❝ who would possibly touch me when i have you and dimitri around? they are too afraid of you. ❞ a smart choice and even though she was to to be scared of them ( she was even told to be afraid of them ), from the beginning, she could never possibly be afraid of them. the growl, should have scared her. she should be scared of anna, she had seen what she could do. and yet she wasn’t. for in her eyes, anna was just anna. the girl she loved, the girl that taught her how to survive. whoever she was, well she was in more ways similar to dimitri and anna than she was alike to the girl named audrey that looked at her with such a strange and sad expression. tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear, she looked at anna, her red hair matted with sweat and she honestly looked tired. even before she was caught working for this organization, they at least had a couple of days to rest. they knew that they needed to rest, that they wouldn’t be the best without at a moment to breathe. they were overworking her or maybe she was overworking herself. ❝ of course i know that, it’s you anna. you were always looking out for me. always having my back. ❞ and now it’s my turn. she thought as she dropped her gaze to her fingers. she had to figure out what was going on without her knowing. ❝ i wasn’t. you know that. not even here…not matter what the papers say, no matter what the world says. i’m just a pretty thing, their doll. maybe that’s why they thought i was dead, they thought i wouldn’t survive. ❞
“I don’t mean now, Charlotte!” The name slips out of her lips, but that’s not what makes her flinch the most. It is the tone on her lips, the way in which her brows furrow and her lips twitch. It’s frustration, raw and pure and almost palpable. “I’m talking about before. When Dimitri wasn’t here. When I wasn’t here. Did they hurt you?” Anna hated talking to her like that. Anna hated not having control over the way that her voice changed. Anna hated the very thought of hurting her. Anna hated the weight of her hair, too. Her eyes soften and she sighs (tired, bones and body aching, soul begging for some sort of release). “Then you understand, don’t you? Why I need you to tell me. I won’t—I won’t kill them, I’ll just—” What would happened to her if she did kill them? If she choked life out of their worthless body with her own hands, bruised fingers wrapped around their throat? What would happen if she took the piece of glass that is carefully stashed on her room and put it on their throat, let them bleed out, let their blood stain her skin, feel its warmth? What would happen to her if she gave into her instincts, if she embraced what she was? She was born in violence, and she was crafted for violence.
What would happen to her? Nothing that mattered. They could kill her, torture her, drown her, drop her from the top of a building and let her bones crack on the sidewalk, none of it would matter. If she touched any of them, if she killed any of them, they would go out for Charlotte. They would go out for Dimitri. She can not let that happen. She will not let that happen. “When I called you useless, in our first mission together—I didn’t know you. I didn’t know what you were capable of. And they don’t either. They are blinded and foolish and wrapped too tightly in their delusions of what you should be and fail to see what you are. You are the русалка. You are the master spy, you are the one holding the cards. The KGB knew it. I know it. Deep down, you know it too.”