Page 9 of Eternal

AZRA

“You Get Me So High” by The Neighbourhood

Present

A nother headache’s coming, I can feel it starting, crawling down my temples.

I should sleep, but sleep doesn’t do much these days

I walk through the Bratva mansion, and all I can think about is seeing Vik and Kat again.

I’ve been alone for three months, but nothing has changed here.

I landed a few hours ago and just had the time to take a shower and change into something else.

I tried to look put together because tonight they organized a dinner.

And being here always makes me anxious, not because I’m scared.

I think being really lonely for years just made it easier this way.

When it gets too crowded, too loud, I slip into my head, and my mind isn’t the kindest place to escape to.

When I started this whole thing, it felt like I was going to die. I always had this feeling like I wasn’t going to succeed, the training, the mission I set up for myself.

But all it took was a re-read of my mother’s journal to motivate me, to remember how they stole her light before she even had the time to love me back.

I think about her thoughts often, and I know it’s hurting me more than it should, it’s been so long, but I can’t stop now. I owe them that closure, I owe myself this closure.

It would’ve been a lie to say I didn’t miss this place. When I came back after my training, I settled not too far from here in an apartment Viktor chose and Katarina decorated.

They wanted to make it fancy but I really wanted something smaller.

Kat felt like it would make me less stressed to be closer to them, and she might have been right because spending time with them, with the dogs, in this mansion, it made it look like I had a new family.

People who could kill for the people they love, loyal and safe in their own way.

I think about that sometimes, and then I sit at dinner with them, the laughter, the noise, and somehow, it’s just enough to keep that drop of hope alive.

Hope that maybe one day, the rage I carry won’t feel so… painful.

Sometimes I can’t even trace where this rage comes from. Maybe it’s my mother’s, or maybe hers passed down like some cursed gene, the same thing, over and over.

The same fucking cycle of frustration, pain, and fury.

I just happen to be the one holding it now, and people here understand that in a way.

Life’s never easy on anyone, I know that, but sometimes she picks favorites, hits some people a little harder, digs in a little deeper, to make sure they feel it. And, of course, she’s been a real bitch to some of us.

So I had to learn how to accept it, by using violence and death.

My first kills were my foster parents. “Dad” went first.

I waited until he was deep in sleep after coming to see Vik that night. He slept peacefully; the kind of peace he didn’t deserve, not after everything he’d done. Not after so many years of hell, and when I saw him like that, his eyes closed, with the blade in my hand, I almost hesitated.

Almost.

The knife felt lighter than I expected when I raised it. The same knife that had marked my skin to never forget the shame and frustration.

His same old cross necklace glinted under the faint light of the streets outside, resting on the chest of the man who claimed to be holy, a servant of God.

God wasn’t here.

God hadn’t been here for a long time.

I leaned close to his ear, close enough to feel the warmth of his disgusting breath on my cheek.

Close enough to speak the words he loved so much. “ This is the will of God, Christian. ”

And then I cut so deep, so angrily.

The blade slid through his throat with a strange but satisfying ease, a sharp gasp escaped him when his eyes flew open. I stayed close, watching realization appearing in those disgusting dark eyes.

I was the one killing him. Me . And I felt something that day, deep in my soul, a satisfaction that wasn’t even for me.

His hands shot up to his neck, trying to stem the blood that gushed out, soaking the sheets, seeping into the mattress.

But it was too late… He choked, gurgled and struggled.

I didn’t move, I watched him die, watched the life drain out of his body, watched his sick soul claw its way free, I waited to see if God or Satan himself would take his hand and drag him off to be judged for all the misery he left behind.

I bet it was the evil guy, and I think I was right.

But nothing happened, no divine beams of light, no fiery pits cracking open to claim him.

Nothing .

“Look at that,” I whispered, a low and dry laugh slipping out as I turned away. “Not even Hell wants you.”

I yanked the cross necklace from around his neck. It felt heavier than I thought it would, smeared with his blood. I shoved it back into his throat, forcing it deep until his mouth hung open, a grotesque final act of devotion.

A man of God, through and through.

It was quiet when he stopped moving.

And so, I turned to her. Brittany laid there, pretending to sleep, as she always did. Her eyes were closed, her breathing steady, but I knew she was awake.

She always was.

Awake, aware, and complicit .

Ten years, I stayed in that house, swallowing the agony, letting it fester, letting it break me apart, piece by piece. I’d endured every touch, every cruel word, every fucking violation, while she closed her eyes and pretended it wasn’t happening, while she even participated.

I could’ve left her out of it, I could’ve spared her.

But silence is its own crime, and no woman should ever close her eyes while others suffer.

I moved to her side after that, that night, my bloodied hand tightening around the knife. She didn’t flinch when I leaned over her, didn’t open her eyes.

“You always pretended not to see,” I whispered. “But I see you. I see what you are. A bitch .”

Her breath hitched then, barely, but it was enough to make me press the blade to her throat, to make me do what needed to be done.

She didn’t scream, didn’t fight. Maybe she thought she deserved it, or maybe she was just too much of a coward.

Either way, I didn’t stop until her blood joined his, pooling in the bed where they’d slept peacefully for years while I shattered, over and over.

When it was done, I stood there for a moment, staring at the mess I’d made. The blood. The bodies. The silence.

It didn’t feel like victory, it didn’t feel like relief.

It felt like the beginning.

I wiped the blade clean on his shirt, then I turned and walked out of that house, leaving behind the broken pieces of the girl I’d been.

Because she was gone after that.

And I wasn’t looking back.

It was my own gift to myself for my birthday. Fireworks erupted everywhere in the city that night, like everyone was celebrating what happened, their death.

The only thing that kept me going for the next five years was the result of that night, the delicate thought that one day the people who hurt me and poisoned my life would see what I’ve become.

I know I’m psychotic. It’s a fact I’ve accepted honestly.

I hate them all, every single one. The women who feign compassion and benevolence, the men who believe they’re invulnerable and untouchable no matter what they do, the politicians who manipulate and deceive. Everyone.

They’re simply pieces on a board, and I have no emotional attachment to any of them.

And maybe that’s why I love this place, most of the people at the dinner here are like me. Detached .

Vik sits at the far end of the table in the dinner room, glass in hand, his trademark insolent smirk plastered across his face. I know that smirk all too well, the kind that says he’s going to annoy me just because he missed me, I could draw it from memory.

“Look at that, the woman who avoids me,” he quips, lifting his glass in a mock salute.

A laugh escapes me as I approach him. “I’m not doing well with weird guys. How’s the second-in-command holding up now that his best friend’s back?”

He lets out a low chuckle, pulling out the chair next to him and Katarina. “Feeling like I could declare war on the world. Confidence levels are dangerously high right now.”

I let out a dry laugh, slipping into the seat. “Yeah, I know. I tend to have that effect on men.”

Katarina leans in to kiss my cheek. “Oh, trust me, Visha , you have quite the effect on men.” Then she whispers, “Missed you, you idiot.”

“Sorry, I left you with this weirdo for too long…” I replied, leaning into her kiss.

“Fear you mean?” Vik says, the smirk on his face deepens as he looks at my eyes. “My best friend with killer eyes.”

One blue, one green, it’s the only thing that makes him pause for a split second.

It's crazy how my vision of myself changed, how all the years of self-hatred completely… fell away. Somewhere along the line, my pain grew stronger than the insecurities, and my rage burned brighter than any shame.

Those eyes. I’ve always hated them. They draw so much unwanted attention, make me recognizable, and different in a weird way. The thing is, different never felt like a gift in this world.

When I was a kid, I had a lot of trouble accepting myself.

The Arabic girl with two strange-colored eyes and a long mess of dark curls that couldn’t lie flat no matter how hard I tried even at such a young age.

The streets were filled with beautiful little girls. Blond hair, bright blue eyes. And then there was me, olive skin, a mother from another country who tried her best to be accepted.

And I tried to shrink into myself, hide my eyes, my hair, my entire being that felt so… wrong.

I didn’t even know it was possible to hate the way I looked at what…four?

By the time I was five, I was already begging to wear contacts to hide my different-colored eyes.

My mother hated it; she’d watch me cry, trying to cover them, to pull my hair back in a ponytail, tight and out of sight, my hands were too small to do it, so I would cry and cry.

But every time, she’d look at me with that honest smile, put an iris behind my ear, and call me her flower even if I grew up feeling like a weed among wildflowers.