The thunder rolled above us.
She looked at me, eyes blazing with tears and rain. “You’re just like him.”
“No,” I breathed. “No. Don’t say that.”
“You pretended I was yours,” she said, quieter now. “Youplayedwith me. Just like my father did. You looked at everything I was — everything I was trying to heal — and youexploitedit.”
I took a step toward her, and she flinched.
“I swear to you, Liz. It was stupid at the start, yeah. A joke. A bet. But that ended the second Isawyou. The second you made me feel something I thought I couldn’t anymore.”
Her lips trembled.
“I love you.”
That stopped her breath for half a second. But only half.
She looked at me like I was a stranger.
“No,” she whispered. “Don’t say that now. Not when it’s convenient. Not when it’s safe.”
“It’s not safe,” I said, desperate. “None of this is safe. But it’sreal. I didn’t fall for you because of a bet — I fell for you in spite of it. You’re not a mission, Liz. You’re not an assignment. You’re the one thing that’s ever made me want to be more than what I was trained to be.”
She shook her head, tears spilling.
“I can’t do this. Ican’t.”
She turned and ran, heels in her hand, hair soaked, the storm swallowing her whole. I was left standing in the rain — with love on my tongue and her hate burned into my skin.
And for the first time since meeting her,
I didn’t know if I could fix this.
Elizabeth
I didn’t know how far I’d run.
My feet were soaked, my heels long discarded behind me, and the cold rain felt like knives on my skin. The storm matched the chaos in my chest — each drop felt like another shard of my heart hitting the pavement.
He said he loved me.
And all I could hear was my father’s voice — calm, calculated — telling me I was built to be a tool. Telling me love wasn’t real, just leverage.
And Noah…
He had been everything I thought love might look like. The way he looked at me. The way he held me like I wasn’t broken.
But now I didn’t know what was real.
Not with him.
Not with me.
Not anymore.
I finally stopped near a narrow alley beside the old art museum — breath heaving, body shaking. My hands gripped the edge of a rusted railing as I bent over, trying not to completely fall apart. But it was already happening.
The sob broke out before I could stop it.
