Call Out My Name

On The Ground

The Darkling paced around the room he was locked in, lost in thought. He knew one of the twins was guarding the door; he knew if he wanted to, he could find a way to escape. The problem was that he didn't want to. And that was another problem in itself because he was supposed to leave. It had been his plan all along, to escape.

He wanted more, though; he wanted her.

The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak.

He had seen more than he was supposed to, more than he could take. Alina was still the same, unchanged, determined, ready for a fight. Bright, gentle, caring.

And then he saw the Cut going straight to her, leaving her unharmed. This must have meant something; this was a sign of something. He only got more interested and curious about her.

All he had wanted was to see her so that he could hurt her back, so that he could show her her tries had been futile, and in the end, she hadn't just lost the battle with him, but her own powers, for nothing. She had accomplished nothing. He wanted to spite her, to rub it in her face; he wanted to see her broken just like she had broken him with her betrayals over and over again.

But now, as he saw her after all these years, he realized he couldn't hurt someone so sure in their agency, so sure in themselves. She was established, and she knew what she wanted and what needed to be done. He couldn't hurt someone who made him feel this way, someone who didn't regret their decisions; it would have been useless. He could never hurt her like he wanted to. It would have hurt him too.

He felt like he was bound to her; there was too much longing, too much wanting for him to be cruel. She was bad for him; he was too human with her; emotions were trying to resurface, trying to break free. Emotions he could only name but never truly feel.

Erase it all; he heard a voice say. Erase it all, even your longing.

He wanted to; he needed to. Otherwise, there was no way for him to move forward. She will have him in her grasp without even knowing it. She would hold this power over him without even being able to defend herself from the dark, from his shadows. Because he wouldn't dare hurt her in the first place.

He had tested her multiple times, when they met for the very first time when they fought against each other, and even now, where both of them didn't know where they stood.

He had tried to scare her, to threaten her, but he knew well enough he could never separate her from the life she was leading now, the life she chose and was satisfied with.

All he had planned for was to scare her off, to force her to hate him more, push him away harder, call him names. Anything. Anything to make him snap out of his trance, to make him leave her, to stop thinking about her. Because he couldn't leave her, he couldn't forget her. He had to provoke her to hate him more so that he could break free. She had to be the one to break him; she had to hurt him so that he could be sure in his choice, that there was never anything between them. There never could be anything.

Instead, she was ready to give him a second chance. She had approached him with peace and kindness.

You are making things harder, Alina. Hate me. Despise me. Ruin me. Break me so that I can break free from you.

Worst of all was, when he kissed her, when he sought her closeness, he had hoped to be both rejected and accepted. He hadn't expected her responding to his advances was going to hurt just as much as being rejected. He hadn't expected to wish for their connection to be gone, that he had never initiated anything in the first place.