Page 43

DELILAH

I slowly blink through my foggy head. It’s like I’ve been asleep, but I’m standing with Kane supporting my weight. He has both arms wrapped around me as warm water cascades over us. There’s no malice on his face either. That’s new and comforting.

“Kane?” I whisper, preparing myself for him to change. “Please, can you hug me?”

He nods, then slowly lifts me with his arm banded behind my thighs.

Exhaustion weighs me down, leaving me only enough energy to be able to throw my arms over his shoulders and lay my cheek on his collarbone.

There are images all over his chest and arms. Different dark sceneries.

His inner bicep looks like the skin has been ripped away to reveal wires.

My eyes close as I ask myself, “Is this real?”

It can’t be, because people don’t get kidnapped in real life and their nightmares don’t come true. Kidnapping is for movies. So is having someone manipulate your entire life.

But Kane kisses my temple then softly says, “Yeah, my pretty girl, it’s real.”

He doesn’t remove his lips from my skin as he uncaps something.

Cool liquid is poured over my shoulders, followed by the scent of almonds filling the shower.

I hold my hand out for him to pour the shower gel into it.

We don’t speak or try to navigate anything around us while we clean each other.

It’s therapeutic and healing. There is nothing else in this moment while we wash more than the physical dirt away.

We’re mentally wiping the slate clean, and I lift my head to kiss his cheek.

My eyes are still closed, so I end up misjudging where his head is because I brush his lips.

There’s a brief pause, both of us hesitating, and then it’s over.

Energy floods back into my body, and I hold his nape as I seal my lips over his.

It’s not sweet or innocent. We battle for escape, and if there’s one thing that has proven to provide it time and time again, it’s physically distracting myself.

“Make me forget,” I mumble into his mouth.

“Never, koukla mou.” He shakes his head as he pushes me against the fogged glass panel.

My hips are pinned in place with his, and he grabs my hands.

Threading his fingers through mine, he digs his fingers into the back of my hands as he roughly holds them above my head.

His eyes are darker, mossy green instead of pale, and he rasps, “You will never be allowed to forget me. When I decide that you’re allowed to die, I’ll still haunt you.

No death, no separation, will allow you to escape me again, in this life or the next. ”

I bite the inside of my cheek to stop my moan from escaping, but he tightens his fingers around mine, keeping me grounded with the discomfort in my knuckles. I try to reach his lips, but he pulls back so there’s just enough space for him to say, “Beg me for my dick.”

“Fuck you,” I spit, twisting my hips to free myself.

My back is flattened against the glass as he pushes forward, counteracting my movements, and bites my cheek. The position allows me to get pressure where I need it, and I grind down against his dick.

“Beg me, koukla mou. Prove you’re just a little whore for me to use. That you’re my little pain slut, taking everything I have to give you.”

I throw my head forward and choke, “Make me. Asshole.”

Without letting go of my hands, he steps back, roughly pulling his hips out of my thighs.

The residual lather clinging to my skin makes me slip.

But the only thing preventing me from smacking my face off the glass is Kane as he pulls my arms taut above my head like a twisted ballerina.

He lets go of one of my hands to wrap his fingers around my neck.

“Fuck yourself,” he orders, gesturing to the thin shower gel bottle. “Show me how that cunt will take anything.”

“I’m not…” I trail off and shake my head. “I’m not shoving shower gel inside me.”

That seems oddly unhygienic.

His lips twitch before he throws his head back and laughs.

It’s the most human he’s looked, and I can’t help my smile.

Or the pride of knowing that I made him laugh.

This new version of Kane has shown me nothing other than anger and pain, but he laughs because of me.

He couldn’t do that if he truly hated me.

Softening his hand on my throat, he strokes up my neck then traces my lips with the pad of his thumb.

I don’t care that I have one arm in the air like an idiot or that I’m smiling up at him with a dopey expression on my face because there’s no malice on his features as he slowly leans over me, protecting me from the spray.

His eyes close as he rests his forehead on mine, and we both just breathe. It’s never been this difficult before, but I don’t take the easy way out of running from my mind. Instead, I do something I never have and admit, “I’m scared.”

It’s my turn to hide, so I close my eyes as his lashes flutter.

I can feel him watching me as he slowly lowers my arm to my side.

Despite the warm water steaming the air around us, a chill works through my spine.

Kane gently strokes down my back in an effort to warm me.

His chest barely moves as I rest my forehead against it.

“What are you scared of, Delilah?”

I look up, my vision blurring from the water clinging to my lashes, my whisper weak to my own ears. “I don’t want to go back to the doctor.” I shake my head and correct myself, “He’s not a doctor. He has a name. Rowan.”

I shiver at the man’s name being on my tongue.

The phantom tap of his shoes haunt me from my memories that I thought were nightmares.

My shoulders twitch as I count them until he’d remove his shoes.

That was the worst part, because I wouldn’t be able to anticipate where he was once the drugs had been administered.

They’d slow my mind down, so without the dull metallic tap of his steps, it felt like he was everywhere all at once in the shadowed room.

The sound of the water gets louder, muting our breathing. He tightly wraps his arms around me, crushing me to his chest, as he rests his lips on my wet hair. “What did he do to you?”

I shake my head to clear the images, like I can fit all the small pieces together and I’ll suddenly be able to differentiate between what’s a nightmare and what actually happened.

I think my father did the worst thing imaginable a father could, but I don’t want to trust it.

I know he’s a piece of shit. I know I hate him for never caring about any of his children and making us live in the constricting box of his expectations.

But that hate is different from abuse. It’s different to me being chained to a hospital bed so he could be a sick bastard while I screamed, and I’d prefer being crazy or the one with a deviant mind over the truth that my father habitually raped me while convincing everyone, including me, that I was crazy.

Logically, I know it’s nothing to do with me.

I was physically tied to a bed, so it can’t be my fault.

But that doesn’t take away the disgust and self-loathing, because if it’s real, then I know how my body reacted to my own father.

Even though I was screaming, crying, begging him to stop, it doesn’t detract from the one fact that my body is fucked up.

So if everything on the outside is fucked up, I am too.

There has to be a subconscious reason it reacted that way, which puts the blame on me.

My dad was my hero when I was little, until I turned twelve and he started pushing me away.

Did he do it because he knew something about me that I didn’t?

Was Kane right when he was insinuating that I cared about my dad too much while he had me hanging in that noose?

He has to be. Or there’s no other explanation for why my dad changed from a semi-caring father who would let me sit in his lap when he was in meetings to turning cold on me, then everything that happened in the hospital.

Kane cups the back of my head and kisses my crown.

I hold on to him, flattening my palms on his back.

It’s not a hug. I’m literally holding on to him to stay like this, where it’s safe and he’s the deranged one, but I know this monster.

I know who he is deep down inside and as fucked up as he is, he’s incapable of harming anyone because he’s still mine.

“I won’t let them hurt you,” he promises. “Only I get to.”

I nod and ask with hope strengthening me, “Why didn’t you talk to me when you took me?”

Smoothing his hand down to my nape, he squeezes and pulls me out of his chest. His brows slowly pull together as he looks into my eyes rather than my naked body pressed to his. “I didn’t take you from anywhere.”

“Yeah, you did. You grabbed me when I was leaving the club and you never spoke to me.”

His fingers flex on my nape as his face hardens. “You’ve been there, with that fucker, this entire time?”

I nod and his nostrils flare as he takes a deep breath. It’s probably not the best time, but the creepy surroundings and our even creepier families won’t allow there to be a better one, so I blurt out, “I tried to help you.”

His eyes are even harsher, and I dig my nails into his back so he can’t push me away. I need him to understand me, actually listen instead of being angry all the fucking time and blaming me for something I didn’t do.

“I promise that I tried. I even wrote a letter. It said that it wasn’t your fault, but then it all goes fuzzy and I’m not sure what happened or what I dreamt.”

“You didn’t try hard enough,” he dismisses, and stiffly peels my arms off him.

My eyes burn as he turns off the water and steps out of the shower. He’s still blaming me for shit I haven’t done. The scar on his back is covered by his new tattoos, but that couldn’t have been me unless I magically learnt how to break into a prison.

He wraps a towel around his hips while I stand at the edge of the shower, water dripping from my hair. It races down my back, making the temperature plummet in my panic. “Kane? You have to believe me.”

I slip back as he whirls around with his eyes burning through me. His breathing is harsher, and he looks ready to murder me. Not leave me in a burning building, like he did last time, but take his time and dismember my body type of murder.

“I have to fucking believe you?” He takes a step forward and dips his head so we’re eye to eye.

“I. Don’t. Have. To. Do. Shit.” His hands curl into fists, veins sprouting up through his forearms, crawling over his hands and fingers.

“Especially where you’re concerned. I know all about the fucking letter. Do you think that fucking helped?”

I flinch at his tone, but he doesn’t calm down.

“Do you want to know what it did? How your little fucking letter of lies was given to every fucking guard, and they put me in protective fucking custody so that they could control the cameras? Do you know who you interact with in protective custody? Pedophiles, rapists—the ones who have raped their own mothers or children. It’s where humanity goes to die. ”

Water splashes up from the tile as he takes another harsh step.

“Would you find it funny to know that I fucking begged them—like I begged you—and just like it did with you , it achieved nothing. They laughed, and I was the one left bleeding on the fucking floor.”

How is he angry at me for telling the judge that he couldn’t have killed Asher because he left the cabin? It was his alibi and it’s not my fault if they didn’t believe me.

“I—”

He wraps both hands around my neck, cutting me off, and I push against his chest. It doesn’t stop him, and I realize he’s never used his full strength before, because in this moment, I believe that he wants to kill me.

“Do you know the worst fucking part?” he asks.

I weakly cough as he increases the pressure against my windpipe.

“It’s the fact I spent years telling myself that there had to be an excuse, that it wasn’t you, because obviously the girl I was in love with—the only one I had ever fucking touched—wouldn’t be a lying fucking bitch and say that she felt unsafe because of me .

No, that’s not possible. She wouldn’t have signed her fucking name on a letter that said I fucking raped her and she couldn’t even leave her house because. Of. Me.”

Black dots dance at the edges of my vision and my fingers tingle. But I punch his chest to get him to move his hands. He’s lying. It’s another game that he’s playing, and he’s not letting me prove him wrong.

“And she wouldn’t have allowed her dickhead of a father to sit with the judge and say that I killed Asher because I was jealous. That I wanted you so badly and you kept rejecting me, so I killed my own fucking brother!”

He turns his head and abruptly opens his hands before walking away. My knees slam against the wet tile of the shower floor without him holding me up. The glass panel is still fogged, blurring the image of his back as he walks into the bedroom.

I numbly slip down to sit in the corner.

We’re both so sure of what happened, but the barest of details match.

There are usually three sides to a story—my side, his side, and the truth.

The truth should theoretically sit somewhere between each of our perspectives, but how the fuck can that happen when we each have drastically different facts?