Page 44 of To Love a Monster
“Someone like me?”I echo, my voice thin.“What do you mean someone like me?”He doesn’t answer as my thoughts begin racing faster than my heart.I don’t quite understand what he’s saying.And then I replay what he’s just said long enough to land on the question I should’ve asked first.
“Wait.”I stand up and take a step back.My stomach twists.“You said ‘hired.’You werehired?”His expression shifts just slightly as he nods.“By who?”
I look at him, waiting for an explanation but I’m met with nothing but silence.I throw my hands up, showing I’m not letting this one slip and eventually he sighs.“I can’t tell you that,” he says, voice quieter now.“Not yet.I’m not authorized to.”
“What?Authorized?”I laugh, but it’s sharp and bitter.“Jesus, you make it sound like I’m some mission file.Like someone stamped my name on a manila folder and handed me over to you.”
He says nothing to that, and his silence feels like more of a gut punch than anything he could have said.
“The art store,” I whisper.I see his shoulders tense slightly and I already know the answer to what I’m going to ask next.
“That was planned, right?That wasn’t just ...some coincidence?”He hesitates.That’s worse than answering.“You were there for me.You wanted to see me, for me to seeyou.”
I shake my head and press my lips together as I take a deep breath and continue, “So, you were sent by someone,paidby someone to watch me and you won’t even tell me who.You followed me, watched me.”
He swallows.“Yes.”One word.That’s all it takes.Something inside me doesn’t just break, it shatters.All the air in the room shifts.What’s worse is that I realize how badly I wanted it to be fate.How I convinced myself I’d found something rare and real.That I ended up in some fucked up love story where guy becomes obsessed with girl, stalks her, she lets him in and then they live happily ever after.The end.Now I find out that someone paid him to do all of it.I don’t know what to feel or how to process any of this.
I think about how I let him touch me, sink into me, unravel me.I thought maybe it meant something.
“So, this was all part of the plan?”I choke, my voice barely steady.“Get close.Gain my trust.Make me think it was fate or chance or whatever the hell else.”I’m pacing now, half out of breath and half holding tears of frustration back.“God, and I let you in.I invited you in even after I knew you were following me around like some creep.”I shake my head.“And then I slept with you.”
His eyes flash.“Lila—” But I cut him off.“You didn’t want me.All this time, all you wanted was easy access.”He flinches and that response alone tells me everything.
“You got me to drop my guard.To trust you, so you could do yourjob.”My voice breaks.But I don’t stop.“That’s what this was, right?”I meet his eyes, daring him to lie.“It was all to make your job easier.You were just trying to please whatever fucked up person hired you to watch me.This is all to do with me and you won’t even tell me who it is!”With that he moves to step forward, fast but not threatening.Not dangerous.Just furious.
My words hit him hard and his jaw tightens, his shoulders go rigid.There’s a flash in his eyes, something cold.He looks at me the way you look at someone who just tore open a wound you’ve spent years keeping stitched shut.His throat works once and when he speaks, his voice isn’t calm.It’s carved.
“I wasn’t supposed to engage, Lila.”His voice is sharp, ripped raw from somewhere deep.“I was supposed to observe.Watch from a distance.Nothing more.”I can’t stop myself.The anger’s too big and too sharp to hold.It’s crawling up my throat, hot and bitter, demanding somewhere to go.I don’t even know who I’m mad at more, him or me, for letting this happen in the first place.
“And yet you did.Why?Did I make it too easy?”
His jaw twitches.“Ah, that’s it, then.I just made it too fucking easy for you.”My voice is rising now, shaky with heat.“I flirted back.Went to you in the darkness.Didn’t ask questions when I should have.Didn’t run when any sane person would have.And you thought, hell, why not?Might as well fuck her too.”
“Lila—” he tries again, his fists clenching as his anger builds but I don’t let him finish.
“Is that when it supposedly changed for you?Or was fucking me always part of the plan?Part of your payment package?” I’m pacing now, hands trembling, the burn in my chest too big to swallow.He stays still and that pisses me off more.
“Well?Was it?”I push, getting closer to him but still he stays quiet and that’s when I feel like I’m about to explode out of my own skin.“Fucking say something, Nikolai!”
“Enough!”His voice roars through the space like a shotgun blast.Loud and raw and ripped from his gut.He moves fast and in just two strides he’s in front of me, towering and burning.And this time he doesn’t hold back.
“I broke every rule the secondI choseto make contact,” he shouts, voice echoing off the walls.“Thatwasn’t the job.Thatwasn’t ordered.I was supposed to stay away.Observe!But I didn’t.Icouldn’t.I pushed my way into your life because I wanted to.Because I couldn’t stay on the outside anymore!”His chest is rising and falling like he’s holding himself together by a thread.
“You want to talk about what was real?”He laughs low and bitter.Pained.“You think I kissed you because someone told me to?You think I touched you because it made the report look good?”He steps closer, voice dropping now, deadly low, thunder rolling just beneath his skin.
“I held you like that because I couldn’t fucking breathe until I did.I watched you paint, sleep, move, because Iwantedto.Not because I waspaidto.”His voice breaks like it’s tearing out of his chest.“Every second.Every look.Every fucking breath was real.And you know it.”He shakes his head, jaw tight, voice shaking from the weight of it.
“You think you’re the only one who fell?I broke the rules.Not because I slipped up, but because I chose you over every line I wasn’t supposed to cross.”His eyes lock with mine, burning, dark and unrelenting.
“So, go ahead, hate me for what I didn’t say.For what I can’t.But don’t dare tell me this was fake.”His words hit deep.Deeper than I want to admit.Every breath, every second, every fucking look.I feel it in my chest like something is splintering because part of me wants to believe him.Part of me is still reaching for him even now, but the other part, the one that’s burning with betrayal and humiliation, can’t let it go.I still deserve answers.
I stare him down, breath jagged and chest tight.“If you broke so many rules for me, if this wasn’t part of the plan, then you shouldn’t have a problem breaking one more.”My voice cracks.“Tell me who sent you.”But he doesn’t answer and that silence is everything.I bark out a hollow laugh, tears stinging behind my eyes.
“You see?”I hiss.“Bullshit.All of it.”His hands ball into fists.His whole body is coiled, shaking now, not with fear, but with barely leashed fury.He takes another step toward me, his voice hoarse.
“You don’t understand.”And then I lean forward and slap him.Hard.The crack of it echoes across the walls like lightning splitting the air.Tears slide hot down my cheeks.I don’t wipe them.
“Stop it,” I whisper.My voice is fractured, soaked in pain.“Stop pretending.”Another tear falls.And then another.“God, maybe it’s a good thing I found out now.”I shake my head, hate pooling in my chest.Hate for him, for me, for all of it.“What kind of idiot falls for a fucked up stalker?For someone she barely knows, in the space of a few days, just because he touched her like she meant something?Letting you touch me was a mistake, Nikolai.Allowing you to come as close as you did was a mistake I wish I never made.”That hits him.I see it.Good.I hope it fucking burns.
