THE LULLABY KEY : THE FALL

CHAPTER 35: The Romance Spark

That night, Lena and Marcus sat on the porch of her cabin, watching the stars.

The kill switch was still counting down. “TIME REMAINING: 18:22:09” Eighteen hours until the teams moved. Eighteen hours until the world might end.

Neither of them spoke for a long time.

Then Marcus said, “I’ve been thinking.”

“About what?”

“About the future. After all of this. Assuming we survive.”

Lena turned to look at him. His face was half in shadow, half in starlight. He looked younger somehow. Less burdened.

“What about the future?”

“I don’t want to be a cop anymore. Not after everything I’ve seen. Not after everything I’ve done.”

“What do you want to do?”

He smiled. “I want to build things. Cabins. Furniture. Maybe a boat. Something that lasts. Something that doesn’t hurt people.”

Lena smiled back. “That sounds nice.”

“I was thinking you could help me. If you want. We could build something together.”

Her heart fluttered.

“Marcus, we’ve known each other for two weeks. Most of that time, we’ve been running for our lives. We don’t even know if we like each other outside of a crisis.”

“Then let’s find out.” He took her hand. “Let’s survive this. And then let’s take a vacation. Somewhere boring. Somewhere with no conspiracies. No murder. No ghosts.”

“Where would we go?”

“I hear Maine is nice this time of year.”

Lena laughed. It was the first time she had laughed in weeks.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You’re beautiful.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder.

They sat like that, watching the stars, listening to the wind, pretending the world wasn’t falling apart.

And for a few hours, it was enough.

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