My Darling Katherina

Chapter Thirty-Five

The distance felt vast compared to the few steps they were away from each other.

Katherina forced on them as though they were an illusion she'll blink away. Her eyes refused to believe that there was Ziv; the person who she loved most in the world and had torn herself in pieces for.

Trauma kept her from recovering, longing kept her from healing.

Waking up each cold night to wash away the blood that wasn't there.

She trembled and Katherina dug her nails into her skin, cutting her flesh open to see if this was real- were they real?

Tears kept falling, falling down that she was drowning in an ocean of despair.

"Katherina."

Ziv never left her eyes, returning her heartbroken graze with a look of hesitation. Had they meant to find her? Did they know it was her who they were stalking?

Do they hate that she caught them?

"You're alive."

This wasn't real. It's real. This wasn't real. It's real.

"You should be dead."

Their eyes softened and the familiarity of it hurt. "But I'm not."

She closed her eyes at that, angry tears running down like a waterfall and she could stop them. It was as if she had been drowning all this time and she was finally leaking.

Could words ever hurt this much?

"I never was."

They burned too.

"Katherina. Please let us explain-"

"Us?"

No. no. no. no. no. no.

This wasn't real. It's real. This wasn't real. It's real.

There could be no life, no moment in time where the only thing that had kept her from submitting into pain and hatred, knew who she suffered for was still alive.

All the long nights, the screaming, the memories, the soothing. All- fake?

He wouldn't. He did. He couldn't have known. He did.

"You knew." It wasn't a question.

The Darkness stared at her with eyes that used to make her swoon; now made her clench her teeth.

"Yes."

Her heart hammered, her limbs screamed and her power roared. The voice- voices whispered and laughed. They turned to shadows in her mind and formed as the people she cared for most.

How can she trust them? What if they were fake. Lying to her. Manipulating.

"Why?" She asked. Anyone to answer. Plea to let her demons quiet and prove them wrong. They wouldn't betray her. They hadn't.

Right?

"Because I hate you."

Her nails dug into her skin.

"She killed my siblings. My parents perished in the battle against her and when their death wasn't enough, she murdered all Winter children. My sisters, my brothers. I was devastated. How cruel was this life to have let me live and make me watch what I loved most burn."

Katherina had thought she was what they loved most. They only had each other. She only loved Ziv and she died without them.

Can't they see? Don't they know how much she suffered for them?