Karola

“Pretty is different,' he murmured. 'Pretty has no scars. You are...' jaw muscles tensed again. 'Like the morning sky in Afghanistan. Not 'pretty'. Word's 'breathtaking'.”
― Aleksandr Voinov, Special Forces - Mercenaries Part I

“Vadim swallowed, felt his throat too tight to move, then, still staring at the bottle, smelling the desert and Dan, and himself, his hand reached to his side, opened the holster of the pistol. Took out the mag, took the bullet from the chamber, clicked the mag in place again, rolled the bullet between his fingers.

He looked at Dan, sideways, saw the man stare at him, all eyes, dark eyes, and the way the pale desert moon made his face a place of shadows.

He reached for Dan’s hand, opened the fingers and placed the bullet into the palm.

“This is the bullet you’ll use to kill me if I walk away again.” Because if I walk away again, I’ll be in so much pain I’m better off dead anyway.”
― Aleksandr Voinov, Special Forces - Mercenaries Part I

“There’s something brittle in me that will break before it bends.”
― Mark Lawrence, Prince of Thorns

“You really do love him, don’t you?” she said quietly.
Vadim blinked, then looked to the side, without seeing colours and patterns, but it helped him find words. Speaking about love without cliché, without borrowing somebody else’s well-worn words that were too comfortable. "Dan changed me in ways that stripped away the man I wanted to be, and the man I was made to be, and the man I was expected to be. He skinned me alive, and left only…..somebody who….” He breathed but barely. “…can live and die now, like a human being, not an automation, not somebody else’s creation. Dan took my fear of death. I can’t die now. I know I’m immortal.”

“Immortal?” she said quietly, sitting still. “Your soul? Your being?”

“I don’t believe there’s anything like a soul. But I believe most people are asleep. They aren’t even aware what they are, or that they are alive. And we are all scared to die, so when it happens we scream for our mothers and clutch our guts because we’re scared. I’m not. I’m not afraid of death. The only thing I’m afraid of is losing Dan.” But if that happens, he thought, Dan might just keep the promise and kill him on the way out.”
― Aleksandr Voinov, Special Forces - Mercenaries Part I