All that is dark | ✓

1| traitor

SOMETIMES, HELENE WONDERED WHERE it had all gone wrong. Perhaps misfortune had kissed her the moment she had been born or perhaps it had wrapped itself around her throat the first time her mother had hit her. There never had been an image of a perfect family which had crumbled for her. She knew exactly how cruel her parents were as soon as she was able to understand anything at all. That was the curse of her cleverness, the fact that she was never allowed the ignorance of youth.

If she had ever been allowed to smile widely and gap-toothed, maybe it wouldn't ache this much to pretend to be happy. Either way, she had been a miserable child who had grown in a miserable adult. All the knowledge she gained during her years of studying didn't ease her heart, but at least it kept her from thinking. She hadn't been noble in her pursuit of medicine and she wasn't noble now, standing in the pouring rain, as she was told her only friend was a traitor.

"I'm sorry, Helene," Nathan said, his smile still playing on his lips," I didn't want you to find out like this."

Her gaze flicked towards him, lingering on the way all the muscles in his hand were tensed as he gripped the pistol tighter. How much self-restraint was it taking for him not to shoot right now? He couldn't though. The both of them knew that. Even if he would've done something like that easily at the beginning, he didn't want to lose her now. Whether it was love, obsession or something else, that didn't matter. In the end, he'd do anything to keep her close, even if that meant having to convince her so he could end a life.

"Don't tell me you believe him, Helene?" Dante said, voice growing louder as he spoke," why would I have lied to you until now? What reason would I have for being the mole?"

"Stop it, Dante," Nathan chuckled," you're only digging a deeper hole. After years of feeling like you have a lack of control over your life, I wasn't surprised you took the offer to help. I'd give you cash, so you could get away from your overbearing mother and process your grief on your own, you'd give me easily accessible information. It was a good deal for you."

"Like our day to day interactions," Helene remarked.

"Right," Nathan said," I only wanted to know more about you, Helene. The time you were visiting me wasn't enough, not by far. I needed to know more about you, about the way you were outside of your role as a psychiatrist. You intrigued me so much, I couldn't sleep while thinking about you."

She wasn't surprised at the reveal that someone had been keeping tabs on her, but the fact that it had been Dante strangely ached. Though he didn't owe her anything, she had trusted him in her own way. He had seen her with Zion, shown her a consideration she hadn't felt before. At least with Nathan she had known who he was when she had given him her heart ripped straight out of her chest. With Dante, she always had believed he was sincerely good.

"He's lying, Helene!" Dante exclaimed, almost desperately," please, why would I take any deal like that? Don't you know me?"

"I don't think anywhere is safe either when you're surrounded by monsters."

She spoke the words absentmindedly, not bothering to look at Dante's or Nathan's expressions. Whatever expression they would have wouldn't change a thing about the situation. That sentence was burned vividly in her mind though, from the time she had said it to Dante to the time it had been repeated back to her by Nathan. Did she know Dante? She didn't even know herself.

Why would she start grasping at straws to defend someone, only for it to break her heart? Besides, was she even allowed to be angry at this? After all, no one owed her anything. Even if he had been a spy, he had been kind. Wasn't that the most important thing? Either way, she had learned Nathan's past from a binder as well without his permission, so it was only fair that he knew hers as well. Even if that included the present, it was fine. How else would he have gotten to know her as well as he did now? The end justified the means, ultimately.