EPILOGUE
"Chicago: five minutes til departure! Chicago: five minutes til departure!"
The announcer's voice was booming, quite audible above the hushed cacophony of Grand Central Station.
A man who had been nervously pacing a small section of the passenger waiting area with long strides, abruptly stopped, and fumbled a small, weatherworn pocket watch from his breast pocket. Five til six. The train was still precisely on schedule. He replaced the watch to its rightful place in his pocket and elicited a long exhalation. Good, good, he thought, though his expression remained somber.
He was a handsome man, as handsome as any other of the young gentlemen in the bustling Station. His tall, lanky form was covered in a three-piece cream colored tweed suit, only showing its true weather-weariness when viewed up close. His feet were clad in a pair of black shoes, the scuff marks not noticeable from far away. A cream colored bowler hat sat atop his head, and the shock of blond hair was pulled neatly into a queue tied with a velvet ribbon. The hat casted a shadow over his otherwise attractive visage, and the man did not notice that more than one set of eyes from young girls in the train station was cast upon him. He wore the hat low for a reason, for that way the pretty girls were not able to notice from afar the multiple scratches and lacerations riding his fair features, or take heed to the spectacular shiner that had developed over his right eye.
Indeed, the man knew what he was, and he took great care to conceal his identity.
He drew in another deep breath, and turning his eyes to a person sitting quietly on a bench, made his way over to her. He sat beside her, placing a heavy arm around her, drawing her close to him. The woman was very pretty, indeed. She was clad in a rose-hued bustle dress, perhaps not of the current style from France, but not enough to catch anyone's eye except for those women inclined towards forward fashion. Her blonde hair was pulled back in to a neat, but hasty, style upon her head. A tiny hat the same color as the dress was perched upon her head, emphasizing the appealing face that was just perhaps a bit tanned too much by the summer's sun to render her truly one of the upper crust.
To the numerous others that mulled about the Station, waiting to catch their train, at a quick sideways glance, one would only think of them as a young married couple, perhaps waiting to visit family upstate on this humid Sunday morning. Nothing more, nothing less.
Indeed, the attractive pair was a young married couple, but a couple not visiting family. They were fugitives on the run.
The man hastily checked his pocket watch again. Only two more minutes until the train boarded.
He nudged the woman beside him gently with his shoulder, who had seemed to be drifting in and out of slumber. Her eyes fluttered open.
"Only two more minutes, Helena," he said softly.
She regarded him with an insolently cocked brow, as though she perturbed for being awaken. "That's nice, Flynn," she replied dreamily, her eyes already shutting once more. She was caught off guard when he brutally jerked her head off his shoulder. She regarded him, eyes widened. "What the hell did you do that for?"
The ferocity of his green stare held her rapt attention. The glittering eyes were narrowed into slits. "What did I tell you, Helena, you cannot address me as that in public until we are at least out of New York," he hissed through clenched teeth.
She elicited a weary sigh, and her gaze drifted from his and fell to the feet of the passengers bustling before her. "Oh, right," she murmured, her voice catatonic.
His appellation was still indeed Flynn, but ever since slipping into the darkness and away from the war last night had deemed them fugitives of Brooklyn, he had been adamant she call him by his Christian name and no longer by the name the streets had bestowed upon him.
She, also, had changed her name to his, when she took his name during a rushed marriage ceremony that had taken place sometime during the early morning hours. Throughout his tenure doing odd jobs at various places, Flynn had made some connections, and those connections seemed to pay off very well when one needed to leave town in a hurry.
She glanced down at the two train tickets he held tightly in his grasp. She could just make out the name scrawled on one of them. Mr. Conrad Flynn…
He had said it would be easier to escape town unnoticed if they were already married and if she already carried his name. She tended to agree, fewer questions asked if they were an actual married couple…
Her reverie was shattered a moment later as his lips found her ear, his nose gently touching the apex. "Helena," he said softly, "It's time for us to board."
"Oh," she replied automatically. She began to rise to het feet from the bench, when an unmistakably hot pain from her injured calf rushed to her brain. She elicited a small cry, and collapsed onto the bench once more, into his waiting arms.
She had almost forgotten about her bum leg. Flynn had been able to have a doctor he had known from his stint in Queens examine it last night, and he had extracted the bullet and bound her lower leg with a bandage, but the muscle still had to heal, and due to that she was still unable to properly bear weight on her leg.
Since they carried no luggage, he was able to effortlessly scoop her up into her arms, and cross the Station to where the train for Chicago awaited.
"I just need you to take the tickets." He flashed her a grin, and his eyes glittered, the one off-set by the shiner more so it seemed.
She took the tickets in her gloved hands, and her eyes scanned over to them. 6am departure from New York to Chicago, they both read. Only his read Mr. Conrad Flynn. And hers read Mrs. Helena Flynn.
They finally reached their destined car, and Flynn whispered to her, "Give him the tickets, Hel."
She dutifully handed the tickets over to the ticket taker, who cast a wary look to Flynn.
"She's in a delicate condition, you understand?" he said without missing a beat.
Realization washed over the man's face, and a smile crossed his lips. "Ah!" he cried, casting Flynn a knowing wink. He ripped off the tops of both tickets and handed them back.
Flynn returned the man a thin smile, and started down the car hallway that was flanked by cushy looking seats on either side. "Ah, here we are," he murmured aloud as he espied the seat numbers correlating with the tickets. He gently placed her in the seat nearest to the window, and took the seat beside her. Her body immediately sank into the crimson velveteen seats, the same color of blood; the same color blood that had belonged to…
Flynn elicited an audible sigh and stretched his long arms out over his head, before popping off his bowler hat and placing it under the seat. The queue was beginning to fail in its battle to control his hair, and bright strands fell across his brow. He regarded her with a smile, his green eyes glimmering.
She looked away from him and to the window, her lips drawn in a pensive line.
He sold his plan to her easily as a snakes oil salesman hoodwinks the public into purchasing his dubious wares. He recited it so passionately, so meticulously that when he had first shared it with her, it caused her to wonder how long he had had that plan locked up in the secret corners of his mind.
He had been saving every little cent he had collected for years, that now he had collected a quaint sum of money. The first step had been to be married, but that was the easy part. The next parts involved a grandfather in Chicago that Flynn had not spoken to in quite some time, but whom he could count on if he ever ran afoul of trouble. The clothes had been hastily purchased, and the train tickets with even greater haste, for it was a tacit acknowledgement between them that they were both now fugitives of Brooklyn, and most likely had a bounty on their heads.
Although she knew Conlon would never dare harm her (or would he?) he could not pardon Angel Haddox and Flynn Finesse for their crimes against Brooklyn. Now that Midtown had fell and Brooklyn once again rightly reigned supreme, the fallen Oliver Haddox's former assassins were no longer beings to be feared. They were beings now to be hated, and hunted, and brought to justice for their atrocities against Brooklyn.
Conlon had granted her escape once. She knew he would not be able to promise it once more.
The train was whistling and the conductor was shouting in the background…perhaps the train was departing the station? Her query was confirmed as she felt the first tug of the engine hauling the shuttering train out of Grand Central Station.
She turned towards Flynn, (Mr. Flynn, that was), only to find that he was already peacefully dosing. He had shucked off his suit jacket and had rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt. The powerful, sun-tanned arms rested on his chest and his hands were folded together. His head lolled to one side, his breathing rhythmic. She smiled in spite of herself and placed a gloved hand to his cheek, running her thumb over his swollen black shiner. His cat-like eyes opened at the touch and he regarded her.
"I love you, Helena."
The corner of her mouth turned up in a smile, and she tucked a strand of loose hair behind his ear. "Go back to sleep Flynn."
Dutifully, he obeyed, his heavy lids closing over the green orbs, and he once more drifted into a peaceful sleep.
She regarded him for a few more moments, before the pain in her calf began to flare up, and she writhed in her seat, seeking a more comfortable position. The pain died as suddenly as it had come upon her.
She exhaled deeply and looked out the window at the scene of New York in during an unbearably hot summer day as the train pulled out of the station, lost in her thoughts.
The last she had seen of Spot Conlon had been of his eyes meeting hers last night, wild and fearsome and alive—as all should be. She knew that he had lived, and he would flourish even more so. He would lead Brooklyn as her Fearless Leader in an even more glorious age now that Midtown was defeated. But that one day, he himself would grow too old be a newsboy any longer (what had he said to her at one time? I, as a leader, am expendable. There will always be another to take my place.) And indeed, he would in time choose another to take his place, and he would marry and would give the girl he chose his entire heart and soul and nothing less and would love her with as much an intense, impassioned love as he had held Brooklyn.
Her lips formed a thin line, and she pressed a palm to the glass pane of the window. Conlon had been the catalyst in all of this…in her finally reclaiming her birth name and identity. Yet, as with much ardor as she had with to be Helena Haddox, she realized that she was even more lost as she had been as the Angel of Death. As the Angel of Death, she had known exactly who she was…as Helena Haddox…she had no tangible idea who she was, or was supposed to be. She was even led more astray with her identity now then she had been.
But Flynn. Flynn loved her, hard and desperately. It was going to have to be him to be her pillar of strength in this foreign land—Chicago—so that she did not succumb to her old demons. She knew they would haunt her always, licking at her heels wherever she went, whispering sweet nothings into her ear for her to end her life…But she knew Flynn would not let that happen. It was going to take an impossibly strong will, and even a more impossibly strong love, to save her, and she prayed it could be done.
Her eyes never faltering from the window, her hand groped blindly at her side for Flynn's, and she opened his palm and placed her hand within his. She knew his eyes had never opened, but she felt his hand squeeze hers gently, reassuringly.
And Helena gazed out the window, at New York in the midst of the summer sun's impossibly breathless rays, at a New York that slowly faded as the train pushed onward to that brave, new world that was Chicago.
That day marked the last time that she ever laid eyes again on Spot Conlon or New York.
And a sudden sob came to her, which she stifled with her gloved hand. For whoever said all is fair in love and war, has never experienced love and war, for love and war are never fair.