Page 65 of To Love a Monster
Then another.Her expression doesn’t shift but her posture does.Almost like a predator catching scent of a hunter in the wind.
I step forward.“It’s over, Annalise.”
“You poor thing,” she says softly, and this time there’s pity in her tone.“You still don’t get it.It’s not over until I say it is.”Then the air splits.
Flash.Bang.
The rooftop erupts into light and chaos.I hit the deck on instinct, my vision flaring white.The sound is disorienting, leaving my ears ringing and my lungs gasping for air.Through the haze, I catch movement of black shapes flooding the rooftop edge.Matteo’s team floods the floor fast and trained but Annalise is already moving.
Smoke curls at her heels and as she twists there’s a glint of steel at her side.A coiled rope attached to what looks like a grappling hook snaps to life and she backs up to the edge of the building.
I lunge, my hand outstretched but she’s faster.She jumps and then she’s gone.By the time I reach the ledge, the rooftop is a mess of boots and tactical radio bursts but there’s no sign of her.Just a trail of smoke, and a single, glinting token left near the chair.A tarot card, The Lovers, bent at the corner and burned on one edge.
Behind me, someone calls out my name and I turn to see Matteo pushing through the smoke, his rifle slung and jaw clenched.“She got away,” I spit.
“We expected that,” Matteo says, his breath tight.My hands curl into fists and rage claws its way up my throat, hot and sharp.
“Then what the hell was this?”I snap, stepping in close.“You had her right there.You saw it, she was exposed!She should be dead!”Matteo doesn’t flinch, doesn’t match my fire.He just stares me down with that quiet, infuriating calm that used to make me want to hit something when I was twenty and reckless.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says simply, and I stop cold, my whole body going still.My jaw locks, teeth grinding so tight I hear the pressure crack.
“The hell it doesn’t.”I take a step towards him.Not threatening, but just enough to make the atmosphere around us shift.My hands are still shaking, knuckles raw, blood crusted from where they split against the cabin floor.
Annalise got away.Again.And he’s telling me that doesn’t matter?
“The objective tonight wasn’t her.”His voice is even and controlled.Like he’s briefing a mission post-op, not standing in the wreckage of everything I just barely held together.“The objective was to get you and Lila.”He turns back to me, gaze locked.“And we got both.”
Something inside me, tight and ready to snap, just ...stills.The words hit but they don’t register, not fully.Not yet.We got both.My mind repeats the words like they’re in a language I haven’t heard in years.My lungs seize, one breath in, none out as I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.Not at first.
“Lila?”Her name shreds its way out of me like it’s made of glass.“You have her?”Matteo sees it.The question hovering just behind my eyes, the one I’m too fucking afraid to ask.His expression softens just barely, enough to fracture the ice running through my spine.
“She’s alive,” he says quietly.“We got her out before you even made it to the roof.”Relief slams into me like a hit to the ribs.
And right behind it fear.Because alive doesn’t always mean okay.It doesn’t mean she’s safe, not really.So I have to ask, “Is she—” My voice breaks and I try again.Closing my eyes and balling my fists like it’ll give me strength.“Is she okay?”Matteo exhales slowly, then nods toward the car.“Why don’t you come see for yourself?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
