75: You’re not her.
**Bane pov**
The night didn’t start with pain, which was a surprise in itself. There was no burning feeling in my veins, no sensation like something foreign was pulling at every nerve ending in my body.
As much as I appreciated it, I also feared it. The stillness and silence around me was worse than screams ever could be. The beast didn’t rest, didn’t stop to let me breathe - he took and took.
What worried me the most was the lack of attempts to break free. The chains that held me in that barn were heavy and strong, yes, and the drugs pumped in my body weren’t anything for lightweights either, but all of that did nothing to him. If he wanted to, he’d be free.
So why wasn’t he fighting?
I took a heavy breath through my nostrils and looked around. The air smelled way better and the barn looked clean. The more I looked around, the more noticeable it was how quiet everything really was - not a sound in my head, which usually was full of his whispers and threats.
The monster had gone quiet, it was the first sign that something was truly terribly wrong.
I should have known better - sleep came too fast, like someone had shut the lights off in my brain. The darkness swallowed me in seconds and when I opened my eyes, I wasn’t chained anymore.
I was standing in the middle of a room I didn’t recognize. The place smelled like something rotten and roses, the walls and the floor under my feet felt alive. I turned around slowly, taking in the surroundings, and when I looked down at my hands, they were clean - no black streaks, no burns, no blood.
“Bane.”
I heard my name being called by a soft, tempting voice. I spun around so fast, I got dizzy. There she was, standing in a beautiful white dress, looking more breathtaking than I remembered her - my Aife.
“You’re not real,” I swallowed hard and whispered, but still reached out my hand on instinct, wanting and needing to feel her skin under my touch.
She stepped forward. “I know, but you needed to see me.”
I jerked my arm back before I could touch her. “Why now?”
Her eyes darkened, a look I hadn’t seen on her face even when she used to hate me. “Because you’re slipping. And I refuse to be forgotten.” Aife snarled as anger radiated off her in waves.
My knees buckled and I hit the floor hard, but it didn’t hurt. “I didn’t mean to, I’m fighting, I swear I am.”
Aife knelt in front of me and reached out to drag her fingers along my jaw. The touch didn’t feel like hers, which was fucking with my head because she looked and sounded like my Aife. And when she snarled at me, “then fight harder,” I could barely see the woman I loved in her.
I met her eyes and tried to find the spark in them. There was none, I knew she wasn’t real, felt it to my bones, but for some reason, I still needed to explain myself. “It’s inside me, Aife. Every second, every breath, it’s there. It knows things about me I don’t even remember, it talks like it’s always known me.”
“Because it has.” She said in a whisper, her voice painfully void of emotions.
I flinched at the sound of it and pulled back. My eyes met hers again and I realized that even her eye color was off - just slightly brighter, but off. “You’re not her.” I growled.
She smiled and leaned closer to whisper, “I was curious how long it would take you to notice.”
I froze - the voice was still hers, sort of, but the tone she used was mine.
Fucking hell, the creature was playing me again.
“Get out of her face.” I growled at him, trying to get back to my feet, but some invisible force kept me down.
“She lives in your mind, Bane. That means I get to live here too.” The image of Aife laughed in my face, now speaking in his voice.
I balled my fists and shook my head. “You don’t get to touch her.”
The thing wearing her face tilted its head. “She touches you all the time - in dreams, in thoughts. You let her walk through your mind like a deity, and you still wonder why I followed?”
I couldn’t take it anymore. Somehow, I broke out of the hold and lunged at it. My hands nearly grabbed her neck, but instead of attacking, they went through the illusion and all that was left was smoke.
I stood there, looking down at my hands, breathing heavily as the room around me shifted. The air turned colder and when I looked up, I noticed the change - chains hung from the ceiling, the walls were lined with mirrors and every single reflection I saw in them looked different.
It was me - over and over again, but in different stages of life. A child, a grown man, in the war, killing, screaming and in the very center - there she was, my Aife, bleeding, her hands outstretched as if she was begging for help.
“Bane,” the image in the mirror cried out. “Please, help me.”
“Don’t believe her,” a voice whispered near me.
I couldn’t look away from the mirror, my heart hammered wildly as I called out, “she needs me!”
“She needs you dead.” The voice whispered.
I dropped to my knees, my hands shook and a knife appeared in my palm out of nowhere.
“You want to protect her? Then kill her here, end the vision and break the bond.” The voice whispered, more insistent now.
I shook my head, “she’s not real.”
“Then what do you lose?” It asked flatly, as if I was boring it.
My hand rose, the knife trembled, but all I could do was repeat, “she’s not real, she’s not real.”
“Do it.” The voice insisted.
“She’s not-”
“DO IT!” It cut me off with a loud, commanding growl.
Instead of listening to the voice, I turned the knife in my hand and stabbed myself in the chest. The room around me faded and I woke up screaming. My body was drenched with sweat, my breath shallow, but at least I was still chained in the barn.
Then, out of nowhere, the monster laughed in my head again, “you still belong to me.”
I didn’t sleep again after that. Every time I shut my eyes, I felt her, or at least the thing that was wearing her face to torture me. The worst part was that it felt right - familiar and safe, as if a part of me wanted to be fooled by the illusion.
The monster didn’t speak for a while, not that he needed to since he had plated its seed already. I remained in the dark and kept replaying the odd dream.
The way her voice sounded and the feel of her fingers on my skin - it wasn’t real, I knew that, but Goddess, it felt more real than anything I knew for a second.
“Why her?” I asked aloud, knowing he could hear me.
“Because she’s the only thing that breaks you,” the voice answered smoothly.
“You think if I hurt her, you’ll win?” I asked and let out a bitter chuckle.
“No, I think if you hurt her, you lose.” It answered, clearly amused by the words I despised more than anything I had ever done.
But those words hit differently, like a knife to my heart, right where it hurt the most. I tried to hide the flinch, maybe it was a useless attempt since hiding anything from him was impossible, but I still tried.
“You know nothing about me.” I snarled.
“I know everything - I watched you crawl through childhood, take your first life and rule like a true Alpha. And then, I watched how you looked at her,” he added the last words so bitterly, I could taste the foul taste in my mouth.
My head snapped up as I hissed, “shut up.”
“She made you feel human, that’s your weakness.” He mocked me.
“She’s my strength.” I insisted.
He barked out an ugly laugh at my statement. “She’s your end.”
I shook the chains until my wrists bled and raised my voice to be heard over the sound of metal, “I know what you’re doing. You want to use her, twist her image and make her your weapon. But that’s not going to happen because she’s not yours.”
The laughter that followed was soft, almost pitying. “No, Bane, she’s not mine. She’s yours and that’s the real tragedy.”
The barn started spinning around me and for a moment there, I thought I would black out again, but I held on. “You think I won’t fight you, but I will. Even if it means killing myself again in a dream, I’ll do it.”
“Then let’s see how many times you can break before you stop putting the pieces back together.” The voice snarled, sounding all kinds of the monster it truly was.
I clenched my fists and lowered my head, forcing a deep breath into my lungs. “She’s not afraid of you,” I whispered.
“Not yet,” the voice whispered sweetly. “But fear is easy, all she needs is one look at you, the real you, and her courage will fade.”
“You talk like you know her.” I chuckled.
“I know that all things break, especially the beautiful ones.” He purred, making me feel sick to my stomach.
I looked up and took a deep breath before I asked the question that had been on my mind since this monstrous thing took control of me. “What happens if I win?”
“You won’t.” He said without hesitation, using a tone that left no room for arguments.
I, however, had none of it, so I kept pushing. “But if I do?”
The monster went quiet for a good moment until he chuckled and answered. “Then you’ll be left with nothing but the ruin you made of yourself to get there.”
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