Page 53 of The Last Love Story

I hit him again, and this time he doesn’t even flinch.

“That hurts you more than it hurts me, and we both know it,” he says, stepping past me and heading deeper into the room. I whip around, closing the door. Aware of the microphones, I click on the wall of screens, so a pleasant hum of my DopaMine feed fills the room, covering our words.

“What thehellare you doing here, Hux?” I hiss as he makes a show of looking around the room. He toes open the bathroom, fingers tracing along my dress where it hangs as if it could be hiding a masked assailant.

“Told you. There was a threat,” he says, pacing over and tilting to look under the bed.

“You know what I mean. You’re an eighteen-year-old”—I mouth the word I’m afraid to say out loud—“terrorist. How are you now in the president’s security detail?”

Hux looks up from over the bed, a grin spreading over his face. “One upside of paranoia? High turnover. You think it was hard for me to fake a good résumé?” He stands. “Although I’m not sure if I’m as good at faking as you are.”

“What do you want, Hux?” I whisper. He makes a show of patting down my bed as he holds my gaze, fingers tracing along the coverlet. His dark hair falls into his eyes, and he pushes it back as he stands up.

“I saw your face,” he says, stopping his search to put his hands on his hips. There’s a moment of silence as the playfulness falls away from him. “I know you’re scared. It’s one thing tothinkabout doing all this. It’s another to sit atthe table with a monster. I figured once that happened, you’d want out. So I’m here. Consider me your getaway car.”

I don’t want to tell him he’s right.

But he’s right.

Or, hewasbefore I talked to Callum. Callum, who refuses to lie to me. Callum, who I trust more than anyone.

Hux, on the other hand, I don’t trust at all.

“I call bullshit,” I say. Hux dips back into the bathroom, peering into the shower.

“Bullshit, you say?” he asks, the playful mask back up.

“Bullshit. Becka—who ishere, by the way—”

Hux nods, and I feel a flare of fury. Of course he knew. He’s always one step ahead.

I continue, “Well. She already told me you guys were trying to recruit me. Orshewas. Which makes me wonder: Do the Machs even know that you’re here?”

Hux kneels in front of the sink and opens the cabinet, still making a show of searching for the cameras.

“I outrank her. She doesn’t know my comings and goings.” He pulls out a tube of lotion.

“Cut the shit, Hux. You’re not here to protect me. What I can’t figure out is why you don’t just kill him yourself. You’re here. In the White House.”

Hux pops the lid of the lotion and takes a sniff as he stands. After a few moments of consideration, he pulls anot badface. “And make him a martyr? No way. Until we can clearly expose him as a villain, he has to live.”

When he compresses the tube, the smell of cedar and rose fills the bathroom.

“I’m not joining you,” I say finally.

“Right. Because blowing up boats is wrong, but becoming a propaganda princess for a tyrant is totally fine.”

I snatch the lotion out of his slippery hands. “I amnota propaganda princess. Callum has a plan.” Or will have a plan. He promised he would.

Hux seems to sense the half-truth. “Oh, a plan? And what might that be?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Because you don’t know it. Because his plan is probably no better than Lyceum’s plan, which... do you know that yet, either? Are they going to send you a message by carrier pigeon? Chisel their secret plans onto a clay tablet in cuneiform?”

I toss the lotion aside, not breaking eye contact. “I could out you, you know. Tell President Graves who you are. We’ve all seen what they do to terrorists like you.”

Hux reaches up then, grabbing my wrist and holding it against his hard chest. I pull, but he only uses it to reel me in. “You don’t have it in you, Hart. We already know that.”