Page 74 of Deviant Illusions (The Memento Trilogy #2)

I violently flinch as a harsh, jagged white line stretches through the sky, and then the boom echoes around us.

All my life I’ve been in love with life, hope, an opportunity to exist. I’ve chased it, craved it, took anything I could to feel alive.

Now, stuck in a thunderstorm with water slowly rising up to my shins, I feel peaceful.

Kane doesn’t. His face falls and he grabs my hand, pulling me behind him as he limps through the ravine. “Fuck. You need to get away from here.”

The swampy floor makes it harder to get through it and the loud booms of thunder are disturbed by vicious snarling directly above our heads.

The dogs weave through the trees along the edge of the ravine.

I meet the eyes of one that has white fur.

Muddy patches are splashed up its legs and it tests the ground before lifting its head and letting out a loud bark.

“Fuck,” Kane curses again, pulling me forward with all of his strength when I don’t want to run. I want to live with this clear mind and the violent forces of nature around me.

“Delilah! Fucking move!”

There’s another flash of light, revealing the sheer terror on his face. It robs me of air. It’s worse when another bolt crawls across the sky, closer this time, and the dogs whine then run in the other direction.

But that’s not why I’m terrified.

The side of Kane’s thigh is bloody, his slacks torn. He doesn’t put his full weight on his left leg. He’s hurt. Just like that, all the peace vanishes. He’s fucking hurt in a dirty environment that will take him away when I finally remember everything.

I thread my fingers through his and run faster, a step ahead, and pull him to take the strain off his leg. The water level is higher, branches lying on the bank, making it harder while I mumble, “I’m sorry.”

The strikes of lightning keep getting closer.

Closer.

Closer.

Until the ground beneath our feet gives way and Kane screams, “Delilah!”

My foot gets caught in something as weight slams into my side, knocking me into the water that suddenly turns shallow. In my fall, I unthread my fingers from Kane’s. My ears ring with all the warring sounds around us, the murky water plunging into my mouth and up my nose.

He doesn’t help me up or say anything as I fight out of the sinking earth. I scrub my hand down my face, removing all the rainwater so I can see clearly. The rain is too heavy for me to see him though and I sit up on my knees, slapping out at the shallow puddles below me.

“KANE!”

It turns into a whimpered scream when more of the ground slides away, pulling me down with it, but I can see him.

“KANE!”

He groans as he swings his arm up to grab an exposed, thick root that’s protruding from the swampy earth.

Another bolt of lightning and I freeze, curling my fingers into the mud for purchase.

The drop down is steep. The waters beneath it are hungry as the waves roar, jumping up like they’re eager for destruction, while Kane tries to find a point to plant his feet and pull himself up.

He can’t, the mud is too soft and the rainwater that’s collected in the ravine is counteracting his battered body.

I turn to lay on my stomach and stretch my arms over the broken edge to reach him as I urge, “Hold my hand, baby.”

He looks up, squinting into the rain and gives me a wobbly smile. “I’ll just pull you down. Go backwards.”

I shake my head, pushing my hand closer to him. The mud makes me slip and I can barely reach him. There’s another boom, a tree cracking, then more water rushes behind me and I scream, “KANE!”

The sound of the trees moving, the mud sliding, and water flowing over the edge to the seas below us doesn’t allow me to hear anything else. Not when my arms are stretched out in front of me, searching for anything to hold on to, but the waves get higher.

Everything continues moving around me as weight slams into my back and then I hear him scream, “Delilah!”

It’s delayed. I can’t breathe.

There’s something soft beneath my ribs but my legs are in the air and my face burns.

A cold burn that soon turns hot. Blood. The weight on my back is removed with a groan and rain is the first thing that I feel as whatever’s covering me is taken away.

Kane kneels in the waterlogged dirt, a mix of blood and mud all over him, and he carefully pulls me out from underneath ripped roots, a branch, and slabs of earth.

We’re closer to the water. Too close. But there’s a thick metal bar stretching across the side of the face of the cliff where it has formed to stone over the years. Small rectangular reflectors are embedded into the stone, like cats’ eyes that glow despite the stormy atmosphere.

Kane has them too.

His pale green eyes are the same.

But he’s breathless and he grits his teeth as he pulls me into his chest, closer to the metal bar. I cling to him, my fingers clawing into his shirt as my knees sink into the mud. All the while he brushes my hair out of my face and whispers, “You’re okay, you’re okay.”

He cups my face in both hands, forcing me to look up at him as he rushes out, “I love you, Delilah. I’ve loved you since I was six years old and you changed my life so many times that I’ve lost count. I love you so fucking much that I destroyed myself because I couldn’t have you.”

“I remember,” I whisper back.

I want to tell him everything so he knows too in case I forget again, but he ignores me.

“There’s steps on the cliff,” he urges. “Grab the bar, follow it.”

On one side is Helene’s house towering above everything, the other is dark. No lights apart from the small reflectors. The darkness is comforting. We’ll be able to hide in it to stop them finding us.

I nod and kiss him with the little air I have left.

I don’t deepen the kiss. It’s a promise that we’ll be okay, and I repeat, “I remember. Everything.”

The rain slows the trickle of the excess water cutting through the mud to flow down into the raging waters. We have time now. It’ll be easier to maneuver Kane without the rain pelting us.

His voice is clearer too as he strokes my back. “Move quickly, before it starts again.”

He walks on his knees through the small ledge we’ve found ourselves on, tilting to the side and resting his back against the hard edge of stone.

I slowly crawl forward and stretch to reach the ice-cold bar. It’s slick from the rain, making it harder to get a solid grip, but he grabs my waist to lift me closer.

“That’s it, koukla mou,” he says as I wrap one hand around the metal. “Put your feet on the sides so you don’t fall.”

I do what he says and my shoulders burn from supporting my weight. My wrist doesn’t fare any better as it twinges, nearly cracking at having to take the strain. The rocks are worse, scraping my sore feet as I shuffle along to make space for him.

But Kane doesn’t follow me. He falls back and closes his eyes as presses his hand to the wound on his leg. Stretching my hand out, I hopefully ask, “Kane?” The wind picks up and the wet lace of my dress sticks to my legs as I tighten my fingers around the bar. “Take my hand, baby.”

Red. It’s all I can see as he opens his eyes with another wobbly fucking smile. “Find a house and call Ruby.”

“I don’t have her number.”

“Noctem,” he says, ragged. “Ask for Niko. He’ll get you…to your…sisters.”

The wind gets stronger, swinging my body like a sail. I have to grab the bar with both hands as I lose my footing. My chin slams into the stone as I drop and blood fills my mouth.

“Delilah!”

But I manage to remain hanging on as another deafening crack sounds above us.

Kane slips, with the earth tumbling beneath him.

Everything else blurs.

Everything other than his wide eyes as he stretches his arms out, clawing at the mud sliding out under him.

To Be Continued…