Page 15 of Eternal
Why isn’t he replying to me?
I turn around and crouch down, grabbing his head to force him to look at me.
His eyes are closed, his jaw still hangs open.
Oh. He’s already dead.
Well, that explains the silence.
Shit. It always ends up too fast.
“Too bad… But you definitely would do it again, whatever the fuck you used to do when you were…alive, I mean.”
He’d do it again, of course he would.
A man saying he’d never hurt anyone again, since when was that ever believable?
But it’s always like that, I learnt it the hard way.
They don’t care, they never did. A man like Cyrille LeBlanc never cared about other people’s suffering.
Morality is only another luxury that rich people can afford to live without. Their fortunes and money could buy them anything. Freedom, love, respect, but not my vision of justice, unfortunately.
Vik didn’t even want me to take this job. He practically begged me to stop everything and take a break to come back to Vegas, for my birthday. Kat screamed at me about it too, but it would’ve felt like a betrayal.
Not to them, to my own habits. This kind of loneliness… It's almostcomforting. Almost happy, in a way. Just little old me, myself, and I
I sang her Happy Birthday too. The very next day, I was back to studying the building. A headache appeared after that, and now just like that the mission’s done.
Cyrille is dead. The mission is completed.
He probably suffered a lot before dying. That’s good news. Great, even.
I exit the building slowly, staying in the blind spots between the cameras. I’d studied the angles days ago, memorized their sweep patterns, and logged their downtime. No sudden movements, no eye contact, just another silhouette in this hotel.
Kill, breathe, repeat.
I’m clean, there’s only a small stain on my arm, blood.Red. I’ve learned to love that color. It took time, at first, it was harder than I thought.
Years ago, I visited Jordan for the first time in my life. My mother’s home. Vik paid for the trip, like he promised.
I knew who could help me get stronger. I knew his name, but I didn't know how to ask him.
I found him through my mother’s old journal, a faded photo of two men standing outside a stone blue house. One was my biological father judging by the name next to it.Alyas Al Mansour.
The other, his friend, was a military commander. She’d written his name and number on the back.
Maybe she never left her real home, because she held onto this picture, and never took it off her old journal.
I dialed, my Arabic was rough when I told him my name, explained who I was, with a small voice.
I felt… ashamed to ask the help of a stranger. Because the last time I did, I was nine, and it taught me to never ask again.
He exhaled, there was a pause, then he said he’d thought I was dead, that he cried for my mom, for me. Said he was glad I was still alive, and then he laughed. Not because it was funny, but because it was ridiculous. “You’re asking me to take you in? You’reblood. Don’t ask, please tell me when you arrive.”
And I felt my heart lighten for a second.
I had another chance, and I took it.
