Page 53

DELILAH

I can’t breathe.

It hurts and my lungs are on fire. It doesn’t help when Kane pushes me forward, screaming over the violent barking, “Delilah, fucking move!”

He does it again then lets out a growl of frustration.

He speeds up, charging me, and his body slams into mine as he wraps his uninjured arm around my waist. I crane my neck to see the dogs on our heels like I need confirmation that this is happening.

They’re too close. We don’t have anywhere we can escape.

We’re stuck on an island with animals who have been trained to kill.

But then the image is replaced with a wooden door slamming. Kane presses his side against the door. He slowly sinks down, pulling me with him, as the barking rattles the door. Their nails scratch the wood and I flinch at every loud slam of their paws, jolting us both.

Kane bends his knees and plants his feet on the narrow wall. Closing his eyes, he grits his teeth as his wounded arm limply hangs on the dirty tiled floor. But I can’t move. I’m frozen despite my mind whirring, attempting to make sense of everything.

A whistle pierces the air, bringing an end to the barking, leaving our harsh breathing as the only sound in this glass dome of horror.

I kneel between his thighs and my hands tremble as I slowly cup his face.

His cheeks are cold and clammy, but he snaps his eyes open.

There’s so much fear in them that I can feel his emotions more than my own.

He’s always had that effect on me. I never gave a fuck about myself, but with him, I did.

He would look at me with love, forcing me to believe that I was loveable when all of my arrogance was to deflect from just how deeply I hated myself.

We don’t say anything as we wait until our breathing becomes easier, then stand.

Blood runs down the back of his arm, dripping from the tips of his fingers, leaving little red dots as we drag ourselves through the hallway to the winding staircase.

Wrapping my arm around his waist, I try to support his weight as we climb the steps.

The spiral design doesn’t help matters. It gives me a headache and I sway.

He bites back his grunt as he grabs the railing and forces me to walk ahead of him. Each step is slower and more laborious than the last, requiring every bit of my reserves to make it to the top as a tremor travels up my arms until it invades my entire body.

It doesn’t stop when we reach the room we were shown earlier.

It intensifies, forcing me to my knees as soon as we step through the door.

I close my eyes like it will transport me somewhere else.

Somewhere that isn’t fucked up, where maybe, just fucking maybe, this entire thing I call my life is a dream. If none of it is real then I’m fine.

I don’t understand why being crazy gets such a bad reputation.

If these bastards are supposed to be the sane ones, then I’m glad my parents slapped the crazy label on me.

I’ll take any diagnosis as proof that I’m not like those twisted cunts.

For the first time, I want the diagnosis to be true, for this to be a result of some psychotic delusion and my real life will be waiting for me as soon as I’m medicated.

But Kane gently strokes my back, cementing that this is reality. “You’re okay.” He doesn’t allow me to lie to myself, so I focus on fixing something rather than all the broken pieces of my life, my memories, and my fucking mind that can never be mended.

“I can stitch you up,” I offer, moving away from his hand.

He can’t be nice to me or touch me. I’ll make the same mistakes as when I was a teenager and give him everything.

I should thank him for fucking with my head, because he’s shown me that I’m right.

I was right when I was seventeen and I’m right now.

No one will be able to tell me that I don’t remember things anymore.

They won’t be able to trick me, and I won’t allow them to sink their claws into my head to twist anything.

Not anymore. Not my parents. Not even Kane.

I help him stand and sit him on the edge of the bed.

A bitter laugh leaves me as I walk into the bathroom in search of a first aid kit.

There was a time that I hid Asher to treat an injury, one that Kane stupidly copied, and now I’m doing it again.

Without the tattoos and age, it could be Asher sitting there.

Someone has been in the room since we left.

The wet clothes we left on the floor have been taken away and there’s a medical kit on the vanity.

The Leroux motif of ornate swirls around a ram’s head shows it belongs to my father.

My laugh is loud. History is repeating itself.

Kane was right. He died, leaving behind his twisted, sadistic brother whose only goal was to torment me.

I can’t stop laughing as I grip the edge of the sink, because if I don’t laugh, I will cry.

And if I cry, I will never fucking stop.

My laugh ends on a sigh, and I take the leather-padded kit bag into the bedroom. My steps falter when Kane looks up at me. Maybe history isn’t repeating itself because he’s not promising payback in retaliation for his pain. Instead, he does something Asher never did with sincerity. He apologizes.

“I’m sorry for not letting you explain. If I did…” He trails off in favor of blowing out a harsh breath. “Fuck, if I did, then maybe you’d be safe.”

I give him a tight-lipped smile, ignoring the way my throat closes up as I go to him. Using his non-injured arm, he pulls me to stand between his thighs and rests his chin on the center of my chest.

“I don’t know what to do,” he whispers. “I can’t be everywhere at once and there are too many paths in front of us. Which one do I take, Delilah?”

“Whichever one you can live with,” I offer.

He pulls me down to sit on his thigh and his lips brush my cheek before he stops himself from committing to kiss me. Placing his palm on his knee, he stretches his arm out and groans in pain. “Are you going to get your revenge now?”

I laugh, again. It’s weak and sad because I’ve never tried to get revenge on anyone.

Since I left the hospital, I never thought about revenge once my moment of anger was over.

I only ever wanted to move on with my life and to be allowed to live.

Even after everything my parents did, I never actually planned to hurt them.

I may have wished I could when I couldn’t sleep and the nightmares felt too real, but I just want to be at peace—five letters to describe something unattainable.

Laying the kit out on the bed beside his thigh, I mutter, “That’s your forte. I’ve never had thoughts of hurting you.”

If he left me alone after his mind game, I never would have searched for him.

I would have allowed it to be something that just happened.

Maybe that’s my issue. My passiveness is the reason that I’ve found myself in the situation I’m in.

It was the same with Asher when he’d get angry or hit me.

I always knew that it was my fault. It was just easier to focus on his violence.

But maybe I didn’t need my parents to help me or to stop him from being in my life.

I could have left everyone to live on my own far away from them and their toxic bullshit.

We both fall silent as I put on the latex gloves.

They remind me of Ghost—Kane—and how he always wore them.

I know that fear skews perception, but I should have known it was him.

With the masks on, everything seemed different.

His shoulders were broader, voice deeper. Yet another thing that’s my fault.

Pulling his skin taut with my fingers spread either side of the arrowhead, I watch his blood seep through the sides. The arrowhead has allowed clots to form so it won’t be as bad when I pull it free.

“How did you manage to trick me?” I ask as I cut through his t-shirt. There’s no answer so I add, “When you broke in, there was someone sleeping beside me. How did you do it?”

A lump builds in his throat and he avoids my eyes. “A life-like doll. They’re weighted with sand, and they have real hair.”

I nod, because that’s a fucked up thing to respond to.

“And the dead body, was it real?”

It didn’t have a face, so that’s easy to understand how he deceived me. But he’s so fucked up for doing it in the first place. Bunching gauze against my palm, I hold his bicep and slowly work the arrowhead free, careful to follow the same slits it entered through.

“Your memories are real,” he whispers.

The tips of the arrowhead are engraved with etchings I’ve never seen before, and I press the gauze over the wound as I twirl it to catch each divot of the three-pronged tip.

One looks like it has fine hairs fanning the full triangle that stretches over to the other side.

The next has a thick curving pattern which also goes onto the side, and the last is thin squiggly lines on both sides.

Kane doesn’t scream out in pain as I continue pushing the gauze to his wound.

He just watches my face while I examine the arrow tip.

A lion.

A ram.

A snake.

Just like Helene’s stick and the ram of my family crest.

The snakes must symbolize their personalities.

The gauze is fully saturated, soaking through to stain the gloves, and I switch it out for a clean set to stem the residual bleeding as I drop the arrow on the floor.

Kane breaks his staring contest as he tenses, pushing more blood out when I apply more pressure.

I watch him, especially the way his jaw pulses when I dig my fingers over the entry wound.

There’s a sick satisfaction at causing his pain, even more at prolonging it. So I do it again.