I feel myself getting excited despite the horrible headache. The moment I've been waiting for for the past few years is finally within my reach and all my dreams are about to come true. I'll come into my own and I can finally be someone, have everything. Have people be afraid of me and make them shrink away at a glance. Command the air around me through my very presence. Get all the respect I was born to get and never really received up to this point. I've always felt cheated, like life has shorthanded me somehow or someone made a terrible mistake which landed me with this empty half-life where nothing matters, where I don't matter. But that's all over now. I see the locks tumble and I barely hide my anticipation as the door inches open. I can't fuck this up now. I've got to keep my cool and get the impostor out of my life and then take over. I see him slowly walking in. The same fucking air of command even though I'm the one with the gun pointed at his heart. He should be afraid of me, but he's not. I can see it in his eyes and this fuels my anger to the point I feel my blood boiling. No more! You will not command me anymore! I fire once, twice and he falls to the floor, blood pooling around him and I step over him ready for the last shot. And then something hits me from the side and I'm so shocked I fall to the floor and the gun slips from my grasp. I see the kid fighting to reach the gun and I know I have to get it before her. She'll never be mine, she'll always question my authority so maybe I can teach the other one what happens when you cross me. The little shit got the gun before me and she turns her eyes on me, pinning me with a gaze I've seen just a few seconds before in his eyes. The same calm, the same coolness, the same air of command and confidence and I know I'm well and truly fucked this time. I see her squeeze the trigger and almost don't feel the impact of the bullet as realization hits harder. I've failed and the life I'm owed will never be mine. Just another failure, another disaster in a long string of empty efforts. As consciousness starts to slip away and my visions blurs to dark, I think of a difference. This time it doesn't matter. This time I'll not be here to witness my failure anymore.

I feel myself getting excited. It's been three days since that nightmare in Steph's apartment and all that's been keeping me going is her hand around mine. I didn't talk much, I didn't even want to move. I was sitting beside his bed starring at this near stranger, my supposed father. I didn't hate him, didn't love him either. Truth be told, I didn't know him at all, but something in me reacted instinctively when he went down. An overwhelming need to protect what's mine and a strong knowledge that there's no way I can fail. One minute I was laying half drugged on the couch and the next my body took over and slammed into Scrog. I've never held a gun before in my life and until Scrog got to me in Miami I'd only seen them in TV shows. It didn't matter. I got to it before him and knew without a doubt that this had to be done and I was the one to do it. So I shot him. I shot him before he got to deal the final blow to Ranger. Before he turned on me and Steph. I shot him and never thought twice about it, didn't feel the guilt or remorse though I'd been prepared for it. Now I'm sitting beside Ranger's bed and feel him squeezing back my hand. I look at his face and see his eye lids moving, like he's trying to wake up from a deep slumber. In all the times I've seen him before, staring at him and cataloguing any resemblance to me hadn't mattered. It hadn't helped me feel his daughter. It hadn't brought on the feeling of being a part of him. So I stare at him again now, taking in my straight nose on his face, my dark hair spilled on his pillow. As his eyes open, I think of a difference. This time, it matters. This time, I know the part of him that's in me was awake to make things right, even when he couldn't.

I feel myself getting excited. It's been a week since Rangeman's hallways have felt more haunted than alive. Sure, the men were working as usual and business was happening, but there was this overbearing undercurrent that something was missing. That what made Rangeman Rangeman, the best security company on the east coast, wasn't there. It was eating at everyone's morale and even though they were highly skilled in hiding it, I could still see the uncertainty and worry in the men's eyes. But no more. Today, Ranger was coming back from the hospital and you could already feel his presence in the building again. Like spring air after a long, harsh and bitter winter. I focused back on the task at hand, not wanting to burn the food or over cook it. It had to be perfect. Today, everything had to be perfect and I had no clear notion as to why, but the feeling was so strong, I just couldn't ignore it. He'd been gone before, long months doing God knows what and returning more dead than alive and with eyes haunted by whatever nightmare he'd been forced to live. It never had such an impact on the whole building as this near miss had. I'd never felt like his return was like a son's coming back home. I puzzled over it, trying to figure out the difference and as I finally shut off the stove, it came to me. This time it mattered. This time, he'd been out to save a part of himself.