Jarod’s appearance was like an epiphany for all the people in the room.

“Daddy!” Katie and Ethan screamed at unison. 

Lyle couldn’t believe the pretender’s stupidity. They’d made a plan and he was going to ruin it only because he was too in love with Parker to keep his wits about him.

Parker released a huge sigh of resignation. She was feeling exactly like Lyle. Jarod had been their only hope of ever getting out of that hole, instead he was there, ready to become a captive, again.

“Jarod, are you out of your mind?” she screamed.

“I’m glad to see you too, honey.” Jarod tried to convey a wry smile, but he wanted to know if she was fine. “Did they hurt you?”

“Hardly.” She answered. 

Gabriel couldn’t believe his eyes. Eventually, the pretender had really decided to show up.

He raised his hands ans started a sarcastic applause.

“So, Jarod. The Master of the chasing game! We finally meet.”

“I told you I was getting to Blue Cove.”

“So, I should believe that Sydney being here has nothing to do with your return?”

Jarod kept eye-contact with Gabriel, “You should believe that Sydney never misses a chance to work with a new pretender that reminds him of me.”

The doctor flinched almost imperceptibly, he knew he should not feel sorry for Jarod’s last sentence. It was part of the act. At least, that was what he hoped.

Jarod had nothing to offer, if not himself, “I am here. We made a deal: I come back, you let them go.”

Gabriel smiled, “Actually, you made a deal. I only said that you had no choice. And it was true.”

“You son of a bitch.” Parker complained.

“It’s just back to normal, Jarod.” Gabriel sincerely explained.

Lyle couldn’t count the endless times he’d heard that sentence over the decades.

In the meantime, Sydney took the children by the hands and moved as far as possible from Gabriel, trying not to get noticed.

“You know, I still don’t get one thing. You knew where we were, you found us a long time ago, and yet, you acted and pretend to be a stranger, you came all the way down to Maine just to get noticed by Parker. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have even met you. Why spying on us?” 

Chuntao motioned Jude to move down the stairs and towards the centre of the room. She wanted the sweeper to cuff Jarod ASAP.

“Well, let’s just say that I wanted to test you.”

“Why?” Jarod questioned him, totally confused.

“I’ve been trained to know you as my nemesis. When I was young, the members of the Triumvirate always said that you were the best pretender around. I wanted to test your limits and I wanted you and Miss Parker to know who you were dealing with. I must say, for a moment I thought you wouldn’t recognize me.”

“Oh, but she nailed you down at once.” Jarod replied, almost proud of Parker’s inner sense. 

“But I assume that you were the one who realized that one of the Red Files was still missing.” 

“All the act was a huge waste of time. I thought the Triumvirate doesn’t like losing time.”

“Well, the Triumvirate has been waiting to have you back since 1996, I considered that a few more days wouldn’t spoil the welcome back party. And then, you must admit that this was much more fun.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

Gabriel gazed at Chuntao, then back to Jarod. “Well, your boy won’t get inside that bowl. For now.”

Jarod lost some of his nerve, “What about them?” 

His daughter and son were looking at him,  almost hoping to see their father becoming a superhero and fly them away from that horrible place. 

“I’ll take good care of them, I promise.” Gabriel explained. “Ethan will start his training tomorrow. And Katie will learn to use her inner sense. She’s going to need it.”

Jarod decided that he had heard enough. With a sudden movement, he took a gun from behind his back, aiming directly at Gabriel. Sydney was so shocked to see the pretender with a weapon, that he gasped in surprise.

“Intimidation, Jarod? Really?” Gabriel asked him, pretending not to be surprised by his move. 

The man exchanged a knowing glace with Chuntao and, with the purpose to defend her partner, Chuntao took the unexpected chance to aim a gun at Miss Parker.

“Better call it murder.” Jarod replied, with an improbable seraphic calm in his tone. “If my kids aren’t out of here in five minutes, I’m going to kill you.”

Even if she couldn’t believe her eyes, Parker was glad that Jarod was at least trying to do something. She didn’t know if he really had it in him to kill a man. But when her eyes fell on her kids, terrified by what was going on, she thought that yes, Jarod would kill Gabriel.

“You know” Gabriel spoke. “There’s one thing that certainly doesn’t scare a dying man. To die sooner.”

A very anxious Lyle observed carefully, trying to speculate every possible ending for that scenario. In his mind, every single solution would cause somebody’s death, probably also Jarod and Parker’s. 

Without knowing, he was performing a simulation. 

Jarod’s fingers thigtned their grip on the butt of his gun. He surely wanted to make this man pay.

“Go on. Kill me, Jarod.” Gabriel stated. “You want to. Do it.” he whispered. 

“Gabe, what are you…”

“Please, Chuntao.” Gabriel interjected her.

Jarod squeezed his eyes, the agony of making a choice was evident even for the people who’d met him only that day.

“You are simming this, aren’t you?” Gabriel smirked. “And you know what’s going to happen, if you pull the trigger.”

“Shut up…” Jarod began to shake his head.

“You fire first, I die, and then Chuntao…”  

“Stop it!” Jarod screamed. 

Lyle knew what was going on in the pretender’s mind. Because for the first time in his life, he was seeing it, too.

There weren’t other choices, for Jarod. If he wanted Gabriel out of the picture, Miss Parker had to die.

To get out of there, Jarod would have to shoot Chuntao, too, but Jude was the next variable to consider. 

Lyle was trying to solve this messed equation. What was the missing term? 

Sydney and the kids? Not at all.

Miss Parker? She was held by Jude, she couldn’t move.

And then it hit him.

It’s me.

“Come on, Jarod. Don’t make more fun of yourself. Put the gun down.” Gabriel intimated.

“Jarod, don’t!” Parker shouted, struggling to wriggle away from Jude’s clutches. “Kill that son of a bitch!”

“I can’t…I can’t…”

“Save the kids, Jarod. Save them!” Parker screamed, knowing that Jarod would realize what she actually meant by that. She was ready to sacrife herself, if it meant that she would save her children.

In the end, Miss Parker had turned out to be exactly like her mother.

Jarod looked for his mentor. Sydney slowly shook his head, he thought this was a terrible idea. 

“Jarod, you are not a killer.” He said.

Two consecutives shots were suddenly heard in the room. Jarod closed his eyes in astonishment and Sydney held the kids, trying to protect them with his own body.

When the pretender opened his eyes, the first things he noticed were Parker, Jude and Chuntao lying on the floor. 

“Parker!” Jarod screamed.

He knew that he needed to take care of his kids, who were moaning and crying still held by Sydney. 

But he needed to know that Parker was fine.

He ran towards her, ignoring anything else going on around him.

Once he realized that she was fine, he helped her up and held her tight.

“God, I thought…”

“I know…” she cried, holding to him for dear life.

Their eyes eventually found the source of the ordeal.

Lyle.

After killing both Chuntao and Jude, he was now aiming his gun at Gabriel. The psycho man was gazing at him with incredulity. 

Lyle made a step in his direction. Sensing that this wasn’t over, Jarod looked at Sydney and the children over Parker’s head.

“Take them out.” Lyle ordered her.

Not wasting time to question his behavior, Parker nodded fast at her brother. She ran towards her kids and, with Sydney’s help, they dragged them out of the lab.

Lyle kept walking towards Gabriel, a threatening expression on his face.

When the dying man found the courage to say something, the only word he could manage was a simple, “Why?”

Lyle stopped in front of him.

“Jarod ain’t no killer.” He said quietly. “But I am.”

A third shot was heard in the huge room. 

Jarod saw Gabriel’s inanimate body falling to the ground, not far from the other two corpses.

Lyle sighed deeply and finally turned his head, watching the pretender.

“This was the only way. Sorry for scaring the kids.” Lyle’s excused himself.

Jarod nodded, his breath finally getting back to normal. 

“What about them?” the pretender asked Lyle.

The man bent over his former fiancee’s body. He indulged in mourning her for a couple of seconds. 

“They had it coming.” He said to Jarod.

“You know, I was wondering how much time it would take you to realize that this was the only possible positive outcome for all of us.”

“Only the time to perform my very first sim, Jarod. Of course, this wasn’t the best result in terms of expendability.”

Jarod ignored his joke. He needed to say something, and if he didn’t do it soon, he wouldn’t find the courage to say it, ever.

“Thank you, Lyle.” 

Lyle would have never thought to hear the pretender saying those words to him. 

“Well, you’re the brain. What now?” Lyle asked.

“We need to run, again. But my family can’t live in hiding forever, Lyle.”

“I’ll deal with it.” Lyle promised. “For good.” He clarified.

Jarod nodded impercepibly at him, and then he ran, as Lyle watched him disappear. 

He hadn’t lied to Jarod. 

He would stop the Centre activies, once and for all. 

He owed it to Jarod. He owed it to his sister, to his mother.

But most of all, he owed it to himself.