, but Hope never said a word. So I figured in the ending of us, she found another man. But Hope hadn’t found another, and it was just me. She aims the gun at the helicopter, and I feel myself being forced into it. Two men slam me to the ground, "Hope!" I look at Isaac with pleading eyes. He looks at her.

"I told you I'd do anything for our daughter, and he knows who I am. It's not over til he's dead." her eyes teared up as she stared at me; this was our goodbye. She was saying goodbye, “Take care of our baby, okay? Don’t let her forget about me.” she took a sharp breath, tilting her head, and a smile slowly formed on her face. "I love you, Amartolós, you stupid idiot."

As she backed away, I began to scream for her to stop, to turn back, and just leave. But she smiled at me one last time before pulling her mask over her face again. The door shut as she stood there staring at me. She couldn't leave me. She couldn't leave our daughter.

Our daughter.

Joely would lose her mother, and it was because of me. It was something I'd never be able to explain, a job I didn't deserve. Because her mother was the most incredible woman I'd ever met. I bang against the glass as she turns away. She struggles towards the door, and she slowly gets farther away.

"Isaac, take me back!"

"I can't do that, Theo. This mission was to save you. She said it was her mission to save you, even if it was your mission to kill her." His voice was stern as he talked, and he couldn’t even meet my eye. He knew this was wrong, and he was just letting her die.

"I just did." The realization hits me. I felt my eyes burn in agony; any gash or wound that lasted on my body had gone numb. She got smaller and smaller, and soon she was gone.

"FUCK" I struggled in their arms, unable to move. "She has a daughter. She has a baby girl. Did you know that? Now that girl will never get to see her mother again, are you-"

"I know Joely. You heard her. He would've come into her life, taking her and her daughter. She sacrificed herself for her daughter." He looked down at me this time, “for your daughter.” He bellowed, looking shocked for the first time.

"I could've gone with her." I plead.

"She wanted you to live."

Angel was Hope the entire time. The connection I felt wasn't just lust; it was love. I knew she'd never forgive me for leaving and knowing that Joely was my daughter now. She hated me, through and through. But Bella told me herself that she already hated me, to not come home because I left. I never knew of Joely until Thanksgiving.

I never knew why she hated me, but I figured it was due to broken promises. But right then, she was sacrificing herself for a stupid boy like me. She didn't hate me; she couldn't have. She loved me still after all this time, something I prayed for. I missed her and for some reason, when I came back to Boston, I figured she waited. But she had a whole new life with a daughter and then a new boyfriend. She moved on while i stayed there, unable to move on or think about another woman.

I felt sick, and my heart burned indescribably. We were meant to be happy together, but we never got the timing right. We feared too much about ourselves rather than diving right in, and I didn’t let us. I was afraid of Eros, and Hope was fearful of Bella. And in the end, I couldn’t even protect her, and I wasted all this time.

"Tell him," Mary Ellen's words rang through my ears. I found myself up at night wondering what her last words, the last ones she spoke to Hope before she passed, meant. I listened and waited for some time; I wanted it to be just them in her last moments. But I lived nights restless, wondering what those words meant and who they were meant for.

But now I knew she wanted Hope to tell me Joely was mine. Hope knew she might die, so she fulfilled Mary Ellen's wishes. She told me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Hope Taylor

My heart thumps with each step. Sirens could still be heard, and the place was in lockdown. I had to kill him, even if it meant never seeing my daughter again. I needed to protect her. I didn't know what this man was capable of. But I knew he'd come for me, my child, and my family. Joely would never be safe in a world where Eros still lived in it.

I'm still in shock; it comes in waves. This entire time, it was Theo. I always imagined who was behind the mask; curiosity consumed me. But he was with me all the time. The man behind my mask was the one behind my unhealed heart.

I always wondered if the attraction to Amartolós was just lust. I figured that I'd eventually move on from Theo and find someone new. So my hope for Reed was high, but the spark I still held for him. The one that left me impatient for more. The one that consumed my thoughts, echoing his name. During my sleepless nights and in my dreams. When I held Joely in that hospital bed alone, crying because all I could think about was him. It was like he controlled a part of my mind that I tried to drown out.

And over time, I did it, but he'd slip through the cracks of my mind. If Joely made a certain face that looked like him, I would find myself in his sweatshirt when certain songs would play or if Grandma mentioned a memory tuning out the fact that he was there. I would cry myself to sleep later. It never ended; the thoughts of him. What could’ve been, and how he was missing so much with Joely growing up. But a part of me hated him, rather wanted to hate him. But I just couldn’t; I could tell myself I did and act like it, but I didn’t.

I lay flat against a wall, and as I stared at my stomach, I knew there was only so much time. I already felt a nausea sweep over me, but determination kept me driven. I could hear a clock ticking in the distance. It was one of those creepy old ones that you'd see in a horror movie, that at twelve, the killer would be around. But in this case, the horror was my death, but the killer was me.

"God damn it! Where is he!" Eros's voice echoed through the halls in between the alarms.

"A woman came, sir." another man explains, “They fled to the roof.”

"A woman?" Silence is heard, and then the smashing of something follows. He was in an operations room behind the wall I laid against. The lights around me flickered, and I didn't know if it was the lights or the loss of blood, leaving my eyes in a blur. I stuffed my shirt into my mouth and ripped off a piece, tightening it around the wound.

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