𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐒 | | 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐬 [𝐄.𝐌]

Phase One Gone Wrong

A/N

I went to watch A Quiet Place: Day One in the cinemas on Monday and it was literally so good! Joseph was just this little pathetic baby and I'm here for it. Also, new publishing day is Sunday as I work Saturdays now and just don't have the time to release a chapter :(

Anyway -

Enjoy, My Munson Babies <3

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KIMBERLY CASSIDY

PHASE ONE : save myself and my family. That was my top priority, and there wasn't a single part of me that would allow them to come into harms way; but I was putting them in harms way by continuing to meet the TOPS behind their backs, even if it was for the greater good.

With the Tops now involved, I had Freja and Fahida on my back, trying to convince me that this wasn't my fight and they could handle it the right way, but could they?.

They didn't know my pain, and they certainly didn't know the cause of it. There wasn't a single person on this planet that was fully aware of the destruction Maureen could cause to the soul and that meant that this was my fight and my fight alone.

The Tops were just my means to an end, and though they had been a little controversial in the past, I had a feeling that their help would be entirely different this time; justified in a way that meant only one person would be hurt in the process - Maureen Cassidy.

Despite my determination to save myself and my family, the guilt of lying to them weighed heavy on my shoulders. I knew I was putting them in danger by continuing to work with the Tops, but I couldn't help but feel it was necessary to end the nightmare once and for all.

Freja and Fahida's attempt to discourage me only fueled my resolve to finish what I started. They meant well, but they didn't understand the pain and trauma Maureen had inflicted upon me. Nor did Eddie, or my father or anyone for that matter. This was my battle, and I'd win..for them.

However, PHASE ONE didn't just include manipulating the likes of Freja and Fahida, it also included Eddie and anyone else who was a potential threat to my plan. I didn't exactly know how to worm my way around him, because he was a lot smarter than he looked.

Eddie was definitely a tougher cookie to crack. While he was loyal to me and my want for revenge, he also had his own suspicions about what I was up to. I couldn't rely on my usual charm and wit to convince him that everything was fine; he would see right through that.

I needed a strategy, a way to keep him off balance and prevent him from asking too many questions. But how could I do that without raising his suspicions even further?.

Show myself to the world.

Maybe, not Kimberly but Amanda was a start. It was unethical - I was aware of that, but I didn't look the same, nor act the same. This wasn't some sort of book where people immediately recognised the girl who cried 'death' just to re-rise from the dead; in real life, people were utterly clueless.

The thought of revealing my false identity to the world caused a mixture of emotions to swirl inside me. Fear, excitement, anxiety - it was all there. But the plan of using Amanda as a guise seemed like the best option I had. If I played my cards right, I could walk through the world without anyone being the wiser. No one would recognize me for who I truly was, just another face in the crowd.