AN: Wow...Chapter Twenty-Five already...Ahem. So yeah. There's a poll on my profile regarding what my next fic will be. The options: "The Battle of the Exes" for MR (Fang comes back unexpectedly, arousing lots of conflict in the flock and within Max), "Far From the Ordinary" for PJO (following Percy and Annabeth's unusual daughter through Camp Half-Blood), and "Lady Hope's Tree" for Gemma Doyle (Gemma returns to the realms to make the alliance with the other creatures, with some twists on who will be part of it). The current numbers are 3 votes, 1 vote, and 0 votes respectively. Go vote on it and voice your opinion.(:

Sadly, this story is coming to a close. Well, maybe that's not so sad. Maybe you guys are just ready to get all the grief over and done with. Either way, everything will be wrapped up in these last two chapters. They are both pretty long, in my book. The epilogue alone was about ten pages. But, yeah. Just read AND ENJOY!

If Only…

Summary: It's been exactly seven years since a terrible battle involving the flock played out in a forlorn forest clearing. But what really happened on that day can only be told by revisiting the bloody past and unlocking the secrets of the flock's sole surviving member…

Chapter Twenty-Five: This is Now

I stare at the shadows for a solid minute, probably more. There's so many, too many to count. Their presence here makes my head spin. I want to vomit at the sight of so many dead, want to clutch my head to block out all the voices swirling through my brain. It hurts…oh, how it hurts…

Darcy, Dr. Martinez, and Ella stand at the front of the multitude, calming the souls who don't belong here. A tear falls from my eyes, dampening the blood that's already on my cheek from earlier. I don't wipe it away this time, afraid of drawing more blood from myself and triggering more memories.

Darcy walks away from the other shadows and back towards me. There's a sort of…fierce look in his eyes, a look that does not belong in the eyes of a dead man. It's much too alive.

But is that what Darcy's doing? Is he coming back to life? Right before my eyes?

That seems like a perfect description of what I see happening. He's coming back to life. He's coming alive to avenge his death.

They all are.

The very thought sends shivers down my spine.

I hear branches snapping in the forest. Darcy pauses mid-step to find the source of noise. It's another spirit, running at us with a fiery intensity. This one doesn't stop at the edge of the crowd, but runs right into the fray of his fellow spirits, the ones who have yet to break away from their deathly prison. He pants like he's out of breath.

These are no longer shadows, mere stains of the past. These are ghosts.

Everyone's eyes are drawn to this new ghost, including mine. He straightens up and I see that he bears a frightening resemblance to Darcy. This must be his brother.

When the ghost opens his mouth, he utters a frightening message: "She's coming."

At least, it seems to frighten the other ghosts. I don't know what he's talking about.

Darcy must see the confusion on my face, because he finishes making his way to me. He takes my hand in his, rubbing circles into it, and caresses my face with his other hand, wiping away a mixture of blood and tears.

"The time has come, pretty Angel. She's here. The Director's come to finish what she started all those years ago. She's come for you. And only you can destroy her," he says.

My wings begin to shake. The Director… Every fiber of my being screams for revenge against the woman who inflicted this pain on me, the one who stole away my world, my sky, my life.

And she's coming here, to my old home.

For me.

My blood boils in my veins. Darcy sees the anger churning in my eyes and embraces me. His hug is somehow warm and allows my shoulders to relax the slightest bit. I close my eyes and breathe deeply. I'm amazed to find that Darcy smells exactly as I remember: of smoke and the night. Of darkness. Of mysteries. Of memories. Of my fourteen-year-old self.

I love it.

But I don't have time for this right now.

You see, Max left another mission undone, one she could have and should have finished back when she took down Jeb.

She left the Director alive.

I have to kill her.

And I'm not alone. I have an army of angry dead ghosts standing behind me.

All is quiet. I pull away a bit from Darcy's embrace, listening ever so closely to the forest's infinite sounds.

Then, I hear it: the sound of snow crunching under someone's feet.

I step away from Darcy reluctantly. I can't show any weakness, not in front of my greatest enemy.

"Pretty Angel, I'll be here, right by your side. I'll protect you, pretty Angel. You'll live, I swear it," Darcy murmurs in my ear.

I want to argue, say he shouldn't jeopardize himself for my sake. But he's already dead. What more harm can possibly come to him?

The crunching snow comes closer and I brace myself for my fate as the footsteps stop. A tree branch moves, and the face of the Director comes into view.

{[(/*\)]}

For a moment, I just stare. I feel Darcy's hand nestle in mine, providing more comfort than the touch of a traitor should.

But I loved him. And I discover, in this instance, that I still do.

The Director looks at me, her lips curling into a sickly sweet smile. She steps forward, through the crowd of ghosts, making me remember something: she can't see them. My army isn't real to her.

She doesn't stop walking until she's about ten feet away from me. She folds her arms in what I assume is supposed to be a smug, intimidating gesture. Her hair is a sheet of pure silver, her skin more creased than a crumpled ball of aluminum foil. Her smile is nauseating to look at, and that's all before she opens her mouth to speak.

"Ah. Number Eleven. We meet again."

I steel my gaze, squeezing Darcy's hand tight. From the corner of my eye, I can see him wince in pain and I loosen my grip.

"Ironic that it should be here, where we last met, and where we met the time before that. Don't you agree?"

My free hand balls into a tight fist, my fingernails digging into my cold skin. A slight moisture tells me that my hands are sweating, or bleeding, or both. I don't want to respond. I just want to get this over with, just watch her writhe in pain before dying forever.

I want to watch her suffer like I have for the past seven years.

Darcy steps behind me and wraps his ghostly arms around my waist. He kisses the back of my neck, his lips sending a brief shiver down my spine and through my useless wings. She can't see this. She can't see that I'm unable to face her without someone holding me up.

The Director chances to step closer, her eyes locking onto mine. I follow her every move carefully, determined to not let her slip away from my grasp. She seems to circle me, almost like a lion stalking its prey, moving in for the kill.

But this prey is so much smarter than this lion. And this prey is driven by a thirst for revenge.

"Don't you have anything at all to say, Eleven?"

My jaw clenches in rage, immune to the comforting things Darcy whispers into my ear, his unreal breath feeling unnatural to my skin.

The Director smirks at me, obviously satisfied with my silence. "I guess you know why I'm here, then."

My head jerks in some semblance of a nod. I bite my tongue to stop the words from pouring out all the things I want so badly to say to her.

"Well, I applaud you for your tenacity. But now, I will give you two options. After all, it's said that there's always a choice in everything and I most certainly would not want to deprive you of that.

"So your first option is that you come with me. No hassle, no pain, you just come with me. And you face your fate.

"Your second option is that you can fight it. You can fight against the inevitable, against me and my infallible plans. Your choice, Eleven. Make it now."

I glare at her, hoping she can feel the ice of it. Darcy knows what my decision will be, as do the other ghosts. I know the Director does as well; she just enjoys tormenting me so.

In a spark of defiance, I spit at her feet and say, "If you think I will ever again assist you of my own free will, you are sorely mistaken."

"I knew you would say that, Eleven. You've always had…spunk. Your exposure to the world has made you tougher than you started out. You were so young, so impressionable when you left the School. You have not tasted the pain of captivity in the way the others have. As a result, you have not been so easy to dispose of."

I can almost feel my blood boiling beneath my skin, sending flushes of warmth throughout my body. She has absolutely no right to talk about my family like that. I'll kill her for it. Honestly, I will.

It's as though the Director can feel the emotion seething from my every pore. She steps closer. "So how do you want to do this, Angel?"

I stagger backward into Darcy, shocked to hear my actual name exit her mouth. She's caught me off guard with the one thing I didn't expect.

"Don't let her find the chinks in your armor, pretty Angel. She thinks she knows you, but she doesn't. Don't let her use your weaknesses against you."

And with that, Darcy pushes me forward, toward the enemy.

"Ready to face your fate?"

I lunge at the Director, at her sneering, creased face. Her expression doesn't change as I make a grab for her neck. But…one moment she's there. The next…she's gone. Perplexed, I turn in place, searching for her.

"Behind you, Angel!" Darcy exclaims. I move at his warning just in time to dodge the Director's attack. It is then that I see she doesn't intend to play this game fairly: she holds a Swiss army knife in her hand.

I have no weapon.

Or do I?

My eyes fly to the battle taking place beside us, the shadows' never-ending fray. It makes me think that, if I can feel Darcy beneath my fingertips, then maybe, just maybe…

I see the ghostly weapons pile and run for it. Déjà vu surges through me, my feet following the same path at the same time that they did seven years ago. I hear the gunshot once, followed by the other three, and I know one of those dead bullets is now heading toward me. I'm hoping, though, that it will still be enough shadow to pass through me without harming me. But then a thought passes through my head, a question that I would love to have the answer to.

Who shot me?

I see the bullet piercing the cold air just inches in front of me, the bullet that hit me all those years ago. I retrace its path, following the disrupted air in its wake back to the source. I see the little gun, poised in a pair of shaking hands. Hands that are too familiar. Trying to suppress my horror and shock, I look up at the holder of this weapon, at the person's face.

At Max's face.

For a moment, I just stare at her, gawking. Seven years ago today, I was shot in a battle that killed my family. And the person that had shot me had been someone I had trusted with my life, all my life.

And Max had betrayed me.

The Director observes my anguish for a moment as I watch Max step toward where my unconscious body once lay. She pokes at the air there for a moment, and then it looks like she's picking something up. She gestures to Fang's ghost and he helps her lift my invisible body and move it out of the way.

Finally, the Director decides to take advantage of my rapture. As I watch Max and Fang move my incapacitated, invisible body, she comes up behind me, her footsteps crunching in the snow. I ignore it. I just don't get it, can't grasp it—

I've always believed that a whitecoat shot me because I was there to shoot. But now I see more of the big picture: Max knew what she had been doing.

I hadn't been the one working with the School. Max had.

I try to shove the puzzle pieces into place, all the stupid, lopsided, mismatched puzzle pieces of my life, finding that the ones that had seemed to be completely different from each other before were actually connected in the big picture. Max had died trying to save world after all. She was, is, saving it…through me.

I suddenly feel it: a cold blade slicing the skin of my arm. I turn around with a start, my hand covering my arm. It's now wet and moist and sticky with my blood. The Director is smiling at me wickedly.

"Distracted, are you, Angel?"

I scowl, looking from my blood-covered hand and arm to the Director, still holding her knife. The blood flows down my skin and jacket and finally nestles itself into the snow. The moment my blood hits the ground, the blood shed by my enemy, I see the ghostly fray come to a sudden, silent stop. Max's ghost then twirls the gun and lets it fall to the ground with a very solid, very real, thud. Nudge stumbles to her feet, recovering from her brain attack. The fresh bullet wound in Fang's leg closes up before my eyes. I scan the clearing for Iggy and Gazzy. I spot my brother running over to Nudge's side. And then I see Iggy drop his dagger and he looks back at me, his eyes big and blue and clear.

He can see me.

Every new ghost's attention is drawn to me and the Director and the army of ghosts standing by, the ones who didn't die here. I feel Darcy's presence behind me and feel him place his hand on my arm, over my wound. The pain immediately vanishes, the wound heals, and the Director stares, her eyes bugging out of their sockets. I know now that she can see him, Darcy. Now she can see what I see.

And she knows now that she is outnumbered.

Fearfully, she staggers backwards, dropping her measly weapon. And she trips over the recovering body of one of her colleagues.

She can touch them, too.

With a glint of evil in her eye, the Director runs, as fast as someone her age can anyway, straight for the weapons pile that I had been going for.

I run after her, knowing my hope, Max's hope, depends on me getting there first and getting a better weapon than that bloody Director.

I push her out of my way and dash ahead, until I feel her hand curl around my ankle, my bad one at that, and drag me back toward her once I've lost my balance.

My fingernails claw the snow, trying to slow her pull. And then it suddenly stops. It's just me lying in the snow, no hand, alive or dead, around my leg. I lift myself up and look behind me. The Director is being held back by…my army. And the ghosts from the field. They're beating her back, making it as painful for her as possible. And, boy, does it look painful.

I continue to the weapons, the place I had been unable to make it to seven years ago, slower this time. However, I'm once again unable to make it there, because Max's ghost stops me. Call it a ghost if you want to, but this thing, this entity, seems an awful lot like Max to me. Whatever she (it?) is, she puts a solid hand on my shoulder and hands me her gun.

The gun that she had used to shoot me.

"I hope you understand, kiddo. I hope you know what to do."

I nod at Max, closing my fingers around the gun's handle. And I turn away from her, my sister, my mother, my friend, and I take slow, even steps toward the Director, ready to face my fate at last.

It all seems to make some kind of sense now. Max knew she couldn't save the world. That's why she made sure that, someday, I'd be able to. Her last sane act before she completely lost her mind, and her love. She knew what had to be done, and she knew she wouldn't be able to do it.

There are no coincidences. Max shot me with purpose, let herself die with reason, watched her life wither away to nothing with hope. All to bring some shred of peace into the world.

And maybe, just maybe, her plan is finally working now, seven years later.

Seven years too late for her.

The snow seems to melt into spring beneath each footstep that I take, the gun getting heavier and heavier in my hand as I go. But I don't stop. I can't. I'm too far down this path to turn back now. Iggy looks at me, pinning the Director's arm behind her back. It's so good to see him now, like this. It erases the terrible picture of his bloody eyes, sewn shut with anger. They sparkle that enchanting blue in the sun's scarce light.

And then, holding the Director's other arm, is Darcy, the boy, man, that I love. His hair brushes the tops of his eyes, his breath exiting his mouth in little puffs. He sees me watching him and smiles. He mouths something to me, and though I can't hear it, it lends me the strength I need to walk the rest of the way.

The Director's eyes find me as soon as I stop in front of her.

"If you kill me, Eleven, you'll never have your curse lifted," she says to me, a last attempt to gain control of her experiment-gone-wrong (pun totally intended).

I weigh the gun in my hand, teasing her. "Well maybe, Marian"—she winces at her real name—"it isn't really a curse. It all depends on how you look at it. Maybe this 'curse' you gave me is really…a gift." A smile plays across my lips for a fleeting moment, before I turn serious again and point the gun at her.

The Director stares down the barrel. I swear I can taste her fear in the air.

"Maybe you were never really in control of all of this, of all of us. Maybe someone else had a bigger plan and you were just their pawn. And maybe now, it's time for you to give your life up for the cause."

The Director says nothing in response to my suggestion. She is indeed a part of a bigger plan, a part of Max's plan, her last and grandest scheme. The nearly-complete mission for the greater good.

Save the world.

And I pull the trigger.

AN: The epilogue will NOT be posted next week; sorry guys, but I will have absolutely zero computer access next Friday. So expect it in two weeks, on Friday, July 9th.

REVIEWS are just wonderful. Please leave one for me.(: