Page 324 of Eternal
“That’s okay,” I reply softly. “I’ll probably bother her the moment I run into a sketchy sample or an analysis I can’t make sense of.”
She laughs and she leans against the railing too, and in the way she moves, I see them again.
The marks. I’ve seen them before. Once.
I didn’t say anything. Didn’t look too long. But tonight, something pushes me to break that silence. Maybe the alcohol. Maybe the exhaustion.
Or maybe just…comfort?
The faint scars shimmered in the moonlight, crossed by a tattoo, a heartbeat line running through the name “Elijah”.
“You survived,” I said softly, nodding toward the scars.
She followed my gaze, her smile turning almost sad. “Barely. He found me before I could finish it. Dragged me out of Hell and made me fight for something.Him, mostly.”
I hesitated, then said, almost offhand, “Mine are on my thighs. And my forearms.”
Zanae doesn’t answer right away. She doesn’t even move. Her fingers start taping on the railing, like she’s nervous, or remembering. But I feel her breathing slow down. And without looking at me, she simply says, “It was always to remind myself that I was still alive.”
She doesn’t speak again immediately.
She stares at the sky, as if the stars might soothe something a brutal world never forgave.
Then, in a whisper she added, “It’s scarier to be loved than to be alone. Because when you’re alone, there’s nothing at stake. Not even hope.”
I stay beside her. There’s no answer to that. But I chuckle.Stupidly. Maybe because I can’t explain why I started doing this to myself.
I don’t even understand it.
She smiles like she heard my thoughts and says, “You don’t need to explain. I know what it’s like, to think you have to carve out the pain just to make it leave. But pain doesn’t listen, does it?”
I shook my head, a dry laugh escaping. “No. It doesn’t. Nothing can help.”
She exhaled and turned to face me fully. “Strength does.”
I looked at her, a little surprised. “And how do you find that kind of strength?”
“You borrow it,” she said simply. “From the people who believe in you. From the ones who’d fight for you, even when you can’t fight for yourself.”
I leaned back, letting her words sink in. “Borrow, huh?” I smile. “I guess I’m not above stealing a little strength. I’ve done worse for less.”
“Perfect. Steal all the strength you find.”
I was just about to reply when I saw him through the glass door.
Myeternalpartner.
He was watching me, sitting there next to Elijah and Nikolai.
Zanae followed my line of sight and smiled. “Looks like someone already thinks you’re worth fighting for.”
“That’s complicated.”
She laughed, a full, rich sound, strangely adorable. “Of course it is. Nothing worth having is ever simple. That's why we survive right?”
The wind lifts a strand of her hair. She doesn’t brush it back.
I tighten my grip on the glass. My wrist is tense. My arm too. “I don’t think I ever learned how to do anything but survive,” I say softly.
