The assignment came down like it always did at King’s Dominion—clean, precise, and utterly impossible to ignore.

Marcus Lopez didn’t ask why. He never did anymore.

Just a name. A face. A problem to erase.

And this time, the problem had a counterweight.

You found out the same way he did.

A folded sheet slipped under your dorm door, ink smudged at the edges like whoever wrote it couldn’t be bothered to care about neatness. Your instructions were simple too.

One target.

Marcus Lopez.

You laughed when you saw it. Not because it was funny—because it was absurd.

You crossed paths before. Briefly. Too briefly to matter, not briefly enough to forget. Marcus with his sharp eyes and tired anger, like the world had already taken too much from him and still wanted more. You with your quiet precision, the kind that made people underestimate you right up until they couldn’t anymore.

You were opposites in all the ways that mattered.

And now they were assigned to end each other.

The first attempt didn’t happen the way either of them expected.

“You stalking me?” Marcus asked that night, leaning against the counter.

You glanced at him. “You wish.”

A pause.

Then, softer: “You always talk first before you fight?”

Marcus shrugged. “Usually works. People are easier to understand when they’re not bleeding on the floor.”

That made you look at him differently.

Like you were recalculating something.

“Should we do this now?” he said, hands already tensing. “Get it over with?”

You tilted her head slightly. “Well you’re subtle.”

A pause.

Then you moved.

What followed wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t cinematic. It was fast, messy, interrupted constantly by hesitation neither of them wanted to admit to.

Because every time Marcus had an opening, he didn’t take it.

And every time you could’ve ended it, you didn’t either.

You broke apart breathing hard, both realizing the same uncomfortable truth at the same time.

You were both trying not to do it.

The turning point wasn’t a fight. It was after one.

Marcus found you on the edge of the campus roof, sitting like you belonged there more than the ground.

You both ended up hurt, neither badly enough to stop them from walking, but enough to make silence feel heavier than usual.

“We’re so bad at this,” He breathed.

“Speak for yourself.”

“I’m still alive.”

“Barely.”

“You gonna try again?” He asked.

That made you glance at him.

“No.”

A beat.

“And you?”

Marcus looked out into the dark.

Then shook his head.

“No.”

Not because the rules changed.

But because you both did.