Page 46

DELILAH

M y body shakes as I remember every horrifying detail of the day that I’d blocked out. My skin is like ice as arms tighten around me and my tears burn. My voice comes out haunted as I cry, “He was there, and Rowan was there. Before it all happened, they were there. That’s why it’s fuzzy.”

Soft taps hit my temple.

I look to the side to see my own fingers hitting my head. Inked fingers gently wrap around my blue ones, carefully pulling my hand away from my head.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” a tear-filled voice says. “Not anymore, my pretty girl.”

Kane.

Kane is here. He kisses my shoulder.

He hugs me, trapping my arms at my sides, but it’s not suffocating or constricting. It’s protective and he doesn’t move his lips from my shoulder.

“What happened—” He clears his throat then restarts. “What happened to your baby?”

I shrug. “I can’t remember. That’s where it goes fuzzy.”

I deflate as he lets all the air out of his lungs. It’s clearer now that I’ve spoken to him, but it hurts. The pain is deeper when he shakily ghosts his hand over my stomach.

“Did you,” he whispers, lowering his voice further to ask, “give birth?”

I shrug again.

“You don’t know?”

I stay still.

“Or you can’t remember?” he gently quizzes. “Did your belly grow? Or did you have scans?”

The newfound clarity disappears, replaced with sheer frustration. It makes me snap and I try to pull his arms off me.

“I don’t fucking know, okay? Is that good enough for you? I don’t know anything and it’s too hard. You’re right, I make things up and I don’t fucking know anything.”

Kane crosses his arms over my chest and lightly squeezes as he slowly rocks me side to side.

“Shhh, it’s not your fault and you do know things.

We’ve all fucked with your head and that’s not on you, Delilah.

” He heals me only to hurt me as he promises, “I’ll find your baby.

Whatever happened, I’ll get you an answer or place your baby right here in your arms.”

I can’t deal with that right now so I evade the topic. He was reading a letter while I was in the bathroom, and it isn’t what I wrote. I beg him to believe me. “I didn’t write it, I promise. I never said anything about you that wasn’t true.”

He kisses my cheek, attempting to soothe me.

“I know, it’s okay.” Tightening his arms around me, he presses his lips to my ear and whispers, “I’ll fix it all.

You don’t have to trust who I am now but,”—he takes a deep inhale—“trust the old Kane and that he would never harm you. No one will touch you again. I’ll make them pay for it. For both of us.”

I cry without searching for an escape, even though I’m naked and he’s only in a towel.

He lets me cry as he kisses the tear tracks on my cheeks.

He doesn’t tell me to shut up or to stop making an “ugly face,” as my mother called it.

Kane does what he always used to—allows me to be whatever I want.

I can be ugly, broken, or a bitch and he’ll gently protect me without forcing me into a mold that makes it unbearable to breathe.

He waits until my tears have stopped then tilts his body, so my head is resting on his shoulder.

I’ve never seen him smoke before. I watch him like it’s something fascinating as he brings a cigarette to his lips and lights it.

The old Kane would never smoke. He didn’t even like drinking, because it would make him feel sick and he hated the feeling of being disconnected from his body.

But there’s no coughing as he smoothly inhales, waits three seconds, then blows it out away from my face. He does it again in the same pattern then smiles down at me. “Why are you staring, my pretty girl?”

I turn so I’m sideways with my cheek resting on his shoulder. My wet lashes stick together as I blink up at him. “I never thought I’d ever see you do anything bad. You always had so much conviction on how you wanted your life, and you were never interested in smoking, drinking. Anything, really.”

“That’s not true,” he softly argues, repeating his timed drags.

“Hmm, it is. You would only come to my parents’ parties because I’d force you to be there.”

He shakes his head and pauses his next drag. Tobacco fills my senses as he dips his head and brushes his nose against mine. “I was interested in you and that’s all I needed.”

I love this version of him. The soft, kind one that made my heart melt before Asher tricked me by pretending to be Kane when he kissed me at thirteen. I was too embarrassed to say that I got caught in his trap and that one small mistake ruined my life.

But I don’t know the new Kane, and now we’re stuck on a secluded island with our rotting corpses of grandparents. Here on this ledge with the harsh rocks and tumultuous waters below us, we’re safer than anywhere else. So, I don’t hold back.

“I really loved you,” I admit. “More than anything else in the world and more than myself. It started off as selfish because I loved that you were mine, how you looked at me like I was your entire world. But then it changed. I would happily have taken any pain if it meant that you were safe. Maybe that was selfish too and I was only protecting that feeling you gave me. I was going to let you go though. Let you live a life without me even though it would hurt like fucking hell. It felt right that you had that.”

He smiles, but it’s weak and doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Then I was the selfish one, because I couldn’t let you go,” he whispers.

“I went back to the cabin because I couldn’t do it.

I needed you in any way I could have you.

I drove away because I thought it would make it stop and that I could get you out of my head if I had distance, but it’s been years, Delilah, and I still can’t stop the thoughts of you. ”

“We’re both fucked up and broken.” I laugh, and he nods. “Maybe we can fit our pieces together and as long as it’s us, together, it can be better. We can be better.”

My stomach rumbles over the sound of the water lapping against the rocks and I tense. Kane does the same as he flicks his cigarette off his middle finger, raising a brow. “When was the last time you had anything to eat?”

“It’s a new diet,” I tease, and he hums, waiting for the punchline. “Get kidnapped and forced into a weird cult-y wedding does wonders for the waistline.”

Our humor is stolen at the reminder of that fucked up whatever it can be classed as. It’s not a wedding ceremony or anything that can be defined other than straight up evil. But he attempts to make it bearable as he says, “We’ll be vegetarians from now on. Just while we’re here.”

I nod and he holds me, just breathing like it’s the only task he has in the world.

I do the same, hating that we had to find ourselves surrounded by monsters to be able to work out history.

The pieces aren’t all there, but we have the biggest ones, and he said we’ll be together so I can at least have a tether to my sanity.

Tapping my thigh, he gestures to the open window as he tilts to the side. “You go in first. I’ll make sure you don’t fall.”

Sitting on the ledge with Kane’s arms around me is safer than trusting myself to move.

But he looks at me like I’m capable. He creates a barrier with his forearms as I grip the edge of the window to pull myself up.

The stone ledge is wide so I can stand comfortably, and the arched window is tall enough for me not to knock my head.

The opening is awkward with it being a rectangle within the arch.

I carefully step around Kane to drop down to my feet inside the bedroom.

He doesn’t follow me straight away as he stares down at the water. Wrapping both arms around his waist, I hold him and press my lips to the scar on his back. “You said we’re not broken together.”

He nods and gently cups my hands against his chest as his haunted voice vibrates through his body.

“Sometimes I don’t think there’s a way forward in life.

I still kind of hate you for not having to be cursed with memories.

” He lifts my hands to his lips, and I have to go up on my toes to account for the difference in the ledge.

He kisses each of my knuckles then speaks against my hands.

“But then I remember you crying, and I don’t know which one is better.

Knowing everything that’s happened to you and existing with it, or being confused and not knowing exactly what has happened because pain changes a body. ”

He kisses my hands again then lets go of me to swing his legs through the window opening.

His eyes dim and lips part, but no words come out as he gently holds my chin on his knuckles.

Like a fool, I wait for whatever he wants to say when recent history proves that it will be something to tear me down.

Only, he snaps his mouth closed and shakes whatever thought he had away.

Taking my hand, he leads me into the bathroom and hands me the shirt I arrived in.

He waits until I’m dressed to go into the bedroom and take his own clothes from the bag at the end of the bed.

He’s pulling on his shorts when I dawdle at the threshold, and I can’t keep the disappointment out of my voice as I ask, “Did you plan this?”

Kane shakes his head, speaking through his t-shirt as he pulls it over his head. “Lennox packed it for me. I thought I’d do the job then leave.”

“Do you really work in security?”

“Of sorts,” he says, taking out two pairs of sweatpants, then three pairs of socks. Without looking at me, he lays them on the bed and pulls his sweatpants up his legs. “You don’t have shoes. They should stop you from being cold.”

And what will stop you being cold?

I choose a less volatile path and put on all three pairs of socks as he sits on the edge of the bed still avoiding me.

My feet are constricted with the fabric getting tighter with each pair, but it stops me feeling the cold air as I stare at the side of his head.

I pull the sweatpants up and ask, “Do you have another t-shirt?”

He shakes his head and holds the waistband of my sweats to pull me between his thighs.

Rolling the top over so the hem isn’t caught under my feet, he keeps the strings free then double knots them.

I don’t know what’s changed in him, but he’s like a robot.

Something in his bag shines with the sunlight streaming through the open window, so I lean forward to look over the unzipped edge and my eyes widen at the sight of weapons.

Three guns, two knives, and a metal bar like what a police officer has are all sitting on top of his other clothes. There’s a bloodied t-shirt balled in the corner, and I’m tugged forward as he tests the knot.

“Delilah,” he says evenly. “Don’t betray my trust again.”

Is that a threat?

I think it’s a threat.

It has to be, because I can still see the weapons in my periphery and he’s giving me a warning. So I nod and try to hide the way my heart plummets.

Threading his fingers through mine, he tucks me behind him, and I gesture to his feet in only a single pair of socks. “Your feet will be cold too.”

He nods and whispers, “But my steps will be quiet.”