Pacifier

🥀Van🌹

Each of us has a fatal flaw. Every single one of us. It is not a truth worth denying though not always a truth worth admitting either. 

I knew all of ours, except hers. 

I knew that Bob's had always been that he thought too much, too many steps ahead of the enemy, predicting their moves so far into the future in a desperate attempt to outsmart them, that he missed it when they changed their minds. Bob saw everything and sometimes that was too much. Every possible outcome clouds your vision and you miss the reality you've already stepped into. You don't see where you're going because you're so busy ruminating where you might end up. 

Larry's fatal flaw was that he never could tell when to let things go. When to be quiet. As kids it had almost seen him killed by my father on many occasions. It was the thing that had brought us closer together, he always wound up on the receiving end of my fathers wrath, and why? Because he loved to push buttons, he enjoyed the adrenaline of seeing what will happen when you do the forbidden thing. It was why he'd always been fearless to contradict me, to call me out, to push my buttons. It wasn't that he was brave, it was that he was stupid, relentless thrill seeking until one day you push the wrong button. Blow yourself up. 

Benji's fatal flaw was the opposite. Caution. He was too risk averse, only ever saw the flaws in our plans, the things that could go wrong. Pessimism held him back. He never got hurt, but he was trapped in a perpetual battle, never reckless enough to take a risk that would be his out.  

Meghan's was power, her insatiable desire for power, for status, to climb the ladder made of gold. To reach the top at any price, not realising that every rung she trod would break beneath her feet. That the only way down - and what comes up must always come down - would be sudden, a free fall upon the fragments of all she had destroyed. 

Nakita's had always and would always be her naivety, her optimism, the way she had once walked into the balcony, looked around and saw a good family. My family, who had never been good and never would be. Who would ruin her life, and already had. She'd seen the worst place in the world with a glowing halo above it, a promise of sanctuary. Even now. Blind. 

Sam's was his relentless inability to take a single act seriously. A little boy at heart, carefree even in his line of work, which was worse than my line of work, that is to say he would always be top of the hitlist without ever having anything to show for it. Always risking his life to work for somebody else. Even if he believed himself to be working alone. Always grinning when he did, no real care for anything, a nihilist enjoying himself to spite everybody. But he wasn't one of mine, he could do what he liked. 

Bondy's was his sentimentality, he couldn't let go of those family values his mother and then Lyra had raised him with. Couldn't sacrifice the ones he loved. Would kill himself trying to save them even when they could no longer be saved. He has spent his whole life desperately trying to keep little Isabelle safe, naive, unscathed. Everything he'd ever done. every danger he'd braved had been with that endeavour in his heart and still he had failed, despite never having done anything wrong. Having only ever tried. And here he was, still trying, though I was certain reality was obvious to him now. Izzy was doomed, just as the rest of us were doomed. But still he would fight to keep her innocence. 

It was admirable but in the end he'd die for it, and so would I. 

Izzy's fatal flaw was everything I adored her for, her kindness, the flow of her heart, her sweetness, her love for all of us. The way she looked at us and saw the good in us. The way she had until she'd looked at me when Jake had died. She would die trusting us. 

And I would die for her. 

That was my fatal flaw. She, was my fatal flaw. 

Izzy. I'd have taken my own life to save her and sacrificed anybody else as well. Id have done it without a second thought too. Loathed as I was to admit it, I'd felt no regret for the loss of anybody else, not if it meant saving her.