Page 80 of Eternal

AZRA

“Black Out Days” by Phantogram

Present

P eople lie more when they want to leave.

I’m confused. Lost . Not knowing what to do with everything that’s resurfacing.

I sit on the cold floor of my ruined apartment, my arms wrapped around my knees, my breath still uneven from the screams that have already died in my throat.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Press my fingers against my ears, just like I used to do years ago, when everyone left, when I felt what abandonment does to a heart.

I hear it, the rage, the screams inside my head.

You’re fucked. Stop hoping that something will change. Stop hoping that you have a chance to live.

Go away. Go away. Go away.

I can’t breathe, I can’t think. My hands are shaking as I look around at the wreckage, everything’s broken, everything’s in pieces. My heart has splintered it all, the chair, the vase, the glass… I’ve shattered everything I could reach because that's the only way to deal with it.

I fucking hate this, I hate how it feels like I’m drowning in everything I've built up for years, no feelings, no stupid hope. Because people lie, and people leave.

Hope is a stupid thing, hoping that better days are waiting is stupid .

They think it’s dramatic, people like me .

They think we’re overreacting, too stupid.

But they don’t understand. This isn’t anger, it’s everything I’ve kept locked inside.

It’s everything I’ve swallowed down and stuffed in a box until it finally bursts open, and now I’m here, screaming, breaking, ripping apart.

Because I’m not dramatic, I’m hurt, and angry at myself for feeling safe in the hands of a liar, like I did back then.

Because it means everything I unconsciously hoped for would never happen even if I try and try and try .

Even if I’m done with the chaos.

It’s too late. I’m too far gone.

I hate him . I hate him for this, for making me feel things I didn’t want to feel. I hate that I trusted him, even for a second. I gave him pieces of me I don’t give to anyone, my brother, my mother, my scar, my story. All of it. I let him in and he fucking lied to me.

I stabbed him for it and he deserved it, he had to have known, right? That I’d want to kill him. I don’t regret it. I can’t . But I don’t want to let him break me even more.

I hear a knock at the door. I don’t know how long it’s been, hours? I don't care. I’m not opening it, I don’t want anything.

But then the door creaks open, and there he is, bleeding, bandage wrapped around his stomach, but still standing. He looks at me, and there's no softness. Only fury.

He’s there. Damir. Bleeding .

His head tilts back against the doorframe, breath shallow, blood darkening the bandage wrapped around his side. His shirt is damp with it, his knuckles raw, his eyes heavy. He should be dead. I should have killed him… but he’s here. He’s standing here and my heart falls again.

Stupid heart.

“ There you are ,” he says, his voice deep, tired, like he’s been through hell, and maybe he did. But I don’t care. He lied to me and he deserves this.

But then he steps forward, and I don’t stop him. I should, I want to, but my body betrays me.

For the first time in my life, my body craves someone, craves something.

He doesn’t wait, he never does. His hands are cold when they grab my face, fingers digging in like he’s terrified I’ll break between his hands, and he’s shaking. “You’re fucking insane,” he rasps. “But fuck it. I want you, Azra. I fucking want you.”

And then he kisses me.

Damir is kissing me.

It’s not soft, it’s nothing tender, nothing careful. It’s hard and deep and angry, like he’s trying to hurt me back, like he needs to. And maybe I want him to, maybe I want to taste the rage on his tongue, the betrayal, the obsession, all of it.

It feels like a confession, or a punishment.

Our first kiss.

His lips are crushing me, they’re trying to force something into me, engraving it in my head. That he’s still here. That even after I left him for dead, he came for me, that even if I run, even if I erase him, even if I kill him, he won’t leave.

Because it’s too late.

Because for the first time, he seems like he has forgotten his rules. The mission. The orders. The lies.

And he’s kissing me like he’ll die if he stops.

I want to pull away, I want to scream, to stab him again, but I can't.

He kisses me harder, his lips pressing into mine with this desperation, and my heart beats faster, so fast I’m scared it might stop.

“You’re still angry, partner?” He whispers against my lips. “Try to kill me again. I don’t care. I’m here. And I’m not leaving.”

The words, the anger, it’s all a mess. But his hands are on me, touching me like he owns me, like I’m his to break. And, I fucking want it. I want him, even if I can’t stand the way he made me feel, even if I want to destroy him for using my weakness to try and stop me.

My hands are still bleeding from all the things I broke in my house, and I’m so damn tired, but I can’t look away from him. Not when he’s here, like this, not when he’s so fucking close, and all I want is to make him feel everything he’s made me feel.

His eyes fell on my hands first when he pulled back to catch his breath. He’s seeing them, raw, bloody from the glass I shattered. They tremble when I try to pull away, but he’s faster, his grip tightening around my wrists.

He doesn’t speak right away, but I can hear it in his breath. He’s pissed. No, he’s fuming. He’s disgusted with me maybe, with the mess I’ve made of myself because I felt betrayed.

But that’s not all I see in him. He leans in closer, his lips barely brushing my ear, his voice low and rough, “You’re mad?” His words come out in a wave of rage, raw and guttural. “You’ve destroyed yourself, and for what? For me? Because I lied? Or for you?”

I see it in the way his hands hover over the damage I’ve done to myself, like he’s disgusted with me but can’t stop himself from touching the bruises on my wrists, the cuts on my palms.

I want to scream at him, tell him to leave, but something in the way he’s looking at me, like I’m the last thing he’s got left to care about stops me. His fingers are soft, too soft for a man who should be out to kill me, for someone who’s seen me at my worst.

And in a twisted way, it makes me want to tear him apart, to make him hurt like I’m hurting.

He leans in and kisses me again, no warning, just the force of it.

His lips are sweet, he might be bruising my lips not that I’d care.

Even as his body presses against mine, I can feel him trembling, like he’s trying to hold back, but the need to have me is stronger than any of the blood pooling on his stomach.

“Go on,” he says between kisses, his voice rougher now. “Try to finish it. Try to kill me again. I don’t care. I’ll take it.” His lips move lower, his teeth grazing my neck, like he’s claiming me in a way that’s far more dangerous than any mission we’ve ever been on.

“You fucking lied to me.” I want to scream harder, but instead, all that comes out is a strangled sound, like a moan. Am I insane? Am I fucking insane?

“You’re not the only one who’s hurt here,” he mutters against my skin. “I’m bleeding for you. But I’ll keep coming back. I always come back. Because you fucking poisoned me.”

His breath is sharp against my ear, his tone changing,

But then his hand slides over my wrist, pressing hard on his stomach, and I can feel the bandage beneath my touch, reminding me of what I did to him.

On the cut of his chest that I inflicted.

And I’m furious, but I’m also tired. I'm so tired of this, so tired of him, and then the words spill out before I can stop them. “I fucking hate you.”

The words barely left my mouth before his lips found my neck again, trailing slowly up to my jaw, then finally to my lips.

Then he murmured, “I hate you too, partner , so much that it shouldn't even be allowed. Hate you for making me weak like that, weak to touch you, weak to take care of you.”

I kissed him back, and it wasn’t gentle, it was desperate. Like ten months of silence, longing, and pretending hadn’t just broken, they detonated . My whole body went inflamed, like I'd swallowed a spark and it lit me from the inside.

This. Us, whatever the hell it was, was a fucking mess. A disaster. A stupid fucking thing that would’ve never be something more. And yet, here I was, in the wreckage, kissing the man who had lied to me from the start, because he was me, my mirror, my reflection.

And I hated it. I hated him for showing me what I refused to see.

He was broken, lonely, and angry. Just a pawn in a mission, like me.

And still, his hands were in my hair, his body against mine, his lips telling me things I didn’t want to hear. That he wanted to take care of me while lying all along, that he’d let me destroy him if it meant he could keep me. That this, us, was inevitable.

And the worst part? I think I believed him.

“Azra…” he breathed, his hands sliding dangerously down my back. “You had me the moment you appeared in my life. Do you think the fact that you hate me would ever keep me from you?”

I shook my head, feeling the ghost of a smile on his lips as he traced a silent threat along my skin. “You’ll never let me leave, will you?”

The warmth of his grin was almost cruel against the coolness of my skin, like a mark on me that wouldn’t fade. “Never.”

I should push him away, I should finish what I started. I failed trying to end him tonight, I should try again, but I can't.