One Day You will U n d e r s t a n d
Zachary Goode, age 5
"You'll be fine being on your own for a week," she assured her son.
"But how do I take care of myself?" the little boy asked from his spot on the living room floor with his toys sprawled out in front of him.
"Don't worry, Hun," his mother said to him while ruffling his hair, "You're a smart boy, you'll figure it out."
She stood up and began walking towards the door but Zach ran as fast a 5 year old could and hugged her leg. "Don't go," he begged.
She sighed and shook him off. "One day you'll understand why I have to leave. It's a business thing, you know that."
Zach's lip began to tremble. "Are you going to kill people?"
His mother didn't respond. Instead she turned around and walked right out the door leaving her little 5 year old son behind to fend for himself.
Zachary Goode, age 7
"Who is my daddy?"
It was an innocent question in his mind. All the other kids at school talked about their mommy and daddy. Zach never knew what it was like to have both.
His mother's eyes narrowed and she turned. "Your father was a reject," was all she said.
"But-"
"Don't ask about your father ever again, got it?" She snapped. The look in her eyes scared him, it was cool and intense. It was a look he didn't think was possible for a mother give her son.
Needless to say, he never asked about his father again.
Zachary Goode, age 10
She placed the cool, silver gun in his hands and smiled at him. Zach Goode never felt so wrong in his life.
"Go ahead, honey, shoot him," she said in a soothing voice as if she were telling him to buy ice cream. Zach's hands began to shake from the feel of the weapon that was in his hands. He knew that the fate of the man that sat right in front of him was in his hands, literally.
"Zach, please," his mother said, growing impatient.
Sweat trickled down Zach's forehead.
He felt like he was being held captive in a prison. The walls were all to dark and hard. The room was all too small for a place that people were constantly murdered in.
"Zach," she sighed. He glanced at his mother, his own flesh and blood, for the first time since she placed the gun in his hands. The look in her eyes was of one he had never seen her give him in years. It was a look of pride, she thought he could be the next best Circle Agent.
He wanted to be looked at like that more often. What he did next was something he will never get to take back.
Zachary Goode closed his eyes and took fire at the innocent human being that sat right in front of him.
Zachary Goode would never be the same again.
Zachary Goode, age 14
"I know who your father is."
The words came to him as a shock. He always assumed that his father was dead, uncared for.
Someone knew who is father is.
Zach looked at the man and shook his head. "How can I believe you?"
The man smirked and crossed his arms. "I don't know. How can you believe me?"
"That's what I just asked-"
"Listen," the man said, "Do you know who I am?"
Zach shook his head and stayed silent.
"My name is Joe Solomon."
Zach raised his eyebrows. Everyone at Blackthorne knew who Joe Solomon was, he was a living legend. Joe Solomon was the man who began to change Blackthorne from its evil purpose to what it is today.
"That doesn't mean I trust you," Zach mumbled.
Joe studied him for a long time. "Fair enough," he said, "You can trust me because once upon a time, I was a lot like you."
Zachary Goode, age 16
"It was a mission," she began.
It's always a mission. One mission is all it takes for everything to change, Zach would know.
"Four years ago my dad went on a mission. He didn't come home. Nobody knows what….happened."
Zach's teeth clenched. She gave up all hope like he had the moment he shot that man.
Cammie Morgan was a little bit like Zach Goode.
"Somebody knows," He said. He didn't dare mention how his own mother knows.
Zach looked at the one girl he hasn't even known for a whole semester but felt like he could trust his life with.
The one girl who would hate him if she knew who he really was, who his mother really is.
The one girl who had every right to have hope for everything to be alright, the one girl who shouldn't have been dragged into this. But she was.
Zachary Goode, age 17
His mother rarely visited him ever since he enrolled in Blackthorne. Which was just as well since he didn't want to see her anyway.
"Miss me, Zachy?" She teased. Zach felt his fists clinching from the anger she had been causing him recently.
"Don't you have a baby to kill?" He snapped at her.
His mother put a hand on her heart feigning injury. "You know that hurts, Zach."
Zach gave her a cold smile. "You taught me how."
His mother laughed at him as if they were playing a game. Which in her world, they were. Everything was game to her, a game she always had to win. "I'm not here to torture you, I'm actually here to ask you a favor."
"And that would be…."
"Bring me the Morgan girl."
Zach glared at her. "No."
"Now now, Zach. I'm not looking to hurt her, I just need something from her."
Zach sighed. "Sorry, mother, but I can't do that."
She glared at her son and sighed. "You know that's not going to stop me."
Zach ran a hand through his hair. "I know," he said simply.
"You could have been great," she said sounding disappointed.
Zach smirked. "I am great."
A/N: How terrible with endings am I? VERY! Other than that, I'm actually kind of proud of this. Slightly. It was better in my head though. Oh well. I love Zach's mom. Just saying.
Review because I wrote in little toddler Zach!