the girl who lost it all [d.m]

seventy: vindicta

vindicta: revenge, vengeance, punishment

———

ELARA was beginning to think nothing could ever go right.

She supposed she should've expected it. When had anything ever gone right for her? She should've been used to it by now. Yet, human instinct drove her down the path of optimism each time—and she always ended up disappointed.

So seeing Antonin Dolohov emerge from the fog with that leering smile on his face, his eyes dark and murderous, shouldn't have shocked her.

But she still found herself retreating a step back, her eyes widening just as Draco's voice sounded in her head.

Get out of here.

She didn't, of course. Kept her fingers twined tightly with his. She hadn't done all this effort, encountered all those dangers and faced down her biggest demons just to leave him now. Letting herself be captured, letting herself be taken down into those dungeons had made her panic in ways she'd never imagined. And yet, she'd conquered it, forced it down and away, kept the bigger goal in mind. Getting to Draco. Telling him she loved him.

She'd felt the way he had tensed as she said it to him—casually, in passing, like it was the most common occurrence. She'd done it on purpose—because that was what it had been for her. Something she barely noticed. Something that felt so natural, so easy that she hadn't even realised she felt it until he said it to her first. She didn't need a big, thoughtful declaration of love for him because it hadn't been big or thoughtful to her.

Loving him was like breathing—easy, quiet, natural. It occurred every second—so constant, she often forgot she was doing it—but it was so vital that she would've died if it had been taken away from her.

And Antonin Dolohov was not about to take it away from her. No matter how many Imperius-ed prisoners he had under his command.

"Miss Jacobs." His eyes slid over to her and shivers crawled down her spine. "We keep meeting like this."

She swallowed down the fear in her throat, feeling the pressure of Draco's presence in her mind and shutting his warning out. "I'd rather we don't meet at all actually."

"Ah." He smiled—too wide on his face. "I can't say I share the sentiment. I quite enjoy feasting my eyes on you."

Draco's rage was palpable—bitter on her tongue. "I should kill you."

"But you won't," Dolohov chuckled, his wand still directed right at Draco's throat. Elara's skin itched. One wrong move and they'd be dead. "You don't have it in you."

"You should see how I left Rookwood and Mulciber," Draco purred and she could feel his muscles tensed underneath her palm.

Dolohov scoffed and the prisoners around him shuffled closer—like his annoyance fueled them. There must've been around two dozen of them—some young, some old, some badly wounded, some not. But they were all emaciated and starved—something Elara knew she must have looked when Draco had found her all those years ago.