Page 16 of Heir of Broken Souls (HOBF #3)
Chapter 16
Delilah
I ’ve never been within a mind outside of my own and Knox’s. It’s perplexing how each person deals with things. Like how one can choose a path of denial, another turns to substance, or how some, like myself, decide to shove their worries into a neat little box and throw it into the darkness of their mind. Hoping and praying to never see the inside of its contents again.
Elysia’s mind, however, is full of doors and locks. As if she’s protecting herself from her own mind.
She’s compartmentalized everything, built her walls with iron, the sturdiest of them all. But the strong exterior hides such darkness and sorrow it pains me to walk through it.
Knox and I pass through each wall, feeling her body shudder as we witness her life. It’s startlingly similar to mine.
With a father full of hatred and rage, Elysia and her sisters were confronted with his wrath daily. Their mother tried everything within her power to protect her daughters, but it wasn’t enough.
And then one night, he snuck into Elysia’s room.
The bile that rushes from my stomach makes me yank Knox out of the room and into the hall. I shake my head profusely. “Do not make her feel or see those memories again. This isn’t necessary. We just need to know her motives, Knox.”
A shadow passes over his face, his thumb brushing back and forth over my hand resting in his palm. “We’ll go to her later years. I just don’t want to miss a decision like Hazel’s, which was made years prior.”
The sound of her name makes me flinch.
Swallowing thickly, I drop my gaze from Knox’s, which has grown soft with tenderness. “Can we try to find where I’ve met her before?”
He stops short. “She’s lying?”
“I know she is. My gut is telling me she’s not a stranger.”
Lifting my head once more, my heart pounds frantically as Knox’s sapphire eyes lock on mine. Without a single word, they communicate everything within his heart. He leans forward and places a feather-light kiss across my forehead. “Very well, come on.”
It feels as if we walk down her halls of iron for hours, yet I know it could only have been mere minutes. The labyrinth of her mind is overwhelming as we turn corner after corner, pass hall after hall, door after door. Some of which have screams emanating from them.
No wonder she doesn’t care about her life. Life hasn’t dared to care about her.
I remain in the hallway with Knox while he probes each door with his power, watching and assessing each moment, looking for the one that could even so much as hint at her allegiance with our enemy. With every door, there’s no moment of anger and betrayal from Knox, but his face does grow paler, horror-stricken.
We’re passing a particularly heavy door when Knox pauses, cocking his head to the side as he listens. Then he straightens, sucking in a sharp breath. “It can’t be.”