Page 182 of Eternal
I swallow hard, heat curling in my stomach. “Like what?”
“Like you want me to keep talking.”
I close my eyes briefly, fighting back the urge to give in, to let him have that small win.
“I’ll call you when I’m free, Damir.”
A pause, then, quietly like a promise, “Don’t make me wait too long, partner. I miss you.”
Me too.
The line goes dead, and I stare at my phone. Kat watches me with an infuriating grin. “You’re so fucked.”
I sigh, dragging a hand down my face. “Yeah.”
And that’s the damn problem.
49
DAMIR
“Sappy, Early Demo” by Kurt Cobain
Present
Ishouldn’t know her name, but I do, and I can’t stop thinking about it.
Azra.
I whisper it to myself like a fucking lunatic, it’s like coming up for air after being underwater too long.
That first breath, lively. It shocks your lungs, makes your whole body wake up.
Azra. Azra. Azra.
I wonder what she’d do if she heard me say it. If she’d look at me with these gorgeous eyes and demand to know how I learned it. If she’d tilt her head, scared that it might be too much and that it would make us too close.
I shouldn’t be this obsessed.
I shouldn’t be watching her from a distance, tracking her movements, knowing where she’ll be before she even makes amove. I shouldn’t be texting her like I have the right to, like I’m anything more than a shadow in her world.
But I can’t stop.
It’s been a few days since I learned it, and I’m still waiting for her to let me know that she’s finally missing me enough to spare me a glance, some time together. Anything.
I didn’t use her name, I don’t know what to do with it. Maybe I’m wrong.
A very small part of me wishes it’s not her because if it is, it’ll make sense, and I wouldn’t know how to stop the whole machination around her. I’d have to imagine what she went through and I don’t know what I would do if I did.
So, I kept watching like in the beginning from afar, watching her spend days and days with Viktor and Katarina, with the dogs, or just alone in her house, she never did anything else. But I was still watching her. Never interacting or coming out of my hiding corner. I’m still texting her, still waiting for her replies. I can see her smile sometimes when she sees my name appearing on her screen.
Maybe she knew I was out there looking, or maybe she just didn’t care enough. But I was still following her, and when I saw her today, coming back home after drinking a coffee with Kat with the same journal she always reads, I understood tonight, Voron will return.
She’s going after someone.
I don’t know who, she never let me in on how she chooses her targets. But I know she has one tonight, I know she’s planning something, and I know she’ll do it alone because that’s who she is.
I clench my jaw, gripping my mask. I guess tonight I’ll beViper. To feel something through him, or maybe just to be near her without breaking the version of me she knows.
