Chapter Thirteen

Zoe

I kissed Miles Blackstein.

I can't deny it. Pictures and videos would call me a liar—I would know, I've watched most of them.

What they don't show is the part that truly troubles me.

The white-hot urgency that prompted me forward—to erase every residue of them from his clothes, his skin, his memory. Replace it with me .

As the bell chimes, I decide to chalk it up to single child syndrome—I never learned to share my toys—and the need to establish to the world Miles Blackstein is mine . Not really—not at all—but still. To the world, he is.

So, I wanted to make a point, and I made it.

That's it.

Time to stop overthinking.

If there's anything I should dwell on, it's the realization that my resolution to exit this charade exactly as I entered crumbled inconspicuously some time in the past weeks. I'm beginning to accept, begrudgingly, that I won't be able to go back to the status quo where Miles Blackstein was the bad guy I despised.

He's a lot of things, but not all of them that bad.

I swing the door open, almost expecting the man to materialize from my thoughts to confront my sudden one-track mind.

"Zoe Westwood?" The voice tickles something in my brain.

It's not Miles. I don't know if the pang in my chest is relief, but it can't be disappointment.

The girl wears mom jeans and a baggy hoodie that would be perfect for Boston if it wasn't sunny, impossibly balmy June, but I barely see her face behind the monstrosity she carries.

"Yes?" I confirm, simultaneously implying a question.

The answer is in my face, though, red and intoxicating.

"These were sent for you."

She can only be referring to the flowers, though she doesn't make a move to pass them. In fact, her body doesn't sway an inch, a statue if not for the moving mouth I can barely see.

I blink at the dozens of roses tucked inside a craft paper sheet, tied by a black ribbon with exquisite spirals that erupt and bloom in luscious red twirls.

I've never received flowers in my life. My birthday is long gone for the year, some cold day in February. I rack my brain—as far as I know, my calendar doesn't mark any special dates in June.

Something presses in my chest, unrelenting. The thought of him, again.

Could it be? Miles? Would he?

"I need a signature," Flower Girl says.

Unwilling to move, my eyes track as she shoves them into my hands. I'm almost crushed under the countless steams, some of them thorny, nicking at my bare arms.

Flower Girl doesn't acknowledge my hiss when one draws a thin trickle of blood, staring out at me from under a black cap that almost covers her eyes, the hair underneath so fair it's almost white, though something about it doesn't look right—not natural, not dyed either.

On any other day, I'd wonder. Right now, there are more pressing questions. Like who the hell sent me flowers?

I clear my throat and demand, curiosity shadowing all else, "Who sent them?"

"Miles."

It was him.

It was Miles.

Why?

No one has ever gifted me flowers. I don't know the protocol, and I surely know nothing about keeping living things alive.

With every breath that I fear could be their last, the roses feel heavier in my arms. With every blink, my stare seems to wilt the silky petals, darkening at their edges in my shadow.

"I… Let me just put them down," I say.

Flower Girl invites herself in, following me inside before I can wonder where to sign, since she didn't seem to be holding any clipboard or sheet of paper.

Before I process the way she said his name, like he isn't just any customer. It's Miles, though. There isn't a single soul he wouldn't befriend after two words—like good morning.

Before I identify that what her voice tickled was recognition. It's on the tip of my tongue, taunting me, but I can't quite get for it.

"Excuse me, do I know you?" I angle my face to her as I walk.

That's when I see it. It glints, caught by the sunshine flooding the room through my windows.

A gun.

It's a metallic silver, like Miles's eyes under the sharp lights of a stadium or when he stares down at me, like it's us, always just the two of us.

Miles .

His face flashes under my eyelids, lighting up my brain, like his exquisite features switched a flip.

Flower Girl looks familiar because we've met before. In the darkness of the night, the edge in her eyes had been softened, her hair a curly dark mane—maybe it still is, under the blonde wig—and the smile was aimed at Miles.

Miles .

It's Miles's friend.

Lucy .

A cold shiver trickles down my spine, freezing every vertebra into place. I plaster a smile, because, for some reason, I feel like I must smile at the gun that stares me down.

Inside I curse myself for not listening to my intuition when it warned me of her that night, too busy trying to forget things I couldn't even remember right now.

"Lucy? Why did you bring a gun here?" I've been called pessimistic, but I don't think it's my fatalism telling me the gun is here for me. "Is it for protection?" I try optimism for once. "Are you afraid of something?"

Lucy doesn't move one inch, gaze never straying from me, impassive as she answers in the same mechanical tone, "Do us both a favor and don't play dumb. It's insulting to our intelligence. "

"I—" I scramble for purchase, palpating the insides of my skull for words even as I seem to have forgotten the alphabet.

I feel the need to squeeze my eyes shut to breathe, but the shiny silver thing stares straight at me, and I can't stop staring back.

"What have you come here for?" I don't think my voice shakes, but I also can't properly hear it through the thunder in my ears. "What do you want from me?"

I can't fix the problem if I don't know what the problem is. I can hardly believe my own logical thinking in this moment of panic.

Physically, I think I show no fear. Zoe Westwood was raised to always be in command of the room, never to panic under pressure—or, you know, imminent death.

"I'm undecided." She's a robot with a human voice. "I know what I want to do, but I'm almost 100% sure it won't get me what I want."

"What do you want to do?" I ask, afraid to know.

"Kill you." That's on me. Shouldn't have asked. "I really want to kill you for laying one finger on my man."

Miles.

He's the reason my forehead isn't embellished with a bullet or two—yet. Lucy thinks Miles loves me. And I remember the way she looked up at him—she loves him, distorted ways and all.

"If you want him, I don't think hurting me is a smart move," I try to reason. With the girl who came here to kill me.

"I don't remember asking."

"I just… I don't think he would forgive you, if you hurt me. He'd be devastated. You wouldn't want to be the cause of his pain, right? Hurt someone you care so much about. "

"Do not trouble yourself," she says, her inflection never flickering. "He'll suffer until he realizes you were a waste of time. He doesn't love you, not like he could love me. He's just blinded by your pretty face. He'll get over it quick enough. Soon, he'll forget you were ever part of his life."

With each word, she ties a new ribbon around the little vessels in my lungs, cutting off the oxygen in my bloodstream—not because there's truth in her threat, and she will kill me, if she so decides. Because there's truth in her words.

Dead or alive, with or without Lucy, Miles was always going to move on and forget my brief existence in his life. It somehow makes my chest even tighter than her threats.

I promise I will figure the tightness later, and not at all avoid it. If I arrive alive at later , that is.

"You're right. We're a lie. He doesn't even like me. It's all a li—"

"Do not lie to me! I've seen how he looks at you." At what point did we switch scripts? "I've seen how you look at him when you think he isn't looking."

She steps towards me. I step back. Then again, and again, until we're effectively inside the living room, and I'm trapped between her and the coffee table that bites the back of my legs.

"You think you can come into our lives and steal what's mine?" she continues, the gun jerking in my direction, punctuating her words.

"I don't like him. I swear to God, I only recently decided I didn't hate him. He can be thoroughly arrogant and annoying, you kno—"

"Stop trying to fool me." Well, at least I die with the knowledge I excel at everything I do, including acting. Except baking. And painting my toe nails. "And do not insult him!"

I swallow, no trace of saliva in my mouth.

The robot is shedding skin, leaving a psychotic, erratic girl with a fucking gun.

Her hand twitches, and with it, the gun. I've fooled myself in trying to keep my last sliver of sanity, delusional for even for a second thinking I could be the one in control when a psychotic bitch holds me at gunpoint. And somehow, it finally becomes real. Like I was dreaming until now, and now I'm awake but the nightmare continues.

A gun.

The roses tumble to the floor, stems and petals scattering on the floor, as my hands raise like they can shield me from a fucking gun .

"I know him better than you. I've known him for years."

"Okay. I believe you. Just put the gun down, please!"

"Shut up."

"I'm sor—"

"Shut. The. Hell. Up."

I screw my eyes shut and thin my lips, trap them with my teeth so no sound escapes.

"You must disappear from his life. There's no place for you in our lives." I can't tell whether she's telling me or talking to herself, thinking out loud. "But if you die, he'll always wonder. You'll always be the one he compares me to. He'll never let you go."

"So, you're not going to kill me?" I dare to hope in a half plea, half sigh.

"No, I am." Well, hope is a bitch. "He just won't know you're dead. By the time he finds out, we'll be too happy together for him to even think about you, at all. "

She doesn't fidget, doesn't hesitate. A woman on a mission, there's no reasoning that'll deter her from finishing what she came here to do.

Shocking, huh?

Fuck.

I think I'm going to die today. It's such a beautiful day to die, today.

Outside, the sun shines upon the city on the first day of summer, a beacon of hope that comes with each new season. Life goes on, people busy in their mundane worries and ordinary chores.

It's humbling to think I'm about to die, and life will continue just the same without me.

"Where's your phone?" Lucy demands.

"What?"

"Are you deaf or dumb? Your phone."

"Um… I don't know. In the kitchen, I think."

It's not. It's somewhere on one of the couches, where it always gets stuck in the pillows.

I don't know why she wants it, but whatever it is, it's surely not for my benefit. I won't make the logistics of my demise easier for her.

Plus, if she goes to the kitchen, I can try to lock myself here and grab the phone to call the police. Or, if she makes me go to the kitchen, I'll discreetly try to grab something that can draw blood.

"Why?" I ask, trying not to sound hopeful.

"Stop asking questions and do as I say before I lose my patience." The hand with the gun finally moves, gesticulating towards the door as she moves aside, giving me passage. "Get your phone. Now. "

Without breaking eye contact with her, and her favorite toy, I walk backwards, a sheen of sweat trickling down my neck to pool on the dip of my throat. One foot behind the other, a prayer to a god I don't believe in, I manage to take a few steps before I trip and stumble and fall, ass colliding with a thud on the floor. My hands, still up in surrender, fail to break the fall, and sharp pain explodes from my coccyx up my spine until all the tips of all my fingers and toes are immobilized. I can't tell if I scream or shout, because my nerve receptors are focused on the tsunami waves of pain ravaging my body.

I almost forget about the silver promise of death for a moment.

"Shouldn't have lied to me." I look up through blurry eyes to see my phone dangling between her thumb and forefinger. She must have spotted it on the sofa next to me, so close and so far from my reach.

"Insert your code to unlock it. Don't try anything funny again."

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

This was my one chance at defending myself.

What will I do now?

"You're not really a florist, are you? He didn't send me the flowers," I conclude, attempting a distraction.

I need more time. I need to get up from the floor and do something. I can't die here, with a throbbing ass and a thundering heart and so many things to figure out and to live.

"You're about to have a bullet in your forehead and you're asking if the flowers are from Miles, like you hoped?" She thrusts the phone in my face, gun firmly in the other hand.

Well, when she puts it like that… I almost want to snort. Stressful situations do a number to a girl's sanity.

I type my password, the sweaty pads of my thumbs not registering on the screen. I have to tap twice, then multiple times on the 9 and the final 8, before it unlocks, the screen foggy like the car window when I blow a breath and draw on it. Except it's not a heart; it's my goodbye letter.

8-8-9-3-8.

"Tell me again how much you don't like him," she says as she types with one hand, one eye on the screen, the other on me.

My phone beeps in her hand. She looks down at it, the cold luminosity washing her face in white, evidencing how much she doesn't like what she sees.

It's Miles. It has to be. Whatever he says, it's not what she wanted—a sentiment I'm familiar with.

Lucy looks around my home, the wheels on her murderous brain turning with plans. At some point, her gaze settles roughly in the direction of… nothing? She nods brusquely, ordering me in the same direction, unwavering gun in hand.

"Go stand there. Now."

I don't know what to do.

I don't want to go, but I also don't want a bullet in my head.

I don't know what to do.

I raise myself up to my knees. Smaller waves of pain wash me at the slightest movement, warning me to walk straight forward this time. I don't get up from my knees, though.

The tip of my toes dip into the rough serging of my ugly Persian rug. My heart hammers violently in my ears, but the blood doesn't seem to reach my limbs, and a cold bead of sweat drips, vertebra to vertebra until it reaches the end of my spine.

The end.

This is the end, whatever that means.

I set a palm on the floor, put some strength in my legs.

Then, an abrupt thwack thuds against my skull.

I think acute pain erupts from it, but it hurts too much. I can't really feel it.

My ears explode in a strident ringing, a steadfast peeeeeeeeeeee , no respite.

All I see is nothing, blinking and blinking and only blackness.

Something liquid trickles down my face, hot, steady, sticky. A waterfall of blood, tears, terror.

I don't know, don't realize, at which point I drop to the floor again.

The solid softness tickles my cheek, whispers in my ear, soothes me, soaks up my blood, my life.

Consciousness slips from me with the pain until I feel what I see.

Nothing .