The air was cool. Breezy, even.
But suddenly, Lilly felt like she couldn't breathe.
Sam was still smiling. Still standing too close, like she wanted to fall if it meant falling into Lilly.
That stupid cherry lollipop had long been discarded. Her lips were bare. Her heart wide open.
And Lilly? Lilly's phone was a brand in her pocket.
"SHE KNOWS. ELIMINATE IF NECESSARY."
Lilly's throat tightened like a wire being pulled.
"Eliminate who?" she whispered, to no one. To herself. To the ghost of her past orders.
Sam tilted her head. "You, okay?"
Lilly nodded. Lie. "Yeah."
Sam stepped closer. "You're doing that thing where you lie but your mouth twitches."
Lilly turned her face. "I'm just tired."
Another lie.
"You're not," Sam said, and she sounded… hurt. "You only flinch like that when something's wrong. When you think I'll leave."
"I don't think that," Lilly said, voice like shattered glass. "I know you won't."
Sam blinked. "Then why do you look like you're about to run?"
Silence.
The rooftop wind whipped between them, tugging at loose strands of hair, at the space that suddenly felt sharp and suffocating.
Sam's voice was quieter now. Scared. "Who just texted you?"
Lilly didn't answer.
"Lila."
Lilly closed her eyes.
"I swear to God, if you lie to me again—"
"I'm not who you think I am," Lilly whispered.
The words spilled out like confession and poison.
Sam took a step back. "What does that mean?"
"I wasn't just assigned to protect you. I was assigned to watch you. Spy on you. Report if you got too close to something—someone—you shouldn't."
Sam's expression shattered like stained glass on tile. "So… what? You've been lying this entire time?"
Lilly looked down. "I didn't mean to."
"But you did."
"Yes."
"Did anything mean anything to you?" Sam's voice was rising now, trembling, breaking. "Was any of it real?"
Lilly finally looked at her. And her eyes—God, her eyes—they weren't the eyes of a spy. They were a girl who'd finally found something that made her feel alive… and knew she might have just killed it.
"All of it," she said. "Everything. Every second. Every laugh. Every time you rolled your eyes at me. It was real, Sam. That's what scares me."
Sam took a breath. One trembling breath.
And then, quietly:"I need to be alone."
Lilly nodded. Didn't argue. Didn't beg.
Just watched her walk away, one step at a time, her bare feet silent against the tile.
That night, Lilly didn't sleep.
She sat in the dark, unmoving. The burner phone still in her pocket. Still glowing with the words, she couldn't shake.
"ELIMINATE IF NECESSARY."
She could still taste Sam on her lips.
She could still hear the way she said her name like it was home.
And now?
It felt like she'd burned it down with her own hands.
Meanwhile…
Sam curled up in her massive bed, in a mansion she suddenly hated.The sheets were cold.The silence was louder than any gunshot.
And all she could think about…was how the first girl to ever really see her had also lied to her in ways no one else ever had.