Page 194 of Eternal
“I should’ve died that night, I would’ve, because it would’ve been better than what went on after. Drugs. Alcohol. Depression. Oh, what else? Yeah...grief.” Her grip tightens on the knife, her knuckles turning white. And I want to kiss them, to tell her I’m sorry, to tell her something.Anything.
“When I turned eighteen, they gave me back my family’s belongings, and there was a journal. My mom’s one. Inside, names, stories, people who made her feel like she was nothing. People who probably killed her. And that’s when it all started, my training, my killings, my vengeance.” Her smile fades.
“Do you know what it’s like to be turned into a weapon before you even understand what you are?” she whispers. “To be beaten until your bones crack just so you learn how to withstand pain. To hold a gun bigger than your hands and be told to shoot before you even know what death means? Or what it means to face your own demons instead of trying to numb them? I wanted to die so many times. I tried to die so many times too, but it felt like life wanted me to stay and suffer for a little longer.”
A breath. “I killed my foster father first, then his wife before disappearing for my training.” She closes her eyes for a second, but it’s not a regret. It's a memory. “I slit his throat while he was asleep and pushed that cross he loved wearing, while pounding inside me, so deep inside his throat that I could almost see it from his mouth. And when I watched him choke on his own blood, I thought… This is what surviving means, this is what life is.”
Her eyes flicker back to me. “You think I was born a monster, Damir?” she murmurs. “Or was I just destined to be one?”
Silence, then she stands.
She steps forward, her gaze cold, and for a moment, everything about her seems unreal, like a phantom from a nightmare. Her fingers lock around my wrist with a brutal force, pulling one of my hands from behind my back. The ropes dig into my skin, but the pressure on my wrist from her grip is worse.
Before I can react, before I can even gather a coherent thought, she forces my hand forward. The motion is quick, and then she presses it to her body, pressing it against the rawness of her skin, the scars, the damage.
“Do you see this?” Her voice is cold, low, almost fragile in the way it cracks. “Do you feel the cracks?” She leans forward. “This body… It was never mine, it was always theirs.” She forces my hand to move across her, her breath shallow and quick as she guides me. “You think I’m a monster for killing them? For what they did to me? You think it’s bad for me to want revenge? Tell me, Damir.”
I try to pull my hand back, my pulse racing, my throat tight with the urge to shout, to scream, to escape. To redo her past. Anything.
“Don’t—” I rasp, my voice breaking as I try to twist my body away, but she keeps going. She forces my hand deeper on thesescars, showing me the places no one should ever have to see. The jagged edges of brokenness, the cruel reminder of what she’s been through.
“Don’t do that,” I manage, my voice barely a whisper.
She smiles then, but it’s not real, it’s twisted. “You think this is new?” she asks, her voice so soft, yet so sad. “You think you’re the first man to touch me like this? I didn’t have a choice, Damir, none of us do.”
The words sting, and the weight of them sinks into my chest like a stone. And her voice… It's the sound of a person who has died a thousand times, who’s lived through hell, and yet, somehow, refuses to be consumed.
Silence.
And then, she tilts her head, lips curling slightly. “Now you know it all…” She leans in, close enough that I feel her breath against my skin. “Do you feel better?” A pause. “Do you feel happy?”
And for the first time since she tied me to this chair, I realized. She doesn’t care about my answers. She just wants me to understand, and fuck I do.
And she leans in again, so close our breaths mix. My lips part, I want her to kiss me, a hunger beyond logic, beyond survival.
“Ineverlied when I was with you, I wish I could, but it wasn’t an option” I rasp. “You didn’t have to talk about it.”
She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even reply, she barely stares.
“Azra…” The words leave me, raw, desperate.
“You’re a fuckingliar.” Her lips brush against mine.
And then…pain. A knife, buried deep into my stomach.
I gasp, choke on it.
She doesn’t move, she simply watches me.
“Ten months and nothing was real.” Her voice is deadly calm. “Don’t fucking dare pronounce my name again. You need to suffer for it.”
The blade twists, and agony tears through me.
“You can fucking die for all I care, Damir. Bleed to death for me.”
And then, she leaves.
The sound of her footsteps fades, leaving me here. Bleeding.Dying.
