Chapter 15
There was a moment somewhere between when I stood at my counter, my hand poised to apply my mascara, and when I fell to my bathroom floor. And that moment was when I realized I no longer felt like a person. Like I was a space where a person had once been.
The apartment was still. Too still.
The kind that presses in on you, making you hyperaware of your own existence and yet completely unsure if you’re actually here or if you’re just watching yourself move.
I knew my body was doing things—breathing, blinking, existing—but I wasn’t attached to it anymore.
I was observing it from far away, like it belonged to someone else who had left the room and forgotten to come back.
My phone lay on the counter, and I knew I should have called someone. My therapist. My brother. Mia. Charlotte, who I knew dealt with mental health issues of her own and would probably never judge me in the least. Maybe I should have called Alek.
But I couldn’t bring myself to touch the cursed device.
A terrible, heavy certainty settled itself deep in my stomach.
I was a black hole of pain and suffering, of feeling unsure of when the universe’s punishments would drop on me.
Anyone I’d ever loved would suffer from knowing me, from being pulled into the gravity of a beast that slowly fed on me.
It was better to let myself succumb to the void than to drag them there with me.
I thought I was getting better. God, I thought this feeling would be gone. Medication, therapy, getting my dream role—all of that was supposed to actually help me. My life was improving with each day, and I thought my illness was too.
Clearly I was wrong.
I could feel Death hovering behind my shoulders, its fingers grazing the backs of my arms, settling into my skin, waiting for me to do something wrong. And everything was wrong. Every choice. Every movement. Every thought. My existence felt like a trigger.
My throat tightened, my body carving a space in itself for the fear to live and grow. I couldn’t tell if my heart was racing because I was anxious or because something was genuinely wrong with me—if this attack would be the one to finally kill me.
I pressed my forehead to the cool tile floor, wrapping my arms around myself while my thoughts blurred into each other, stacking and looping, folding inward like a collapsing star.
What if I was violent and didn’t know it?
What if I was going to hurt someone I loved?
What if my thoughts meant something about who I really was?
What if this wasn’t illness at all? What if this was me?
That was the cruelest part. The not knowing. The constant interrogation. Which thoughts were mine? Which ones were intruders wearing my voice? Where did I end, and the sickness begin?
I counted the tiles on the floor. The cracks in the ceiling. The hitches in my breath. Not to calm myself, but because if I didn’t, I knew something bad might happen.
One… Two… Three…
Wrong. Again.
One… Two… Three… Four…
Wrong. Always wrong.
The void crept in slowly, thick and suffocating. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t violent. Yet it swallowed me alive until only the emptiness inside of me echoed. Like if I leaned into it just a little more, I might disappear completely.
My thoughts circled endlessly, chewing on themselves, my mind consumed by a relentless wave of anxiety that had no clear shape and no exit.
I was imprisoned, judged by my own soul, sentenced without a trial.
I kneeled inside of myself and confessed to crimes I didn’t commit, my mind a weapon I couldn’t disarm.
My thoughts might one day destroy someone I loved. I had a predator in my own skull, clawing at me from the inside.
I hated everything.
I hated my mind.
I hated this illness.
I hated how violent it felt, how it made me feel dangerous, broken, unlovable.
I hated me. Terrible, imperfect me.
I thought of Alek then, and it nearly crushed me. How could he not hate me, too? Loving me would be like tying something solid and asking him to stand in the ocean. It only ever ended in emptiness and pain, because one day, the tide would rise, and I would pull him under without meaning to.
Something heavy banged in the distance, but I barely heard it through my shallow breaths. It was a loud noise, furious and sudden. The sound of darkness and determination made real. But I knew it wasn’t real. Nothing ever was.
A few moments later, it came again.
Harder.
My body flinched before my thoughts caught up. My heart slammed painfully against my ribs, each beat loud and wrong. For one horrifying moment, I wondered if this was it. If I’d waited too long, and my indecision had finally turned fatal.
I heard the sound of wood hitting the floor. Was that my front door?
“Eva!” his voice cut through the fog, raw and unrestrained. That sound—my name, spoken like that—cracked something open inside me.
The sound of thudding footsteps vibrated the floor as he called out my name, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My limbs felt locked in place, heavy and unresponsive, like they belonged to a statue instead of a person.
“Eva,” he breathed, crossing the bathroom in seconds, dropping to his knees in front of me. “Fuck, Eva…”
All of a sudden, a pair of blue eyes so dark they looked almost black filled my vision. They reached me through the fog, low and real and unmistakable. He cut through the void like a hand reaching down into icy water and pulling me from the depths.
Alek’s expression was furious yet lined with terror. His eyes scanned my body while his hands hovered, unsure where to touch first. I longed to reach out and smooth the lines on his handsome yet twisted face.
“Are you hurt?” His voice was rough, edged with something close to panic. “Did someone come here? Did they touch you?”
I shook my head weakly, the motion barely perceptible.
“No,” I whispered, my voice thin and distant. “I just…”
He scanned the room again, jaw clenched, body coiled like a weapon, already planning retaliation against enemies that didn’t exist.
When he looked back at me, really looked, something shifted. The fight drained out of him all at once. He saw it then—not blood or bruises, not signs of a struggle, but the vacancy in my eyes, the way my body had folded inward, the tremor running through me like a fault line.
He exhaled, long and shaky, like he’d been holding his breath since the moment I stopped answering.
“Tell me something real,” I finally rasped. “Please… I need something not inside my head.”
Alek hesitated, chewing on his lip for a few moments before softly saying, “I was twelve when my sister died in my arms. Liza was eight. It was a car accident, but a purposeful one. I don’t think she was supposed to be the casualty.
I think I was. My world has always been a dangerous one, but until then, I lived in ignorance.
That day, I looked Death in the eyes and made a vow that I would become his master.
And I have. I am the Reaper. It does not bring Liza back, but… it helps.”
I blinked a few times, his words pulling me from the fog a little. He was twelve. He was just a child, yet he took on such a burden. I understood, then, why Alek could sometimes be so cold. Why he would do anything to make me his. Because in Alek’s mind, ownership meant control. It meant safety.
I looked up at him, at the thin line of his lips, the worry in his brow.
“I was in a car accident once. I was only four, so I don’t remember it much, but I remember it being my fault.
I distracted the driver, screaming when I saw an ice cream shop.
It was stupid, but I suppose I paid for it.
I was injured pretty badly.” I lifted some of my curtain bangs and showed him the long, thin white scar.
“My life changed so much after that. My parents became distant, and my brother stopped being my friend and turned into my protector. I started wearing things like bows and ribbons, so I had something other than the scar to look at when I stared into the mirror. And a voice appeared in my head. A mean voice. A cruel one that wouldn’t let me forget how much I ruined things for my family. ”
A choked sob escaped me as I remembered that lonely little girl with only her thoughts for company. And those thoughts were not kind.
“I’m broken,” I whispered.
“You’re not broken, solnyshka. That little girl did nothing wrong. And her scar? It makes her so fucking beautiful.”
I shook my head, unable to speak, my throat locked tight.
“Can I touch you?” Alek asked. I nodded in response, and he softened himself deliberately, reining in whatever violence had brought him through the door.
His movements became careful, measured, as he reached forward, deliberate and unyielding, pulling my trembling body into his lap as if he could physically shield me from every invisible threat in the world.
I nuzzled my face into his neck, breathing in the scent of his cologne. Alek’s chest was warm, his heartbeat slowing. His arms around me were firm, grounding me in his body, silently telling me he would never let me go, no matter how heavy I became.
“I thought something happened to you,” he murmured into my hair. “When you didn’t answer… I was so worried, baby.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, because everything was my fault. I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t perfect.
“You don’t have to be sorry, Eva. You don’t have to explain yourself. You don’t have to do anything but be here.”
I went still in his arms, my breath catching—not from fear this time, but from the sudden, overwhelming realization that no one had ever said that to me before. Not really.
I had spent my whole life performing existence correctly. Being good. Being manageable. Being quiet enough, strong enough, grateful enough to take up space, to one day earn my parents’ attention.
And here Alek was, holding me like I deserved all of it and more.
“I don’t know how to stop it,” I whispered after a long moment.
My voice felt scraped raw, like it had clawed its way out of my chest. “My brain. It tells me things. Awful things. That I’m dangerous.
That I ruin people. That everyone will one day leave me because they’ll realize that loving me is a mistake. ”
His arms tightened around me, and I felt his heart thump against me. “Look at me,” Alek said.
I hesitated, then lifted my head. His face was close now, eyes dark and intent, but no longer wild. They were focused entirely on me.
His thumb brushed against my cheek, catching a tear I hadn’t realized had fallen. The tender movement made something in my chest ache.
“I am not ruined. I am not frightened away. I am not leaving,” he whispered. “I never will, Eva. You are mine. Nothing can keep you from me. Not even you.”
The words hit me so hard my breath stuttered. I shook my head, tears blurring my vision. “You don’t understand. This doesn’t go away. It might get quieter sometimes, but it always comes back.”
“Then it will come back,” he said simply, his accent coating the edges of the words. “And I will still be here.”
There was no hesitation in his voice. No doubt.
Something in me gave way then—not fear, not panic, but a surrender so deep it felt like stepping off a ledge and discovering air could hold you.
“You will?” I breathed. “You won’t eventually hate me?”
“I don’t know how to hate you, solnyshka. I don’t think I ever could.” Alek paused before adding, “You think that this illness makes you a monster. But I am a real monster, baby. And my demons will not stop until yours are driven away.”
He leaned in slowly, giving me time to pull away.
I didn’t.
His lips brushed against mine before they pressed into me.
The kiss wasn’t demanding or hungry, but soft.
Tender. One that felt like a promise instead of a claim.
A gentle undoing of all the knots inside of me, one by one, until every thread wrapped around my heart and tethered me to him.
I was no longer hollow but full. So full of warm and fuzzy emotions, all aimed directly at the man taking my breath away.
I realized, then, why every great love story always revolved around a true love’s kiss. Because the things I was feeling for him were worth fighting villains, succumbing to spells, eating poisonous apples, and sacrificing everything.
I melted into him, my hands coming up to clutch at his coat while he held my cheeks steady. Alek’s tongue pressed into me before he groaned in the back of his throat. He tasted like mint and vodka and darkness, but also like daydreams and happy endings. He tasted like he was mine.
I knew then with quiet certainty: I was falling for Aleksandr Drakov. Or maybe I had fallen already.
Maybe I was too far gone.
When he pulled back, he stayed close, his breath warm against my lips.
“Alek,” I said softly, my voice trembling.
“Yes.”
“Can we… Can we go to your place?” I didn’t want to be alone in the space where I had almost disappeared. I wanted to go somewhere where I could be surrounded by him. And…
And I wanted to feel him inside of me. Fully. Driving away all of my darkness.
Alek heard the meaning behind my words, the ones I hadn’t asked because I knew once I walked through his front door, I would be leaving my virginity behind. It was a silent promise between us, a code we’d written together.
His gaze turned hungry, though he tried to rein himself back, blinking a few times, his eyes getting bluer with each one. “Of course. We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. I can make up a guest room for you, and—”
But I silenced him with another kiss.
“I want everything,” I mumbled.
Alek swallowed. “Then you shall have it.”