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She had to lower her expectations. She couldn’t escape with a two day head-start. She had to do it the dirty way. She would just vanish with the baby and if anybody noticed she had to use her gun. Nothing else would work and they would suspect something anyway, because she wanted to take the baby. The baby, the baby, the baby… she needed a name soon, it was weird to only call him the baby or the child or whatever. She liked Elias, but she’d think about that further at another time. She needed to sleep now, because this was the only time she was able to - between three and seven in the morning.
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She woke up and it was as if she hadn’t slept at all. Her head hurt and the fucking sun that came through the window didn’t help either. Fuck the sun. Oh great, her mood was already the lowest it could be and the day had just started.
She arrived at the Centre and went straight into her office, were Broots was already waiting for her.
“Good Morning Miss… ehm… yeah, good morning.”
She didn’t even graze that with a response.
“Anything new Broots?”
“No nothing, sorry.”
“Than what the hell are you doing here?”
“I was just…” he looked at her and knew what to do; he was out of the office in the blink of an eye.
She would never survive if she was as week as Broots. She had gotten ‘weaker’ in the last few weeks, or better to say ‘softer’ as Sydney put it, but she would never stand before a person and act like THAT.
She had asked Sydney again, if Jarod had called, but Jarod didn’t make a sound, he kept hidden. He was hurt like a little boy. He WAS a little boy. Only a very smart boy. She had hoped he could help her… he was still a rat, but he knew what she had to do and she was sure if he knew she was about to save a little boy from the Centre, he would help her wherever he could. Wouldn’t he?
She picked up her phone to call her contact in Germany, but stopped short, when she remembered were she was. Very smart missy. She’d call later from home from her secure line. She would leave in a week, as soon as Sydney told her she was ready. The training made good progress and Sydney was proud of her and himself that everything went so well.
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Six days later…
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She had called her friend, she had all the flight registrations, she had all the supplies she needed for Elias (yes she had chosen that name) and she was at the top of her game in pretending. Sydney had told her she wasn’t at Jarod’s level, but that was to be expected, he had a few more years to practice after all.
She’d pick up Elias from Child Care Services that afternoon and sign all the important papers. But she wouldn’t come back to work after picking him up. She would change cars and drive straight onto the highway. She hadn’t received any more strange vibes than usual from the Centre people, so she guessed they weren’t planning anything, but she had to be careful, you never knew with those bastards. With her father gone, she had to watch her back at all times. Yes, he lied to her and was responsible for a lot of pain, but he would never had allowed anyone to kill her. That protection was gone now. They would try to take Elias away from her as soon as he wasn’t with the Services anymore.
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That night…

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Sydney was on time as always.
“Hey Parker, ready for your last lesson?”
“As ready as I‘ll ever be.”
But when he pulled something from his bag it was no disc or player or weapon. It was a bottle of Champagne.
“And afterwards we have a drink. We never got to do that before.”
“Deal. What are we doing now?”
“It‘s not really part of the normal pretender training anymore, but I thought it would be smart to teach you to fake security cards, passports and such things. It will come handy at some point.”
“Fine, but let’s get over with it quickly, I have a big day tomorrow, I need more sleep tonight than usually. Got that?”
“Got it.” he answered.
He went to sit down on the couch, but that was full with stuff for Elias.
“You can sit over here, I hadn‘t had the time to clean. Kids really need a lot of stuff. I‘ll write everything down and let Elias pay me back when he earns his own money.” she said, but Sydney and she knew she wasn’t serious.
“Elias is a beautiful name.”
“I thought so too.”
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To be continued…
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