Page 40 of Eternal

DAMIR

“Glory Box” by Portishead

Present

T he day has come, and I'm here, hidden, watching for her, waiting for her.

I’ve never seen her like I’ll see her tonight, never fully unleashed. And fuck, I’m excited.

Almost three weeks since I’ve seen her, and I almost miss it.

It’s 1 a.m. The party has already started and she’s still not here, but I think that’s what her plan consists of. Let them be all happy and have fun before catching them by surprise.

I sit on the casino high walls hidden behind a column. I see everything, but they can’t see me. Too busy with their own shitty attraction. My mask is tight against my face, and my eyes flick to the tracker, a red dot appears, and it’s really close from here.

She’s close, super close. My partner is coming to cause chaos, and the simple thought of seeing her when I’ve only been watching her from her balcony is making me smile.

I did miss my partner.

Does she know I’ve had this tracker on her since the last mission? Am I too invasive? Do I care enough to stop invading her privacy?

Why would I? My job is to find everything about her and surprisingly she’s hard to read. I thought it’d be easier. But although she’s my partner and I’ve seen her sleep, fight, eat, and even laugh, I still can’t figure out even her fucking name.

Below me, the men are laughing, drinking, loose-limbed in their arrogance, guns dangle off their belts, knives tucked lazily in their boots, careless.

They don’t know they’re already dead.

And for the first time in my life, I don’t know if I want to watch them die, but I know I want to watch her kill them.

Am I worried for her? Is that what I’ve become because of some pretty eyes and a pretty mouth?

Don’t get hurt. I whisper it to myself. Don’t you fucking dare get hurt, Voron.

Then… darkness.

The lights cut out, swallowing the room whole. A heartbeat later, emergency lamps flicker to life. Not bright enough to save them, bright enough to let them see.

The first scream cracks through the silence like a gunshot, then the real gunshots follow.

Bodies hit the floor, the sound of skulls meeting wood, the wet sound of a blade sliding through muscle and skin. More screams, chairs scrape, men scramble, knocking over tables with glasses and bottles breaking on the ground.

Some are trying to open the doors, but they can’t, the doors don’t open.

She planned this perfectly.

Then I see it, a shape moving in the room, a shadow with a braid whipping through the air, a path of bodies following.

Is it her? Or is it something else entirely?

This is no fight, fighting is what people do when they have opposition, when they’re challenged.

This is pure execution.

This is Turkish territory, too… So, Vik gave her the permission to attack the Turkish mafia for her to find someone? Or maybe he knows everything about her revenge plan and why she’s doing it, and he’s helping her.

She’s annihilating them all, quick, precise and merciless.

And God, I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.

Men shake, some crying, some frozen, they don’t understand what they’re seeing.

“Who is that?” one guard stammers, surrounding a table with two men who clearly aren't accustomed to this kind of violence, probably a couple of wealthy patrons who thought they were safe in this den of filth.

“Is that a demon?” the other guard asks.

A laugh itches at my throat, they’re not wrong.

“Where the fuck is she? Where ? — ”

The answer comes in a silver flash, a scream cut short, a body slumps forward, twitching.

“Right here,” her voice comes in, and I want to applaud.

“Run, boss!! Ruuu—” A gurgle, blood pooling at his lips, and then I see her.

A spotlight catches her face for half a second, glowing and magnificent.

She smiles as she kills one of the two sitting men, she smiles again when only one is still alive.

I guess he’s her target tonight.

Something sharp twists in my chest.

No hesitation, no regret, just the quiet, sinking realization that she's happy .

I watch as she takes her time with her target, savoring it. In a few moments, he's strapped to a chair, leather cuffs, steel bolts, his wrists raw from struggling, his shirt damp with sweat, his chest rises and falls in quick, and shallow gasps.

Is that him? The man she’s been surveilling for the past few days.

It is him, but he’s bigger than I expected.

His empire of liquor and power, his years spent weaving through governments, but none of it matters now.

How do I know this? Because she knew it, she worked for it, and I watched from my screen, trying to piece her together, trying to understand her motives.

Not for her, not really, but for me. She found him, and that’s all that matters, I stay where I am, crouched in the rafters, mask on, concealed in the dark, watching.

She’s fascinating when she works, when she kills.

Voron moves slowly, the tip of her knife taps against his knee as she studies him, almost curious.

“I found your name in a journal, Donovan,” her voice is soft, thoughtful. “A very old one.”

His breath hitches.

Her smile widens. “Surprised?” she crouches, resting an elbow on his thigh, the knife spinning lazily in her gloved hand. “Tell me, Donovan, why was my mother writing about you?”

Nothing.

I see her grip tighten slightly on the hilt, but she doesn’t press, not yet, instead, she reaches into her pocket. A handful of bullets spill onto the floor between them.

Small, matte, each one engraved with a black iris. Her mark, and then, I see his face drained of color. His lips part, his breath coming quicker now.

“Is it—” He swallows hard. “Are you Voron ?”

She smiles, “Have you heard of me because I killed some of your old friends?” That smile, teasing, deadly, and yet somehow…

better when it’s aimed at me. “Do you know why I leave these bullets everywhere I go?” She tilts her head, watching him like a cat watches a mouse.

“It’s not to hide. It’s not to taunt.” She picks one up, rolling it between her fingers, letting it slip through her hand.

“I wanted you and the people involved to find me.”

He stiffens.

“I don’t care,” she murmurs. “I’m not scared.” Her smile fades slightly, something colder settling in her expression. “They should be.”

She stands, twirling the bullet once before letting it slip through her fingers, the small clink echoing in the room.

“It’s been years,” she says, almost to herself. “Years I’ve been dreaming of understanding what happened that night.”

I lean forward slightly.

What night?

What happened to you?

What are you doing, Voron?

Why are you doing this?

Donovan shifts again; his voice strained. “What do you want from me? What do you know?”

“I think you know,” she replies, her tone still soft, yet cutting.

“A woman died. A very important woman. And you were there when she died. My mother found out... and she received a threat after confronting you about it. But what interests me is this other girl. A young girl who started working for you, disappearing just like that. How old was she again? fourteen? Don’t you see that it might be a problem? ”

His shoulders tense against the restraints, his lips twitch like he wants to speak, but the fear . No , the realization holds him back.

I’m learning things now, things I didn’t know, this is deeper than I thought, bigger than what I imagined she was fighting for. And now... my curiosity is stronger than ever.

She sees the shift in his eyes, the twist, and she sighs.

Then, in a single, fluid motion, she drives the knife into his knee, Donovan screams.

I watch as she twists the blade slowly, savoring it, she always does this when they refuse to answer.

Her voice is still quiet, calm. “Talk.”

His jaw clenches, sweat beading at his temple, his hands grip the armrests, knuckles white. I know this game, she’ll carve him up piece by piece until she gets what she wants.

And yet, I’m not sure what exactly she wants.

What is she chasing? What happened that night? Who died? Why is Donovan involved?

I should stop this, I should intervene, end it before it goes too far.

But I don’t, I stay where I am, and I watch.

He chokes on a scream, his chest heaving, sweat dripping down his face. “ P-please ? — ”

“Please what?” she lets out a soft chuckle, pulling back enough to let him breathe before dragging the blade up, slicing into muscle. “Please stop? Please let me go?” Her breath brushes against his ear. “Or please kill me quickly?”

His head falls forward, his body trembling. I watch from above, my grip tightening around my phone. She’s playing with him, and I don’t know whether to stop her or let her push further.

“You knew my mother,” she says, her voice sharp now. “That’s a fact. And you also knew she was smart enough to find your buried secrets.”

His breath hitches.

Bingo.

Her mother died, one night, she died, and in that moment, she died with her.

Grief transformed her into this monster, grief broke her. I understand now, it broke me too. But where she chose vengeance, I chose loneliness.

What makes us so different, if we both walked different paths?

No matter the route, we ended up in blood. Why do I have to end her grief?

I catch her smile, cold and savage, as she drags the bloodied knife up his chest, letting the steel hover above his throat. “She wrote about you,” she continues, her voice eerily calm, almost casual. “Not much. But enough.”

The journal… Her mother’s?

“What did she find?” she presses, her voice soft, almost sweet. “Where is that young girl, Donovan?”

No reply.

Voron sighs, a breath of frustration, then, without hesitation, she buries the knife into his other leg. He screams, I watch as his body trembles, his fists clenching, but still… he remains silent.

That’s when I realized, he knows. He knows exactly why she’s here, but he’s too terrified to say it.

Voron steps back, casually wiping the blood off her knife on his shirt, her gaze settling on him with a mix of boredom and amusement.