Page 68 of Eternal

DAMIR

“Lucky” by Radiohead

Present

T he heat’s back. Vegas gets loud when it’s hot, the city is dry and buzzing, restless. I’m getting used to it… kind of, but it makes everything feel heavy.

I even fucked my coffee up today. I let it go cold while I started working on the last of Lev’s encryption. It’s half-sitting on the windowsill, next to a pack of cigarettes I haven’t touched today.

One of the screens is still running, static lines, half-loaded code. The files take forever to decrypt, and while I wait, I find myself staring at the empty progress bar like it might blink first, my gaze following the memories on the wall next to my desk.

Photos clutter the board. Months of moments that mean nothing to anyone else, some she sent, some I snapped without thinking. Now they just sit there, a dog, fireworks, her flipping the camera off. That stupid Santa hat, her asleep on my lap, on that shitty bench. Small things, dumb things.

But I can’t take them down. I don't know why, I just look.

Viktor’s been sending me out more, missions keep stacking. They’ve started splitting us up, less duo work, more solo runs.

I don’t like working alone, I actually do but not without her.

The files have been left alone for months. I’ve had them since Halloween, and I could’ve started the night I got them, but I didn’t.

I told myself I was waiting for the right moment, for more intel.

Bullshit. I was scared. October, November, I wasn’t sure what she was.

Was it the broken part that drew me in? Or the way she lit up when she was around me?

I didn’t know, I was confused, but I knew I liked it, a lot… Our time together.

In December I started missing her, it crept in quietly…

that stupid feeling. Like something was off when she wasn’t there, but I couldn’t explain what.

I’d look for her laugh before I heard it, and when it didn’t come, everything else felt too loud.

It was… strange. I don’t miss people, not like that.

So, I didn’t touch what Lev sent to me. I knew once I opened those files, I’d stop being able to lie to myself.

So, I stalled.

Faked reports, delayed responses. I was still watching her, yeah, but not as a mission, more like a compulsion. I started noticing more things.

She hates cold floors, eats ice cream when she’s spiraling, hums Radiohead when she thinks no one’s listening, gets quiet when she’s trying not to hope.

January, I broke, I started decoding them, little by little, late at night. That gut-sick feeling wouldn’t leave. Like I was opening something sacred I wasn’t meant to touch.

February, I was in deep. It was taking too long, and not because I was slow. These files weren’t just encrypted, they were buried, like someone wanted this erased from the world, and then, she started avoiding me, maybe it was the vinyl, maybe it was the way I looked at her.

Maybe she felt it too, the way the space between us had started to matter.

Valentine’s Day came and went. I thought maybe we’d do something dumb, sit on that damn bench, share a meal and talk. I walked past a gas station rack of cheap plastic roses. I nearly picked one up, but I caught myself, she prefers irises anyway.

She sent a photo that night, her and Mischka, Notch was barely visible behind her legs. She looked tired. Still beautiful, but with that hint of sadness in her eyes and I didn’t like it.

I asked if she missed me.

She sent back a skull emoji, and a heart. I smiled at that like a fucking teenager.

The last time we really spent time together was New Year’s Eve, now that I think about it.

She made dinner, Vik and Kat saw her all day long, so I stole her presence the entire night.

I tried, I really did, I tried to keep that distance between us, and just…

focus on what I had to do. But then I just stopped trying and gave in.

We sat near the window, watching fireworks in a city that doesn’t care if we live or disappear.

She leaned against me for a second, but I felt it everywhere.

Her head on my shoulder, and without thinking, I let mine rest against hers, like my body knew before I did.

Her arm was barely touching mine, but it felt…

perfect, and her fingers brushed mine. Not on purpose, maybe, but I didn’t move.

It was such a small instant, a forgettable one, something you move on from quickly, never even remembering it again but my body did, and it’s been remembering it ever since.

I kept thinking about it, if that almost broke something in me, then what the hell would a kiss do?

What would it mean to wake up with her? To have her, every day, like that closeness was a given, not a surprise. Maybe that’s what affection does, it crawls in silence, softens your ribs, kills you slowly, like a kindness you didn’t ask for, or maybe I just don’t do well with it, maybe I never did.

She pulled back a few minutes after that, and I left. I didn’t ask to stay, even though I wanted to, I still do.

It was too long ago in my opinion. Training with her once in a week or sharing a burrito when we both have a day off isn’t enough.

And now it’s almost summer again.

I sit here, in this too-quiet apartment, eyes burning from the screen glow. The last file was finally cracked and it hit hard, a crime scene report, three bodies, one child.

Photos, medical notes, a stab wound just under the jaw, and a face, blurry, small, scared .

Eyes I know, blue and green.

My breath caught, and there it was beneath it all… A name.

My eyes followed the way it was written, letter by letter.

Azra .

I read it again. And again. And again. Check the dates, the missing foster home records, the cold case status. It’s her .

That girl who texts me skull emojis and raises her eyebrows when I make fun of her, who wears boots that are too big, who feeds dogs better than she feeds herself, who makes jokes when she’s breaking, who smiles when she’s hoping. Her name isn’t Voron.

It’s Azra.

And now I know it. Finally .

And I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with that.