I lost the battle, but I'll win the war.
Gretchen fled the scene at the London Eye before anyone in the crowd could realize she had orchestrated it all. They'd all been too horrified and transfixed by the action before them to see looking on in growing frustration, to hear her howls of rage.
She'd turned her back as Allen's body fell to the ground, blinking back stinging tears. No. No more tears. There had been enough, hadn't there? The nights she'd spent crying after Claire had left, wondering what she'd done to make the woman she loved more than anyone leave without even saying goodbye.
No one ever believed her, but she hadn't always been this way. Gretchen hadn't always been crazy. Sure, she'd been a bit weird, maybe even creepy to some, but she'd never been mean before.
That, as far as Gretchen was concerned, was Claire's doing.
Within minutes, she made it safely back to the very building where she'd been holding Claire captive, locking herself in the room she'd considered her control room, her headquarters. She paced furiously, knowing by now her Griffin would have failed and she'd be down not one, but two henchman.
Allen, in particular, she'd grown rather fond of. They hadn't been involved, except for the odd night in a motel room when the loneliness of their respective lives became too much to bear. He understood her. He was loyal to her. And now he was gone.
Gretchen slowly began to turn her anger to motivation, wasting no time in scouring databases and every resource she could find in order to seek out replacements.
That had only been the first strike; she was far from finished.
