Page 37 of Eternal
“Cause I’m not sure I could stop myself from killing them even if I tried.”
“Scary.”
“Honest.”
“No strangling?”
“Depends… who’s choking who?”
She laughs hard and slaps my thigh. “You need to find a man to play with,” she says, her voice almost pitiful. “You can’t even take sexual quotes and turn them against me.”
Her teasing makes me laugh, but I shake my head. “I don’t have the time to find a man when I’ve got people to kill…”
She laughs again, shaking her head, “My best friend is a dangerous psycho and killer, and I’m cuddling her.”
I let my head rest on hers, smiling. “You’re an idiot.”
I feel her body warm against mine, her fingers tapping away on her phone. I let my mind wander, the quiet of the room is relaxing, I like it.
Silence with the right person feels like peace, not absence, it feels like comfort.
After a long silence, she looks up and adds, “We need to get ready for the party tonight.”
I’m still lost in my own head for a moment, but I nod, liking this calm. The kind that feels natural. Like chaos is allowed to exist without ruining everything around it.
“The theme’s black and white, right?” I ask, almost already knowing the answer.
She shrugs, getting up and leaving the space beside me empty, “Of course.”
I chuckle, knowing she’d win this argument from the start. “Okay, let’s get ready then, I guess.”
12
AZRA
“Pink + White” by Frank Ocean
Present
We spent the whole evening hunting for the perfect dresses because Katarina’s, well… a fucking control freak. But that’s just how she is. She has to make sure everything is flawless.
Every detail, every decision, every move. It all has to be perfect.
Sometimes, I think she’s not only proving herself to the living but to the ghosts too.
Her father had always planned to pass the reins to Vik. I remember it, even when we were kids, that was the expectation.
Vik, the man, the soldier, disciplined, strong, and capable of running this branch of the Bratva with a strong hand. He could make it clean, proper enough to avoid too much attention, and still brutal enough to command respect.
But Kat... Kat wasdifferent.
She wasn’t simply strong; she was sharp. She saw every angle, every crack in everyone’s way to react, every opportunity others overlooked. She didn’t wait for permission; she took control because she needed to, because it was the only way to prove to herself to her father, to everyone, that she was worth it.
When I came back two years ago, Vik told me Kat almost skipped their father’s funeral. She hated him for the way he made her feel; small, unworthy, like a shadow of what she could have been if she was a man.
Vik hated it too.
That’s why he lets her take over now. He doesn’t need to, but he does. He steps back and gives her the reins, watching from a distance, letting her run some things the way she needs to, not because she has to, but because it matters to her, and so, it does to him.
