Page 116 of Anarchy Missing

It can’t end like this, Lulu.

You didn’t come here to let it end like this. You came here as Lady Liberty. To make this city a better place.

I drag one foot up just as Case shoots off that weapon again. Pause. Let my head clear. Then the other foot, until I’m stooping low. Another explosion down the mountain.

And then I stand.

“Come and get me!” Case is screaming from the edge of the roof. He’s torn off the leather jacket and the ripped shirt, and even though it’s freezing out here right now and the snow is almost pouring down like a curtain dropping on the world, his back and shoulders are slick with sweat. The red light seeps out through the pores in his skin, so he makes the white night glow all around him.

“Case,” I groan. But my throat is dry and I have to clear it and repeat his name several more times before he even hears me.

“Case,” I say, one last time, making him turn.

He brings the weapon around in a steady arc, and my heart thumps with the possibility that he will shoot me again.

His face is contorted, like he’s having some internal battle.

The sound of a helicopter comes into hearing range. The whomping thump of the rotors echoes off the backside of the mountain behind me, until I can’t tell which direction it’s really coming from.

“Back off,” Case says, growling the words at me. “Back the fuck off, Lulu. Now. I don’t want to hurt you but you’re not gonna stop me. No one will stop me from doing what I need to do.”

“What you need to do?” I ask. “Or what you’re being told to do? What are you doing? Do you even know? Are you even in there? You’re out of control, Case! Something is wrong with you!”