SPOILER LAST CHAPTER!!!!

“Penelope!”  Ryan yelled after me.  I turned to look at them.  They both looked at me with begging eyes.  I gave them a weak smile.

                “I’m fine, guys!  I’m just going for a walk.”  I turned and hurried down the street before either could say anything else.  I just walked… I had no idea where I was going.  I needed to get away from this place.  I thought back to that dinner… what?... five months ago?  How different my life would be right now if I had listened to Logan’s pleas for me to see reason.  I wouldn’t have had to kill my best friend.

                I hadn’t realized how fast I was going until I hit the airport in less than five minutes.  I walked in, not totally sure where I planned to go.  I got in line for the Delta Airline passengers.  It moved slowly, too slowly for my liking.

                “Would you like to check a bag?”  A kindly airline worker asked from behind the desk.

                I shook my head.  “I’d like to buy a ticket.”  I said monotone.  For a second, she looked at me strangely, but then looked down at her computer.

                “Where would you like to go miss?”  She said, her fingers already tapping on the key board.  I thought for a moment.

                “I think I’ll go to Egypt.”  I smiled.  I had always wanted to go to Egypt…  I looked back at the woman behind the desk.  “I’d like a ticket for the first flight out.”  I smiled brightly.  She looked at me like I was a loon.

                “Would that be first class or coach?”

                I smiled brightly.  “First Class!”  And why not?  It would be a night for firsts.

                “Round trip or one way?”

                 “One way…” I said with no hesitation.  I didn’t know when I was coming back, but it wouldn’t be soon, if ever.  The woman looked me over, trying to see if I was sane enough to be on a plane.  I probably wasn’t.

                “My I see your passport?”  She asked eyeing me with suspicion.  I pulled out the passport that Lily had given me weeks ago.  The woman examined it thoroughly.  Not able to find a flaw (whoever Lily’s fake ID guy was he had earned his money tonight) she passed it back to me.  Plastering the sweet smile back on her face she continued.  “That’ll be three hundred dollars Miss Cheek.”  I pulled my wallet from bag and pulled out Lilia Cheek’s credit card.  The airline worker took it and pressed more buttons.  After what seemed like hours she gave it back.  “You’ll flight will be leaving in about two hours ma’am.”  She smiled as she gave me back my card.  “Have a nice day and thank you for flying Delta.”

                “Thank you.”  I smiled as I stepped away.  I might as well go to the terminal now, I thought.  I weaved my way through the people in the airport and settled in the ridiculously long for security.  Once through, I went to the little café they had off the terminals.  I bought a ham sandwich and sat on the giant window ledge that gave a wonderful view of all the planes taking off in the black of night.  I sat, nibbling on my sandwich, and thought.  I counted the planes going in and out as I ate. 

One… Two… Three… What was I doing?  I was abandoning the only family I’d had in a long time.  Four… Five… Six… but they weren’t good people… were they?  Seven… Eight… What is a good person anyway?  Was Odette a good being just because she had been in heaven?  Nine… And did her getting thrown out make her less good? Ten… Eleven… And did the fact that she had been to heaven mean that she was less evil now?  Twelve… Thirteen… Fourteen…  Did the measures we took to keep everyone safe mean that we were evil?  Did killing one to save thousands make us bad?  Did giving up on trying to find another way when we just don’t have the time to waste make us demons?  Fifteen… Sixteen… Seventeen…

“Now boarding flight 18290 from Boston to Cairo.  Now seating rows forty-eight to twenty.”  A disembodied voice filled the air.  I glanced down at my ticket.  2B…  I watched the people get in line in front of the gate.

No… To us, we were the good guys… I knew that.  To the outside world, so blissfully ignorant, we were the ghost and vampires.  We were the werewolves and psycho-killers; the baby stealers and puppy torturers.  They didn’t know what we did… They would never know…  We knew what we were doing was the right thing… Just like Odette believed that she was doing the right thing…

“Now boarding rows nineteen to five…”

Even Hitler must have thought that what he was doing was the right thing to do… No one did anything that they thought was wrong, or unjustified…  Nothing was right or wrong.  Nothing was good and evil, and NOTHING… was black and white.

“Now boarding all remaining passengers.  Please make your way to the plane.”

I got up and stretched for a minute.  I had a long flight ahead of me.  I let my mind go blank as I handed the flight attendant my ticket.  I had to avoid thinking about the Mansons… anything but them.  I made my way through the dark tunnel and emerged onto the plane.  My seat was just one row from the front.  I was sitting next to a man in a business suite who had already pulled a cover over his eyes.  I slipped past him and into one of the huge reclining seats of first class.  Not long after, the engine started to rumble under us, and the plane started moving down the runway, picking up speed as it went.

No… there was no black and white… no good or bad… in the end… the world was only made up of one thing.

The front wheels lifted off the ground and before I knew it, we were up in the air, soaring higher by the second.

Only one thing was true… Only one thing was right…

Perspective.