There once lived a female who put others above herself, she felt it was the only way to truly be loved.
There once lived a male who thought he was alone, he felt undeserving of all the wonderful things life had to offer.
Their story was written in...
"Tell me every terrible thing you ever did, and let me love you anyway."
-Edgar Allan Poe
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I felt sweat dripping down my spine as I finished carting pins full of ammunition into the armory tent. We had been at this for nearly six hours. Maintaining a clear chain of custody for all our munitions made for a great distraction. The intelligence briefing from this morning was like a lead balloon tethered to me. My mind kept dragging me into an impressive doom spiral, even by my standards.
"You need to tell Azriel," Gemma says, holding her water bottle out to me. "The more people we have on this, the quicker we can end it."
I heave a deep breath closing my eyes tight. This is the last thing I want to deal with, Hybern could be here as early as nightfall, and everyone, including me, should be wholly focused on that. Not Jamie fucking Edwards and his schemes.
Az deserves someone who doesn't have a psychopath willing to become a traitor just to get revenge. Too much risk and not enough reward if you ask me. Azriel and his family already have too much on their plates to begin with. Now add this twist. I can't bring this to them.
My people can do this. I can do this, but we have to keep this contained. I owe it to myself to see this through. Alone.
"I can't do that to him. To all of them," I sigh, "I have to do this on my own. You understand that?"
"I know, babes. But Edwards is a danger to us all now. Even more so now that Prythians and Druids are both in danger."
"You think I don't know that, Gem?" I snap. I am fed up with this shit. Not Gemma, but with looking over my shoulder and pretending Edwards didn't fuck my entire life up. My anger has nothing to do with Gemma and her very valid concern. My anger is at the whole fucking circumstance.
My entire focus should have been on the very pressing Hybern debacle. Not another life-altering problem regarding my rapist. I will never escape him, at least not while constantly looking over my shoulder. I can't keep living like this. I am going to rip him apart with my bare hands.
"Fuck," I groan when I see Gemma's retreating figure disappear into the crowd. But I am too pigheaded to follow after her. There is far too much to do anyway, so I do what I do best and push my fears to the back of my brain.
Audra and Dinah find me after the sun goes down. Reports surround me, and I am furiously typing away on my computer. Know they're there and attempt to give me a few extra minutes. But Audra rips my headphones off of my head.
