CHAPTER 100

CHAPTER 100
You said you'd never come in here again," I panted, eyes on him, wind ruffling my hair into order like it had a purpose.
Tony's head spun around, that asshole grin twisting his lip like he was a master at equipping every corner of the moment. "And you told me you hated me."

Touché.

I folded my arms tighter across my chest. The rooftop hadn't altered—same jagged metal railing, same peeling mural of liberty wings aerosoled across brick, same stench of ozone and city sweat curling up from down below. But I felt something different now. Or maybe I did.

"Why here?" I said, my tone softer now. "After everything?"

Tony moved to the edge, the sun radiating gold behind him, and leaned his elbows on the railing. "Because this is where you first pointed that camera at me. Where the photo that wrecked everything started." He glanced back at me. "And maybe the only place I've ever been where past and future blend together enough to matter."

God. That's what Tony does. He speaks that way—like some wild poet bleeding under a motorcycle jacket.

He grabbed a box off the floor. Flat. Not too small to be a box for a ring. Just too wide and too heavy to put my heart back on track.

"What's that?"

"Not a bomb," he said, that obnoxious smirk showing its face again. "Though I did think about it."

"Cute.".

He approached, placed the box in my hands. "Open it."

I waited.

Part of me still didn't trust him—hell, maybe I never would. But we didn't work on trust. It was madness. Tension. Memory. And something neither of us had a word for yet.

I opened the box.

Inside, wrapped in thick black velvet, was an old camera. My father's. Black metal with silver etched into it. Scrubbed clean. Restored. The kind of thing you just wouldn't find. The kind of thing you stalked across continents and auctions and specters.

I couldn't speak. Fingers trembled, unwilling to lay hands on it.

"Do you remember it, huh?" he whispered, his voice gentle now, smooth of rough edges. "Same model your father used in that photograph—the Pulitzer winner. The one you'd clipped in your notebook."

My throat spasmed. "How did you…?"

"Things stay with me, Mac," Tony said to me. "The things you tried to keep under wraps."

He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly shy in a way I'd never seen. "I found it. Fixed it. Told the guy it was for the girl who fires bullets with light."

That pulled a half-laugh, half-sob out of me.

"I'm not light," I breathed.

He edged nearer, hot and reckless. "You are to me.".

I gazed up at his eyes—those horrible, gorgeous, haunted eyes—and caught sight of something I'd refused to believe existed.

Hope.

He unwrapped the camera from the box, cradled it as if it was holy, and then passed it to me.

"Be my forever picture," Tony said. "Let us make this book happen our way."

For a moment, I was frozen. The wind stole my breath. The city froze beneath our feet like it understood.

This wasn't how I'd envisioned the story. I'd built my life out of a need to escape his gravity—to take an internship, a future, a self not defined by Tony Zacks in each memory like blood on the lens of a shutter.

Or maybe that is the definition of photography. Of love.

You don't always control the light.

"You never did do anything the easy way," I whispered.

He smiled. "Where's the fun in that?"

I held the camera up between us, its weight easy, just so.

"Say it again," I told him, adjusting the lens.

Tony leaned in, his mouth against the edge of the viewfinder. "Be my forever."

I clicked.

And grinned through the tears streaming down my face. "Yes."

\---

We didn't speak for a while. Just stood there as the sky grew dark, painted peach and lavender like some god had spilled paint across the horizon.

Tony wrapped his hand around mine, fingers locked together, thumb following the beat of my pulse as if he were grounding himself in it.

"I don't deserve you," he spoke in a low whisper.

"Probably not."

He smiled again.

"But I don't deserve this either," I went on. "To feel like I'm still haunted. Like any second, Wells or Thatch or the world is gonna remind me I was once 'the girl who ruined everything.'"

Tony's jaw closed. "Wells is out. Thatch. I'll deal with."

I looked at him.

Tony Zacks. The boy who used to want to burn me down. Now peddling me pieces of my father. Now crafting a future with bruised hands and open eyes.

"I said no because I forgot nothing," I said.

He nodded. "I know."

"I said yes because you changed. Because I changed. Because I see who we are now. Not just who we were."

Tony laid his forehead against mine. "Then let's start over. No more revenge. No more guilt."

"Only scars," I said to him.

He smiled. "Only stories."

\---

We sat later on the roof, our shoulders against warm brick. I played with the lens, wiping away imaginary dust.

Will Queens Arrows still accept me?" I asked, trying to sound as cavalier as possible.

Tony half pushed me. "You're Mackenzie Lanka. They'd be lucky."

"I'm Mackenzie Lanka who was involved in a scandal with an ex-felon who threatened to ruin her life at one point."

He shrugged. "Is like a bestseller novel to me."

I laughed.

"Besides," he went on, "that camera? It's not really a present. It's a challenge."

I raised an eyebrow. "A challenge?

He grinned. “Use it. Tell the story. Not just of us. But of everything. The good, the broken, the true.”

He kissed the side of my temple. “Then send it to Queens. Show them what survival looks like through your eyes.”

My heart thudded.

Because maybe that’s what I’d been avoiding all this time. Not the pain. Not even the past.

But the power of my own voice.

I nodded. “Okay.”

Tony's arm enclosed me, warm and firm. "We'll be fine."

I looked up at him. "Promise?"

He kissed me gently, slowly, on the lips. "Forever."

\---

Tonight, after darkness had settled over the city, I took one last photograph—Tony, illuminated by streetlight, eyes soft, mouth smirking. My first honest photograph in years that didn't come from hurt. It came from decision.

The rooftop no longer haunted me.

It felt like the start.