There's cotton in her mouth, Alina thinks. Her lips feel chapped, dry; her wrists are burning. Why are her wrists burning? Her eyes crack open only to immediately shutter. The light is too bright, blinding, and her vision swims. She feels as though she's underwater—sinking, sinking, sinking, drowning. Perhaps, that's why her body feels so heavy, like she's drunk too much kvas. Perhaps that's why she cannot escape that incessant hot, moist tickle on her neck.
Alina's drowning, and yet she's parched. Ironic, she thinks. She coughs once, then twice, and tries to move. The burning in her wrists flares white hot, jolting straight to her core. She's aflame yet the unease to her neck fades simultaneously. How odd, she muses. Alina dares to open her eyes once more; this time, she is met with the black of midnight. Internally, she panics. Is she dead? No, she reasons, that makes no sense, for the dead feel no pain. Has she gone blind then?
A whimper escapes her as that unsettling sensation refocuses on her collarbone. She cannot see, but she can hear. And to her terror, she is not alone.
Awareness returns slowly to Alina. She feels as though she's coming out of a daze, a long sleep, like a bear emerging at the sign of spring. Her limbs feel sluggish; they ache. She imagines this is what it must feel like for a rag doll to stich itself back together.
There's a buzzing in her ear—no, a grunting. Male grunting. Not the sounds of battle, but the sound of a man chasing his pleasure. She listens still and detects the telltale rhythmic creaking not uncommon to be heard in the black of the army barracks, although she cannot pinpoint its source. The musky scent of sweat, salt, and arousal permeates the air. Someone's having a tumble nearby, she thinks humorlessly. And then, she hears it—a voice, raw, gruff, desolate. Someone is chanting? No, praying.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Forgive me.
And for Alina, the world spins before coming to utter suspension. Her senses, muffled, come back to her all at once, and she is no longer drowning in murky waters but cresting with horrid clarity. This can't be happening, she thinks. Not to her. Not to her. Not her.
Alina gasps. Not quite a scream, not quite a cry, but some foul terror lodged in her throat. Her wrists are burning because larger, stronger hands have manacled hers. Her limbs feel heavy because another—one she once desired—has pinned her down. In the space between the seconds of her reckoning, she feels sharp eyes cut through the darkness to take in her awakening.
"Stop," she commands, the slurred words falling from her as more of a plea than an assertion. He does not. Rather, she feels the strange, if not welcome, relief of cool shadow against her aching wrists as gentle fingers ghost over face, neck, body.
"Stop," she tries again, stronger this time. Her body is a live wire, a living spark, fed by the unwelcome intrusion—invasion—of her most sacred space.
"Why?" Alina rasps, her voice rough from underuse.
"I'm sorry," is the only response she receives. His voice breaks, thick with an emotion he steadily ignores.
"I don't want this," Alina agonizes, even as her assailant's hips press into hers, impaling her most intimately. "I don't want this. Please. You're hurting me."
At the feel of her tears against his skin, he stutters for a beat before redoubling his efforts almost furiously. His lips against her neck is his only acknowledgement of her suffering. The lewd sounds of his pleasure, of slick flesh on flesh, suffuses the darkness. Alina recognizes it for what it is.
"Please, not there. Not inside," she begs desperately. "Please."
"Did you think you could run without consequence, milaya? Leave me?" There's anger in his voice now, and raw hurt strips away any façade of tenderness there may have been before.
"Is this my punishment then? Rape?" He flinches at the word, and Alina revels in his discomfort. She feels him shake his head in denial beside her.
"You left me no choice," he hisses. "Our child will be strong. Stronger than the two of us. Think of what that could mean—for us, for Grisha."
A litany of no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, please, no tumbles from her lips, wretched and unbidden. "Not like this. Please."
"I won't lose you, Alina."
Alina doesn't know whether she wants to laugh or cry. "If you didn't lose me before, you have now. There's no coming back from this."
"We'll see," he intones darkly, his voice strained as he draws taut, accomplishing his dark resolve with a deep shuddering groan.
When he finishes, he withdraws from her body in silence to lie beside her. She hisses at the sting of it, at the stickiness coating her thighs, the evidence of his transgression. And Alina is caught between the need for righteous vengeance, to strike him down here and now, and her irrational need for him, for comfort.
She can do neither, however, as his Darkness keeps her hands and legs bound, immobile, helpless. He does not need her lashing out at him or, worse, hurting herself. She tries and fails to hold back broken sobs. And although his hands instinctually move towards her, hovering, he refrains from touching her again. His disgust, whether at her or himself, is palpable. In the dark, nothing and everything is said. His shame speaks volumes. Alina just stares into the void, numb, willing it to consume her.
"In time, you'll see that this was the only way," he whispers.
Even through her tears, Alina huffs in disbelief.
"I can fix this," she thinks she hears him murmur. "Yes, you'll see." And Alina isn't sure who exactly he is trying to convince anymore.
What she does know is simple: fury. The dried tracks of tears on her face, the burning bruises on her wrists, the violence done between her legs—it inflames her. "You hurt me."
"Yes," he affirms, though he recoils at the bite in her words.
"You violated me." Another flinch.
"Yes."
"You raped me." This time, he moves away from what she can only assume is the bed they are lying on. "For what?" she snarls.
"For us," he breathes, his words thick with guilt, grief, shame.
"No. You did this for you."
"I love you, Alina. There are no others like us—only us. And one day...One day, when we are three, four, then you'll see. You'll understand. It may take a hundred years; it may take three hundred. But in time, this will fade from your memory like a bad dream you can't recall. When you watch our child take his first steps, say his first word…you'll forgive me."
"I think you truly believe that," she breathes in disbelief. "But what you've done to me can never be undone. It can never be forgotten. You've broken us. Do you understand? And any child born of this-this assault—this savagery...how can I look into the face of that child and not remember the sins of his father?"
"No. No. We were made for each other, my Alina. What I've done-"
"What you've done? You claim to love me, but you've taken something that was not yours to take, and it can never be replaced. You had no right."
"I know...I have an eternity to earn your forgiveness, Sankta." The thought of eternity alone is enough to make her tremble. The thought of eternity, shared with this monster wearing a man's face, is enough to crack the veneers of her sanity. Alina does not intend to endure eternally.
"Your mother...she was right. You are a monster." And if her earnestness moves him, he offers no sign of his distress at her hopelessness, her loss of faith in him.
His words are velvet steel in the abyss: "That may be…but I will always be your monster, my little Saint." With that, he fades into the nothingness. Her wrists are free, but it's too late when she hears it: "Put her back under." And just like that, she's drowning once more.