Owen had waited a day before coming to a decision. He wanted to get rid of them, and he knew it was the only way to do so. They were the only ones to know his mother was still alive and they had insinuated in a new letter that it was her, or the name. Only one last person. He could do it, he just had to forget about the team, forget about who he had become, he had to be what he had once been, so he wouldn't lose everything. He repeated that to himself as he was walking, a different face than his usual one on. The face he had always used for this.

He knocked at the door, because why bother breaking in when you could just ask to enter? And the poor woman let him in. He talked for a while, casually, still under cover, trying to sell something without a clue of what he was saying. Waiting, analysing, trying to hear if she was alone or not. Maybe trying to postpone the inevitable. When she asked him if he wanted to drink something, he nodded, asked for a coffee, and stood up when she was out the room. It was the perfect moment. The opportunity he had been waiting for. He could now either run through the door and throw his life away, or kill that last person and be done with them, forever.

When she got back, he hadn't moved from the room, and he hit. Or he tried to. He put an arm around her head, covering her mouth, his knife against her back, but he didn't quite push it. He felt the cloth tearing under the slightest pressure, but the woman didn't even try to defend herself. She froze, didn't even let go of her tray, and looked at something, alarmed. Owen knew what she was looking at, but he checked anyway and he saw the photo of the woman and her family. The woman and her children. All happy, all smiling, all very much alive and glad to be, enjoying the time they had in their life.

Fuck, he thought as he closed his eyes, his grip tightening on both the weapon and the woman. Fuck fuck fuck.

"Mom?" A small voice called from upstairs. "You said you'd read us a story."

"She'd read YOU a story, I don't want one!" A second voice, stronger, said.

"You love mom's stories!"

"Liar."

"You're the liar!"

"MOM! She called me a liar!"

"You started!"

And they went on for a while, alone, upstairs, and Owen could feel the woman shaking. He then felt tears on his arm and he drew in a deep breath. He couldn't. Not any more. He was done with this life, had been for a long time. She had done nothing wrong. She didn't deserve to die. Why was he obeying orders? Why was he asked to execute her? Why was he rebelling only now?

When the tray finally hit the ground, the children stopped arguing and ran downstairs. Owen heard them but disappeared before the woman could do anything.

He ran back home, still without his usual face on, threw his knife in the wall and his jacket on the sofa, then took the paper, damaged by his clenched fist the day before. He flipped it over and wrote something at the back, then ran out of his flat to leave the note somewhere he knew they would see it. At least he hoped they still were controlling the place.

"I won't do it ever again. I paid the price a long time ago.

Fuck you"

He had added the last sentence at the very last second, and decided to wander in the city afterwards, trying to realize what he had just done.