Lucy ran from the bushes.
She didn't always know what to say. She didn't always feel brave. But in this instant, she knew just what to say.
"Flynn stop!"
Lucy put herself between Flynn and the boy, her arms raised.
"Wait. I know you don't wanna do this." She calmed the tone of her voice.
"I have to do this!" Flynn yelled, pointing his handgun at the ground.
"No you don't. I know that you've been doing what you thought was right. You've been trying to avenge your family's death. But look where the hate and bitterness has brought you!"
"If I don't kill him, he'll grow up and he'll continue his father's work and then my wife and daughter will still be in dead." Flynn raised his gun trying to point over Lucy's shoulder.
Lucy had been inching toward Flynn as she spoke. Now she reached out and put her fingers on top of the gun. She wrapped her index finger around the space in the slide, she hoped it would keep the gun from firing.
"No, he knows his father was wrong. Give him the chance to be good. We'll tell him that in order to live he must promise not to seek revenge for his father's death, or continue his father's work."
Flynn was panting hard, sweat poured down his face. Lucy had seen from a distance that he was struggling with the decision to kill the boy. She knew she could talk him out of it. Flynn had been trying to talk her into being on his side. In the future she had grown to trust him, and that meant that Flynn had started trusting her at some point. Maybe, he trusted her now.
"Give him a chance to be good, to change history. Give him the chance your daughter never got."
Flynn stared into Lucy's eyes. It pained him that she didn't remember him. But then for her, their nights together hadn't happened yet. The night in Paris, the long night sailing down the Mississippi, the week in Canada had been a bust as far as the mission went, but they had learned so much about each other.
That had been his Third Try. That's what he called them now, these journeys from 2015 to 2019, Tries. Lucy had believed him in the Second Try and had become his partner a month after being recruited by Mason Industries. In the Fourth Try she had fallen in with him after two weeks.
That time was the best he had done. This was his Sixth Try, and she distrusted him more than ever before. She screamed Wyatt's name when she was scared now. The last two times Mason Industries had recruited Wyatt instead of Joe and it had ruined everything.
She clung to Wyatt and trusted him, instead of fleeing with Flynn after Castle Varlar. That had stung. Now here she was, standing between him and John Rittenhouse. In the Fourth Try he had gotten this far, found Rittenhouse. Last time he had let the boy flee, and when he went forward in time, back to 2015, his wife and daughter were still murdered.
He realized his mistake then, letting John Rittenhouse go. He had tried other things anyway, but nothing worked. His little girl was still missing out on life and paying for his curiosity. So now here he stood. And Lucy was standing against him. The boy sat on the ground quivering in fear. There was not enough time to explain it all to Lucy.
He jerked the gun down, making sure her fingers were out of the slide. Lucy was smart, he missed having her by his side. He had tried kidnapping her the last time around, the Fifth Try, tying her up and explaining it all, while she was gagged and unable to interrupt him. He tried in layman's terms to explain multiverses, parallel universes, how the butterfly effect wasn't real but time travel was. All she could understand was he was a man bent on killing another man's family to save his own, and he wanted her to help. She could not bring herself to understand why it was necessary to kill all of Rittenhouse, including the boy.
"It ends now." Flynn managed to grind out the sentence between his teeth.
Flynn pulled Lucy to the side, determined to kill the boy and end it all here. Lucy would never know him, or might only remember him this way, but his wife would be at home waiting for him. His daughter would get the life that she deserved.
But John Rittenhouse wasn't there.
Garcia Flynn screamed his name then listened, hoping the boy would move and give himself away, but he did not.
Flynn cursed and starting dragging Lucy toward the Mother Ship. If it wasn't over then he still had time to explain it to her. He could try one more time, with her own words, with her own journal from the Fourth Try, to show her why they must kill the boy.