by Joe Pascente
“No one will believe that. You’re a deranged psychopath,” Angela didn’t hold back. She obviously wasn’t going to talk this man out of his plan, so she said what was on her mind even if that meant being shot dead.
“So you’re going to choose a bullet in the head? It’s your call. I’m just saying, maybe you’d like to take the rest of your life into your own hands and do us all a favor.”
Coming down from the same vent that Bows had, Ace lowered himself with both arms and landed softly on the ground. Angela tried her best not to look at this man floating down from the ceiling air vent, holding his finger up to his mouth as a signal to not say a word.
“Fine. I’ll do it,” Angela said, now using a few seconds time to stall. She didn’t understand who this man was, but she had a feeling he was this Ace guy that Duke was looking for. She didn’t know his story, but there was something about the way he looked at her—something in his eyes that was just so familiar. She turned her back to Duke and the other man, standing behind Duke, and stepped to the utmost edge of the hallway, looking down on the dead bodies below her.
“That’s a good girl,” Duke said with a smile.
And then Ace took a small step towards Duke, inching closer, but mistakenly stepped onto a piece of broken glass alarming him straightaway. Duke spun around and fired his gun directly into Ace’s chest. Right as the gun went off, Ace lunged into him, slamming his trusty pocketknife into Duke’s neck. Everything was happening in a split second. Duke hit the floor on his knees as his eyes flickered and the blood spurted from his carotid artery. He fell onto his back and died in a pool of his own blood.
Ace fell against the wall and slid down onto his side. Angela came rushing from the window’s ledge over to the man that had just saved her life. She didn’t think about her foot still being in excruciating pain, or the stab wound in her leg. None of her injuries were a nuisance as she ran to this man’s aid.
She knelt to his side and held him up in her arms as best she could. Ace was still conscious, but he was fading fast. The stab wound in his back was already causing a massive amount of blood loss, but this gunshot wound was worse. He looked up at Angela’s face, as she was silhouetted by the golden sunlight that was shining through the hallway.
Ace was the first to speak, gulping in little breaths of air and exhaling faintly.
“There you are…”
“Here I am…” Angela whispered in response.
“I’ve been…trying to look into your eyes…all day. They’re so…beautiful.”
Angela smiled warmly, staring back into this handsome man’s brown eyes. She held his head in one hand and his upper body with her other. His eyes focused on hers, and Angela knew there wasn’t much she could do to save his life. She put pressure on the gunshot wound, but she could feel blood seeping out of his body at a rapid rate.
“I need—to say…one thing, before I go to sleep…” Ace’s eyes kept shutting, but as he spoke to Angela, he looked right in her eyes and said, “I love you.”
Angela was taken aback. She didn’t know this man, but she also couldn’t let him die without saying what he so desperately wanted to hear from her lips. Right as she opened her mouth, she understood everything. This man was a part of the assassin crew. He took Pure. He was in love with her and saved her life because of it.
Angela didn’t have time to process all of this. It was too much for her to take in, so she did the only thing she could do.
“I love you, too.”
Ace smiled back at Angela, reaching for the hand that was holding up his head. Putting his head on her lap, Angela let Ace hold her hand.
“I just need to shut my eyes…for one second,” Ace said, closing his eyes for the last time.
“Wait, what’s your name?” Angela tried to wake Ace up, but he was unresponsive.
Coming down the staircase, Jacobi had checked every floor and finally reached the 21st floor. He peeked his head in, and witnessed Angela holding onto this man’s body. The same man that he pushed into the caved in floor, after he had told his far-fetched story to Jacobi. Jacobi stood in the hallway, giving Angela some space. She was crying now and bellowing into the man’s face.
“You can’t go yet. I don’t even know your name…I don’t even know your name…”
Jacobi made his way over to Angela and put his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, and then back at Ace’s face. She was sobbing now and wouldn’t let go of Ace’s body for a few moments.
When she was ready, she placed his head on the floor and walked with Jacobi to the stairwell doors. Jeremy was waiting in the stairwell, leaning against the wall. When he saw Angela come through the door, he immediately grabbed her and hugged her. She was still in shock from everything that had just happened to her, but she hugged him back.
Jeremy suggested taking the elevator back down, but Angela refused to walk back into the hallway to get into the elevator. They all agreed to walk down the 21 flights of stairs together.
They reached the lobby without saying a word. Jacobi and Angela—and even Jeremy—had all been through too much for a sensible person to handle in one day. They had survived, but just barely. As they walked out of the Geneco building, they heard the faint sounds of ambulances and police cars driving towards their vicinity. Jacobi mentioned he had called them once he and Jeremy made it off the rooftop.
They each stepped into the ambulances and were patched up by the paramedics on the way to the hospital. Jeremy’s wife was waiting for him when they arrived and Angela waved hello to her. Jessica waved back, as Angela was taken to a hospital bed. The TV in the hospital was airing news on a deadly shootout at the Geneco Inc. building. Angela shut the TV off, not wanting to be in that moment any longer. She looked over at Jacobi in the next hospital bed and they both smiled at each another.
Before falling asleep, Angela thought about Ace. She had never taken Pure, but if she had, she would have felt the same loving feelings he had felt for her, even if she knew it was just a chemical reaction fooling her mind. She was already distraught about his death, but now she thought about how she wouldn’t be alive if he hadn’t taken Pure.
Would he have saved me, or been the one to kill me?
Going through all the scenarios in her head, she stayed awake a bit longer than Jacobi, who passed out quickly due to the calming drugs in his system. They both needed time to heal their bodies from the day’s events and left together the next morning. Angela wasn’t ready for the media frenzy waiting outside.
Thinking about how fresh this story was on the news, Angela knew she couldn’t possibly go back to her home, at least not right away. So she told Jacobi she needed to be with her family for some time and she would see him soon. She took the next private flight to her parent’s home on the east coast, leaving Jacobi to ponder what the future held.
IV. Full Deck
It had been two months since Ace died in Angela’s arms and about a month since the truth came out about Pure. After everything that happened that day, Angela took a much-needed retreat to her parent’s home and decided the world deserved to know the reality about her love drug. She did countless interviews and set the record straight. Everyone in the world had different opinions about Pure and about Angela now.
Some people respected the fact she was honest about what the drug truly was, whereas others felt deceived and questioned the love they had for their “true loves.” In the interviews, Angela expressed she wasn’t a magical witch that created a love potion. She explained it was a chemically-based formula that was triggered by sight. Pure was taken off the market and once again, people were left to fend for themselves in the hunt for love. As for Dr. Angela Haven, she was the happiest she had been in years. She was back in town and reunited with Jacobi.
Jacobi and Angela were sitting on the same boat dock where they were nearly blown up by a rocket launcher. The old man stayed away fro
m them when they came in to rent a boat. He didn’t want to get pushed into the water by one of their hoodlum friends again.
Playing a card game on the edge of the dock, Angela put down her last card. It was, of course, an ace. She won the game and celebrated her victory. Jacobi playfully wrestled with her and she landed on top of him pushing his arms onto the dock. They were laughing and smiling and having a fun time.
Angela stood up and stretched her body, enjoying the warm sunlight. She turned her head to look down at Jacobi who was gathering the cards for a rematch, when she decided to splash him with some water from her foot.
Jacobi was soaked. He warned her, “Do it again. See what happens…”
And she splashed him with her foot again. Jacobi jumped up to his feet from sitting on the dock and flirtatiously chased Angela off the dock’s edge. She dove in the water headfirst and he followed her by doing a cannon ball into the ocean. He found her underwater and took her in his arms, kissing her. They didn’t know what the future would bring. All they knew was that they felt something for one another and that they had gone through an extreme experience together.
Without Pure’s influence on the love market, people chose to date one another once again. They chose to be with someone, even if their friends or their mother disapproved. People made mistakes again and fell in love with people they probably weren’t meant for, but that was the whole point. That’s what Pure took out of the equation—the unknowingness of it all. The most crucial and exciting part of anyone’s love story.
Nothing was for certain, but people did find love on their own again, even without Pure’s chemically induced help. As for Angela and Jacobi, they seemed to be on the road to happiness. They took their time falling in love, one day at a time. After all, love at first sight didn’t exist. Right?