Page 193 of Eternal
Her eyes flicker for a second, and then… they harden again. “Then who the fuck helped you get in?” I clench my jaw. She notices and then she laughs, that low, humorless sound. “Someone inside?” No reply. “Oh…It's Lev, isn't it?"
My stomach fucking drops, and she sees it.
Her eyes flash with something cruel. “See?” Her voice is mocking. “I knew it. I should’ve never trusted you.”
She steps back, but it’s not relief. It’s rage, curling around her like smoke. “Did he help you get my name?” she demands. “Did you want to learn who I was because you had to tell them?”
I should answer, I should fight back, but I don’t. Instead, I just… smile. Slow. Faint.Painful. “You’re so pretty when you’re angry at me, Azra.”
She is.
Azrais so beautiful, so alive. Even if she was trying to kill me, even if she was mad at me, even if she hated me. She was beautiful, and she was hurt. Because ofme.
Something in her snaps, the blade slashes across my chest. I hiss through my teeth, the sting sharp and hot, but I don’t flinch. Because she’s still my partner, even when she’s destroying me.
Her breathing is ragged, her hands are trembling. “You think I’m joking, Damir?” she hisses.
“No,” I murmur, my voice sounding like something between admiration and regret. “I think you are magnificent.”
She stops moving, not even listening to me, “I let you in. I cooked for you, let my life slip through your fingers, and you werelying?”
The words hit like a slap, raw and unforgiving, and I take a shaky breath, guilt weighing heavy on me.
“I told you,” I say quietly, almost regretfully, “you’d hate me if I was honest. All I want from you is to tell me everything.”
Her fingers tighten around the knife. For a second, I think she’s going to plunge it straight into my heart, but she doesn’t. She exhales, gets up and grabs another chair, then sits in front of me and smiles.
Not a happy smile, not even a cruel one. Just…empty.
“I wanted you to look at me,” I rasp, my voice hoarse, strained, and fragile as I try to push the words through the pain.“Behind this mask, I let you find me,Azra, becauseI hated lying to you.”
She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even blink. Her eyes are sharper than the knife she still has in her hand. She laughs, and it's still not real. It’s not a laugh, it’s just a sound,mocking. “You’re pathetic.” Her lips curl, but there's no humor in it, only disgust.
I don’t know what I expected, maybe something softer, maybe something that meant I still had a chance.
“You want to know who I am, Damir?” she says, her voice steady, but her hands shake as they grip the knife. “Fine. Listen carefully.”
She leans forward, elbows on her knees, the blade glinting between her fingers. She looks like she’s about to tell me a story, but I can already tell… this isn’t a story, it’s a confession.
“My mother went insane trying to find answers about some rich influential people. She got to the point where she hated me, her daughter. She was always drinking, started taking pills and coke, and stopped going out, stopped hugging me, and she started being violent. You already know that right?” Her voice is calm.Detached.
She needs to stop. My heart hurts imagining her that way.
The words almost claw their way out of my chest.
Stop this. Stop.
“My little brother was so small when all of this happened. One night people came into my house and killed everyone.Even me. They left me for dead between the bodies of my whole family. You see that scar? It was them trying to kill me. They shot me and tried to slice my throat, but he missed. So I was left for dead while still being alive.”
She tilts her head, watching me, like she’s waiting for me to react, but I can’t.
“Do you know what a bullet does to a skull at close range? You probably know, right…But witnessing it as a kid?” she askssoftly. “It makes the whole body convulse as the blood sprays back on anything behind it. I was nine. Nine fucking years old when I felt her blood on my face.” She laughs, but it’s hollow. “And the police officers promised me I’d survive when they found us. They lied. They pretended I was dead and sent me into the foster system.”
Her fingers tap lightly against the blade, her eyes distant as if she’s somewhere far, faraway.
“The man there. Christian. He abused me, raped me for as long as I can remember. Do you see these scars everywhere?” She waves a hand over her skin. “It was me trying to take off his touch since I was a kid. Him and his wife only took me as a child, it was hell in a home.”
I don’t speak, there’s nothing to say, nothing at all.
