Epilogue
Four months later
Faith leaned her chair back on two legs, held the wadded mass of paper above her head like a basketball, and lofted it toward the trash can in the corner of the room. "Swish!" she cried, raising her fists in triumph.
"You do that every time," Doyle said. "Stop bragging."
"And I'm pretty sure no one says 'swish,' anymore," Katie called from the other side of the room as she sent her own wad of paper into the wastebasket.
Ignoring the implication that she was even moderately out-of-touch—she blamed prison—Faith let the front legs of the chair thump back to the floor and addressed Doyle. "You're just jealous because you have lousy aim." She tugged at the paper beneath his Subway sandwich, and he slammed a hand down on it.
"Why do you always try to steal my food?" he demanded.
She grinned. "Because the others are still-growing super-beings, and you—" She looked pointedly at his stomach. "—could do with a little less eating."
He glared at her and took a huge bite of his sandwich. She snatched the paper, crumpled it, and sent it sailing toward the trash can, ignoring his food-muffled protests.
Elena walked through the room's doorway and directly into the path of the paper projectile. She caught it before it bounced off her face and tossed it casually over her shoulder and into the trash. "Look who I found!" she said, smiling. She moved out of the doorway so Connor could come in.
"Now it's a party," Katie said. She sat up from her lounging position on the couch, shifting to make room for the others.
"We didn't think you were coming until tomorrow," Doyle said.
Connor shrugged. "Sadly, I had nothing better to do on a Friday night then take a bus trip." He walked into the room and plopped onto the couch next to Katie.
"We didn't get you any dinner," Faith said. She tossed the remaining sandwich on the table to Elena, who caught it and sat between Katie and Connor.
"I ate before I left. Anything going on?" Connor asked, his legs stretched out in front of him.
"Not really," Faith said. "Figured we'd do a routine patrol, see what we could find."
"Uh, no, we won't," Doyle said.
Faith turned toward him, then snatched his sandwich from his hands when she saw his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Dropping the sandwich to the safety of the table, she caught Doyle by the shoulders, keeping his head from hitting anything as the vision ran its course.
By the time it was over, Connor already had the weapons chest open, digging through it for his favorite sword. Katie pulled her jacket on, and Elena took another bite of her sandwich before wrapping the rest of it for later.
"Thirty-seventh street," Doyle said. "Meglash demon. Thirty minutes."
Faith squinted at him. "You okay?"
He nodded.
She stood. "Then let's go."
Weapons in hand, they filed out of the room and down the short hallway that led to the front door of the brownstone townhouse. As she stepped through the door of her home and onto the steps that led down to the sidewalk, Faith glanced at the silver plaque screwed into the brick wall: Angel Investigations. She looked over her shoulder at her troops, her team.
She smiled.
She don't run from
the sun no more
She boxed her shadow
and she won
—"Paper Bag," Anna Nalick
The End
Disclaimer: For
fun, not money. None of the good stuff belongs to me; it belongs to
Mutant Enemy.