Page 153 of Inevitable Endings
The girl behind the nurse’s badge, behind the ordinary clothes and the soft, rehearsed voice, that wasn’t the real me. She was a disguise. One I wore so well, I forgot I was even wearing it. I’d been trained for it. Programmed by the people who raised me. Nothing truly disappears. Not bloodlines. Not history. Not the way I have always been attracted to certain people, to danger. Always being too curious. Not the way my pulse slows when things go quiet.
When I look in the mirror now, I don’t see a victim. I don’t even see a survivor.
I just see myself, whoever this person is.
My eyes are darker than I remember. Not in color, but in depth. Like something’s been pulled up from the bottom of awell and it hasn’t stopped rising. There’s a tension to my face that never used to be there. A permanent readiness. My jaw is set hard. My mouth, unsmiling. My hair is loose, falling over my shoulders in waves. I should look soft. But I don’t.
I look like her, this new version of me.
Not the nurse. Not the hostage. Not the abused child.Her.The one they tried to bury.
And I wonder; how could she have kept this from me? How long had my ‘mother’ looked at me and seen that shadow beneath my skin?
And why didn’t she say anything? Why didn’t she say anything after my stepfather was erased? I remember her text messages and swallow, would that have been it? Perhaps she wanted to speak to me about it. I never replied, I couldn’t bear it.
But now that I know, now that the weight of my past finally sits in my hands instead of pressing on my back, I have to ask myself—what am I going to do with it?
Because I can’t unknow it. I can’t go back to being the girl who thought she was innocent. Who thought love and kindness would be enough to save us all.
They lied to me. She lied to me. Everyone lied to me, but I won’t lie to myself.
I see me.
And they will see me too, unshaken, unleased andinevitable.
Chapter 64
I’ll Ruin You Gently
Aslanov
My hands cover hers.
Fingers wrapped around the steel of the gun, adjusting the angle, steadying the weight. She exhales, slow and controlled, but I feel the tremor beneath her skin. Not fear. Something else. Anticipation. Awareness. The kind that lingers just under the surface, sharp as glass and just as dangerous.
“Not like that,” I murmur, my mouth close to her ear. “You’re too stiff. Relax.”
“I am relaxed,” she replies, but her voice betrays her.
I let out a soft breath that brushes the side of her throat. Her shoulders draw tighter. It’s cold out here, just past the tree line behind the house. The wind cuts through the woods in low, broken howls, but the air is clean—free. I haven’t smelled anything like this in months. The crisp bite of pine. Damp earth. Morning frost.
And her.
“I said relax,” I repeat, lowering my voice. She swallows.
We’re both standing in the clearing, maybe twenty paces from the thick trunk of an old elm. That’s her target. The red mark I painted there an hour ago has already started to bleed into the bark. She hasn’t hit it once. Yet.
I press her hands lower by an inch, shift her elbow back toward her ribs.
“Like this,” I say, curling my palm over her knuckles. “Let the weight settle. Feel the gun become part of you.”
She doesn’t speak, but I feel her breathing change. Slower. Deeper. She’s trying to match mine.
The gun is steady now. Her body’s warm beneath the thin black fleece she’s wearing, but I can still feel the way her muscles stay on edge when I’m close like this. I don’t touch her more than I need to, but every inch of her is alert. Tensed like a wire.
The side of my body brushes hers as I align her aim. I’m in a training suit; black, fitted, nothing fancy. Functional. It clings to the places where the bruises used to live, but they’ve faded now, slowly turning yellow. I take the pills. Every day. And they help. Not just with the sleep, but with the remembering. Or thenotremembering. I take them for her. I take them to be safe, to be safe around her.
The scar between my brows has gone less red, less prominent. Almost looks like it was always part of me.
