Page 98 of The Hate We Breathe
“God, it’s like you’re the luckiest bitch on the planet.” Roquel’s tone grows tight and she takes another step towards me, lifting the gun and pointing it straight at me. I reach back, my fingers curling around the stone edge of the rooftop barrier. “How you kept getting away…” She pauses and shakes her head. “It doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
“I—” My response is cut off as, without warning, Roquel turns towards Lex, lifts her gun, and pulls the trigger. He’d beenclose—a few feet from her body and arms outstretched—ready to tackle her despite his leg.
At first, the echo of the gunshot is all I can hear in the pounding chambers of my ears. My eyes widen as my head whips towards Lex. He collapses forward with a pained grunt and a muffled shout.
“Lex!” I dive towards him, only to pull up sharply at Roquel’s voice.
“Stop.” Roquel swings back to me. I freeze, the skirts of my dress tightening around my legs as I do.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.I’d misjudged her. I’d thought she wouldn’t use the damn gun and now…
“Lex, tell me you’re okay,” I practically beg, staring at him as he lies there, on the rooftop, unmoving. “Lex!”
His responding groan is an audible relief.
“He’s fine,” Roquel huffs. “I didn’t kill him.” She passes Lex a sour glance. “Yet.” Her gaze moves back to me. “Guess that’s what you get for trying to have him sneak up on me.”
Grinding my jaw until it aches, I glare at her. “I’m going to fucking kill you,” I tell her. It’s not a threat. Not a warning. It’s a fucking oath. A promise.
“No, you won’t,” Roquel replies calmly. It’s that calm of hers that makes me stop. I frown, glancing from her to Lex and back again. Roquel takes a single step closer. “You’re going to get on that ledge,” she tells me, matter-of-factly. “And you’re going to step off it.”
I shake my head. “There’s no fucking—” The barrel of the gun points to Lex. “No!” The scream is out of my mouth before I can stop it.
Roquel’s smile is smug. “If you don’t want me to put a bullet in his head, then that’s exactly what you’re going to do,” she says. “You were right about me—Iamsmart. I didn’t go through all of this just to get caught now.”
Shock and anger and something viscerally deeper invade my veins. Something I never thought I’d feel again.Fear.
“You can’t kill him.” I don’t know if I’m trying to convince her or myself as the words leave my lips in a rush. “Your fingerprints are on the gun and the bullet will match?—”
“I have no intention of killing him unless you don’t do as I say, and Lex isn’t going to turn me into the cops for shooting him,” Roquel interrupts me.
In response, Lex releases a curse so foul, it almost makes me grin in spite of the circumstances. He tries to get up, pressing his hands to the ground, only to collapse onto the rooftop and curse.
“Lex, stay there,” I say.
“Yes, Alexio, stay there.” Like any psychopath who wants to feel like they’re in control, Roquel repeats my words.
Concern slides over my spine like a chill as Lex manages to roll onto his back. Bright red blood spreads over his chest from his shoulder and his face is pinched tight with agony. The stain continues growing wider with each passing second.
“You.” Roquel points the gun from me to the barrier surrounding the rooftop. “Get up there. Now.”
I shuffle backwards. “You’re planning to make it look like I killed myself,” I guess.
“Congratu-fucking-lations.” She gestures for me to hurry it up.
Breath leaves my lungs in a rush as I peer over the edge of the roof. There’s a lower open part of the hotel rooftop that’s been set up for an outside pool. The blue glow of the lights encircles the water-filled opening. It’s a good… forty feet down there?
I read somewhere that landing in a pool of water from fifty feet or higher can still kill you. It’s like landing on concrete. I need to fucking stall as much as I can.
“You know,” I say, as I reach down to my dress. “All this time, I thought you were upset that Hudson had broken up with you.”
Now, I know it was because she killed Morpheus. Talk about a bad breakup.
“Hudson was just my way of trying to make him jealous,” she snaps, and then in a stiff, quieter tone, “not that it worked.”
“Right…” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lex sit up, one hand clutching at his bloody shoulder. I wince, wishing I could help him.
“You know,” I repeat casually, trying to distract her. “For someone who was so mad at Morpheus for his obsession, you seem pretty fucking obsessed with me yourself. Morpheus is gone, why the fuck are you still trying to kill me?”
