Hate Me Like You Mean It

THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR

Two days later.

Meredith was sitting in a local library, scouring the internet for any legal aid that could help her appeal the expulsion. It was a losing battle. KCL had ironclad contracts, and she was a nobody.

The bell above the library door chimed. A cold draft swept in.

Meredith didn't look up until a shadow fell across her table. She expected a librarian telling her they were closing.

Instead, she saw a pair of scuffed Italian loafers.

She looked up, her heart stopping. It wasn't Henry. It was Julian—Henry’s cruel, wealthy "friend" from the rowing club. He looked disheveled, nervous, and significantly less arrogant than usual.

"What do you want?" Meredith hissed, closing her laptop. "Come to take more pictures for the group chat?"

"I'm not here to fight, Meredith," Julian said, looking over his shoulder. He slid a small, silver flash drive across the table. "Henry sent me."

Meredith stared at the drive as if it were a bomb. "Henry is in New York. The news said the McFord family moved their headquarters."

"He’s not in New York," Julian whispered. "He’s in a safe house in South London. He escaped his father’s detail. He nearly broke my nose to get me to come here."

Julian leaned in, his voice shaking. "He said to tell you... he found the 'why.' The photos weren't just about you. They were about a merger his father is planning. He needed Henry 'clean' and unattached. That drive has the original files. The metadata shows they were taken by a private investigator hired by Alistair McFord two weeks before the ball."

Meredith felt a chill. "Why are you helping him?"

Julian let out a short, bitter laugh. "Because Henry showed me what his father does to people who outlive their usefulness. I don't want to be next. And because..." Julian paused, looking at her with a strange kind of respect. "Because he’s losing his mind without you. He hasn't slept. He hasn't eaten. He’s at war, Meredith. And he needs his general."

Meredith picked up the drive. The metal was cold in her palm.

"Where is he?" she asked

.

The safe house was a stark contrast to the marble towers of the Strand. It was a brutalist concrete apartment in Elephant and Castle, hidden behind a rusted steel door and smelling of damp pavement and adrenaline.

Meredith’s hand trembled as she knocked. She had spent the bus ride there fueling her anger, reminding herself of the expulsion and the humiliation. But as the door creaked open, the anger evaporated, replaced by a sharp, painful ache in her chest.