The Memories of Night | 18+

𝗘𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝘃𝗲

≫ ──── ««•◦ ✪ ◦•»» ──── ≪

Astrid had night terrors.

And right now, I was trying to calm her down without scaring her. Sweat soaked her back, and she was screaming, thrashing, and then nearly throwing up because she was in so much pain. Her back was stuck to my chest from her sweat and she was trembling, Hunter's name falling off her lips as she screamed so loud I thought her voice was lost. "Astrid," I gripped her shoulders when she thrashed again, "Astrid, wake up, please, wake up." A loud gasp filled the air and she curled up into a ball, ignoring the pain, ignoring me, all she was doing was trembling. "Astrid, look at me."

"I can't." She whispered, and my chest loosed at the fact she was awake.

"Why not?"

"I'm embarrassed."

I didn't say anything, my fingers just started to trace her spine, drawing patterns along the shirt. I watched as her back expanded with deep breaths and her body shook as she released them. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about," I murmured, carefully wrapping an arm around her waist, and pulled her back to me. I felt the tension bleed out of her slowly when her back hit my chest, her trembling less violent, "It's all part of what we do, it means you have a heart, a soul, and that's a good thing," I kissed below her ear, a shuttering breath leaving her mouth, "People lose that when they do their job, it means you're not used to what you do, you'll never be used to what you do."

"Why did they do this to me?" She whispered, trembling hands resting on my wrist, "Why did they ruin me?"

My heart cracked hearing her say those words, all the things she was feeling finally coming out because she was being heard. Astrid's whole life she hadn't been heard, she's been forced to pretend it's normal to be an assassin, a damn good one at that. "I remember every target," Astrid whispered, and when I looked down I saw her eyes squeezed tightly shut, tear tracks running down her cheeks. "I remember the screams, how I did it, the way the blood felt on my hands, I'm dirty all the time, I'm never going to be clean, I'm never going to remove the stain of who I am." A sob ripped free from her chest, so deep, so guttural, so heartwrenching that my stomach clenched. I pulled her tighter to my chest, careful of her broken ribs as I folded her as best I could, covering her with me. "I'm not a survivor," she cried, "I'm not, I'm not, I'll never be. I'm a monster."

Astrid was trembling, and I was trying to hold her together as she sobbed, as her world crumbled around her. "I'm never going to be anything other than an assassin, I know nothing else," Astrid's tears were soaking her face, "I just wanted to be a kid."

It was the dead of night, and the moonlight showed on Astrid, her tears glimmering. I hated what her past had done for her. I've known her for two months, and I'm seeing this wonderful woman crack because, for the first time, someone has cared enough to listen to her. "Were you dreaming of Hunter?"

A broken cry left Astrid's mouth and I helped her turn around so she could hide her face in my chest, those two dog tags I gave her pressing against the bare skin of my body while I held her to me, one hand buried in her hair and my chin on the top of her head. "I couldn't save him," She cried so hard she started coughing, and I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, "I couldn't save him, he deserved to be here, he deserved to live, I should've been the one to die." My chest was soaked with her tears but I just pulled her closer, waiting until she was calm enough to hear me. So many years she's been forced to accept that she'll never be heard, and the second I started listening, everything came crashing down. She was lonely, and she was heartbroken. The only person who she knew she could count on to love her regardless, was killed right before her very eyes.