The first time someone tried to kill Sam, Lilly was sipping espresso and watching her through a scope.
She had a perfect view from the east wing vent shaft, eyes trained, muscles coiled. Sam was beneath the ivy trellis in the garden, bathed in sunlight like she belonged in it. The laptop balanced on her knees. The cherry lollipop was back—of course it was.
Lilly clocked the sniper a second before the bullet fired.
Movement in the trees. A glint of glass.
She moved without thinking.
Down two flights. Past startled staff. Across marble so slick she nearly slid into a vase worth more than her apartment. She was already yelling in her earpiece. "SHOOTER—GARDEN—SNIPER, EAST—"
And then Lilly was in the garden.
"SAM, GET DOWN!"
Sam looked up in confusion, half-standing.
Lilly threw herself forward.
The bullet came just as she reached her—and it grazed her cheek.
White heat.
Time shattered.
Lilly's body slammed into Sam's, sending them both crashing to the grass as a sharp pain cut through her skin like lightning. Glass exploded behind them. The marble table split in half.
For a moment, all Lilly could hear was her own blood pounding in her ears.
Then Sam was shouting. "Lila?! You're bleeding—oh my God—your face—"
Lilly's hand flew to her cheek. Warm. Wet. A nick—deep enough to scar, shallow enough to survive.
She pressed Sam flat beneath her, shielding her from any follow-up shot, her voice calm despite the sting. "I'm fine. You?"
"I—I think so," Sam said, breathless. "You just—holy hell—you got shot."
"Grazed," Lilly muttered. "Not the same."
"YOUR FACE, LILA—!"
"Face is overrated."
Back in the surveillance room, with the wound stitched by the private medic (who Sam demanded stay away unless he had sterile gloves and soft hands), Lilly stared at the blurred camera feed.
That sniper had taken a single shot. One chance. And missed.
Barely.
"He's good," she muttered, arms folded tight, jaw still blood streaked. "But not perfect."
"You saved my life," Sam whispered from the doorway. "And you nearly lost yours doing it."
Lilly didn't look at her. "Comes with the job."
"No," Sam said, stepping into the room, eyes catching the still-bleeding edge of the bandage on her cheek. "That was more than the job."
She came closer. Close enough that Lilly could smell the soft hint of mint and rain on her.
"You took a bullet for me, Lila."
Lilly finally looked at her.
And for the first time, there was no mask. No role. Just pain. And the quiet rage of someone who nearly failed.
"I told you," Lilly said. "I don't lose my targets."
Sam reached out—and without thinking, brushed her thumb across Lilly's uninjured cheek.
"I'm not a target," she murmured. "I'm a person."
The moment stretched between them like a live wire.
And somewhere in the background, the footage looped—grainy, colorless, distant.
But here in this room? Everything was vivid. Painful. Real.
And the shadows between them just got a little harder to ignore.