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The shooting starts up again, before I can continue. One of the high windows goes bust on the other side of the room. It’s really tiny and well above our heads, let alone too far from us, but it’s the first thing to give way to the killers. Marco checks the straps of my vest, but we don’t otherwise move. He wraps his body around me.
“I’ve been looking for someone to do stupid normal things with me my whole life,” I say and my voice fades at the end, but I continue. I have to say this. “I’m so glad I found you.”
He chuckle-cries and buries his chin in my hair. “Jesus Christ, Olivia,” he says. “I’m already on my knees.”
He kisses me while the dull sound of gunshots echoes in the forest all around us. The sound is much louder now that there is a small opening on the wall near the ceiling. It’s still too high above us to make a real difference, but it drives home the fact that this is happening. Right now, right here.
Sooner or later, they’ll be inside. And every second until then counts. Marco is fully prepared and armed, and there’s nothing left for him to do. Well, there is one thing.
He can talk.
He will never say all the things he needs to say before it’s too late, but he can say some of the things. And I can listen.
“I need you to know about last night,” he says, lips pressed hard against my head. “How much I wanted you. How it nearly killed me, wanting you so much.”
“I did too.”
“I know, my queen. But it was not the time.”
“Because you were here to kill me,” I say and immediately I wish I hadn’t said it, because a shudder wrecks his entire body next to mine, but he doesn’t let go. He swallows, hard.
“I…” he says, choking. “I would never harm a hair on your head,” he ends up saying in a quiet, desperate voice.
“I know,” I reply at once. “I know you wouldn’t, Marco, I’m sorry I said that. I’m sorry I was so mad at you—I was just so sick of all the lies. But I know you would never do the job they gave you, not you. You vomited on the street after nearly hurting a dog and you hadn’t even touched it. After all we’ve lived through, don’t you think I know what kind of a person you are by now? Give me a little credit.”
He looks at me with shock on his handsome face.
“Yeah?” he says. “You think… You mean that you believe me? You believe me when I say that I was hired to do this horrible thing, but I had no intention of actually doing it? You don’t think I’m beyond redemption?”
“No one is beyond redemption,” I say. “And especially not someone like you, who has sacrificed so much for others. You have been sacrificing yourself every day since the day you met me. And I am including that night in the hotel room.”
He’s shaking his head. “I wouldn’t be able to let you go if I had done anything with you last night. Just kissing you once, twice, was too much for me. The moment your lips touched mine, I was yours. I would do anything for you. I would have annihilated that snotty Angel dude the day we went to Yale—I barely stopped myself from beating him to a pulp for hurting you.”
“That snotty Angel dude is a prince,” I say.
“Well, he’d be a corpse,” Marco replies. “I would have destroyed anyone who so much as looked at you, I wouldn’t be able to keep it together enough to keep you alive. Not that I am making such a great job of that either. It was you who saved me, instead of the other way round.”
“I’m alive so far,” I say again. I’ll keep saying it, and I don’t care how many times I have to repeat it until it sinks in. He inhales sharply, as if he’s taken a hit to the abdomen. “Hey, it’s going to be ok.”
He shakes his head.
“I’m in too much pain just being in love with you,” he bites out. “Just imagine how it would feel to actually touch you, to… What?” He stops talking, his eyes searching my face anxiously. “You’ve gone all pale. Livy?”
“You said the l-word,” I say, feeling the blood drain from my face. The room is swaying.
Marco laughs and ducks his head. “Oh,” he says, “that. It slipped out. Sorry.”
“Is that all you have to say? It slipped out, sorry?”
“What else can I say?” he shrugs. “I’ve been thinking it for a while now. I know I shouldn’t. These feelings will never ever be allowed for me, but I can’t help it. Sorry. Sorry.” He keeps apologizing and I want to smack him.
“Well, do you feel these feelings?” I press. “After two days?”
“It’s not been two days. It’s been two months. I’ve been watching you, monitoring your every move, remember? It was my job. I have seen you at your lowest and at your highest. I have…”
“Stop, please.” I’m getting angry again. Claustrophobic. He cannot be saying these things right here, right now, with me in a vest and the gunshots pressing closer. There should be a law or something that he’s not allowed to say such things to me unless there’s a sunset in my eyes.
“Sorry,” he says immediately. “I’m sorry. But I… You probably don’t want to hear it.”
