Annie POV

It was 10:34 PM, and we had finally made it to Aberdeen. We made it in good time, about a twenty-minute delay for stopping at a gas station along the way to pee and refuel, and then a few minutes stopped here and there. Felix had parked the car outside an empty-lotted Tesco and asked me to stay put in the car. I was confused but hadn't protested.

I looked out the window to the large glowing Tesco sign sitting on the storefront. I could see in through the windows. The place was dead apart from a few exhausted looking cashiers and a handful of straggling shoppers. I didn't see Felix anywhere; I assumed he'd gone somewhere in the back. It was really odd to have an outpost in a Tesco, but it was the commission. Nothing surprised me with them, and in a way, it was pretty cunning.

Becoming bored, I looked down into the cupholder. Felix had left his phone. I picked it up and turned the screen on. No notifications, it was still on airplane mode. He'd warned me to keep it on that setting for our own safety. But I was ever so tempted to turn it off and wait to see if Roman had replied to me...

My curiosity won out. I swiped upwards on the screen and flicked the button off, allowing the cell service to kick back on. I waited for what felt like forever, and then the glowing white and green banner appeared at the top of my screen from his number. He'd replied six hours ago, back when we were just leaving York. He'd probably been wondering why I hadn't replied all night. I had to reply.

I read the message:

'An, you don't know how glad I am to hear from you. Your dad is over the moon. The whole family is. Not sure why Joan didn't respond when you texted her. Please come back home to me. I miss you, it's been months, I've been sick over you. Don't worry about your whole situation. I know all about it. Lila is still alive and spilled all your beans. Five has her hostage. That doesn't matter rn. Just get home. Safely. PLEASE.'

I drew my breath back in tightly. Lila was alive.

This lady fake dies and then pops back up roaming around alive and well far too many times for one human being.

After the initial shock of reading that Lila was still alive, I let myself think about the other details of the text. My dad, oh my gosh, my poor dad. I cannot imagine what he's gone through the past two months. Had he started drinking again? Had he done worse? But he's alive. He probably thought I was dead, so that's a major relief. I just hope they didn't leave him to suffer alone in it. I hope Aunt Dory was there for him. She had to have been. They're best friends.

And Roman. The poor thing. He knew about me being married to Felix now. I wanted to call him, to hear his voice, to explain the minute details of the situation. I wanted him to know that it hadn't happened because I'd wanted it. I wanted him to know that I loved him and only him.

I was thinking about this, and then got a pang in my stomach remembering how I'd willingly kissed Felix several times. I had chosen that. I'd justified it in my own mind by saying it was all an act. But if it was just an act, I'm not sure I would've felt butterflies, or felt like I'd lost something when he ended the kiss. If it was an act, Felix wouldn't have started to infiltrate my dreams at night, and he wouldn't make me blush the way he did when we're just joking around driving down the road. I felt a guilty weight hit me like a ton of bricks thinking about Roman now.

I loved him, so much, and if he ever knew I'd had these feelings towards Felix, he'd be entirely broken. I couldn't tell him about that. I just needed to send him a message to reassure him entirely. Even if I did feel something for Felix, Roman was going to be who I chose. We would get this whole sham marriage thing sorted out and dissolved, it would be like it never happened, and I would run as fast as I could back to Roman. It was the right thing to do.

I typed a message out to Roman as fast as I could, not knowing when Felix would return with our briefcase. It felt as if my fingers couldn't fly across the screen fast enough. I typed:

'Ro, I miss you too. It's such an amazing feeling to hear from you. I need you to know that I'm doing everything I can to get back to you as soon as possible. There have just been a few hiccups. I didn't marry Felix really, Lila forced us to as a punishment for me. I don't feel anything for him. I love you. Remember that.'

I felt a twinge of guilt knowing that what I'd typed wasn't entirely true. But I needed him not to worry. I hit send, and then was startled back into the real world by Felix tapping on the window, asking me to unlock his driver's side door. I clicked the screen of the phone off immediately and practically threw it into the cup holder. I forgot to turn airplane mode back on, cringing inside when I realized that.

I leaned over to the side console and unlocked his door. In his right hand he gripped the handle of the briefcase. It had started to rain, so when he climbed inside, the inside of the door was sprinkled and so was he.

'You get everything we needed?', I asked, quickly trying to keep him from making any sort of comment about me having the phone out. He patted his hair down and wiped a bit of rain from his face, closing the door and sitting the briefcase in his lap. By his feet he had set a plastic Tesco bag in it with something unidentifiable.

'Yeah, I did, everything went pretty smoothly, I just went in, told them who I was, and they gave me one.', he answered nonchalantly. 'I really didn't expect it to be so uninvolved.'

I nodded, trying to act as normal as possible as both anxiety and guilt ripped me to shreds on the inside. 'So, do we just fire the thing up and it transports us immediately?'

'Actually, yes, but there's something I picked up for you inside I want you to have before we jump.', he said, reaching down for the bag.

'Oh, wow, you really didn't have to get me anything, we've got pretty much everything we need.', I said, looking around at our snacks.

'Eh this was just a little special spontaneous thing.', he said, pulling out a quaint little bundle of fresh cut flowers. Miniature white carnations. Beautiful. I was taken back, the breath knocked out of me as I reached out to grab the bundle.

'Who says a forced marriage can't be just a tiny bit romantic?', he said, grinning at me. I felt so incredibly conflicted. This was such an adorable, unexpected gesture. I smiled nervously, wishing that I could just kiss him in this moment, and knowing that my soul would be in turmoil if I did.

'Felix... I... oh my g-'

And then the phone lit up with a text message notification. Airplane mode wasn't on. His hand quickly shot down to grab the phone, and he looked a bit perturbed.

'Annie, I thought we agreed to keep the phone on airplane mode.', he said, sounding slightly frustrated. I had seen in the moment before he'd grabbed the phone that it was another text from Roman. He clicked into the messages app, and I watched his eyes as he read the new text message and my message prior. I let the bundle of flowers lay down on my lap.

Felix looked up at me, and if I wasn't reading him wrong, I saw a glimmer of pain in his eyes. He'd read how I'd told Roman I felt nothing for him. While there wasn't any explicit pretense of Felix and I having any feelings for each other, I suspected that he had started to develop some just like I had. He looked hurt, shocked. He opened his mouth slightly and then paused before he spoke.

'Roman texted you back.', he said, slowly handing me the phone, not making eye contact. 'Please just put it on airplane mode.'

He buckled his seatbelt, looking straight ahead and shifting the car into drive. It rumbled to life, and I held the phone limply in my hand.

'Let's stop sending text messages or else we're both going to be in danger.'

SHORT AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I have remembered multiple times and remembered once again that there is a weird age discrepancy between Annie and Roman, Felix and Roman, Joan and Kai, etc. When I was writing IFC, Annie was born about 3 years before any of the others. With Annie now being 17/18 in the story, that age discrepancy makes things a bit weird to have romantic relationships between them. To be completely honest, I just started writing and imagined them all as the same age. So, my executive decision as the author is to now declare that all of the Hargreeves' siblings' children are the same age. I did not intend for such a strange age discrepancy problem to appear, and I should have written a note to take care of it earlier. Thanks for the understanding!

Thank you to those who loyally read my story. I see you and appreciate you. You few keep me writing.