Page 33 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

DELPHIA

A s the lantern’s flame slowly went out, the room grew eerie, the wood turning to a cold blue. The sky was clear—shockingly, given Ara’s current situation—and the moon stared through the window.

Even she couldn’t look away from the catastrophe.

My thumb circled the mouth of the bottle, my back reclined on one of the many barrels stacked around the stockroom.

Empty crates lay strewn in the corner. The smell of spilled ale clung to the air, mingling with something bitter—something that tasted like regret. Perhaps it was the whiskey in my hand.

My head spun when I lifted the bottle and frowned at the remaining liquid, only enough to fill a shot glass. With a scowl, I tipped the bottle back and swallowed the rest. If I were determined to drown myself in liquor, then I’d do it properly.

Doran was alive.

That should’ve filled me with so much happiness and relief, and it did. I was immensely grateful he was alive—alive as he could be.

But he’d been there for months, trapped and lost with a monster.

Not only did the demon hiding beneath my skin rear its ugly head with a vengeance when we returned to King’s Port, but a new realization had joined it.

I’d have to tell Doran what I did. He didn’t remember me; he wouldn’t remember Alden, but he still needed to know.

I needed to voice the words and feel the hurt and see the disgust on his face—on everyone’s faces, especially Ara’s.

Adonis had done something to her, altered her memories, or taken them altogether. She didn’t remember what I’d done, and worse, she didn’t remember Rogue.

He had hurt her deeply, viscerally, down to her very being. That was clear as day on her pale, gaunt face.

I lifted the bottle to my lips again and grimaced. Empty.

My fingers tightened around the neck of it.

It was my fault. Alden’s death. Rogue’s wings. Ara’s torture. So much pain, yet I was alive and breathing.

I slammed the bottle on the floor, and it shattered, shards of glass slicing my skin.

Hissing through my teeth, I opened my hand and turned it up to inspect the damage. Blood pooled in my palm as I began pulling the pieces out, the welling tears making it hard to see.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, wiping my eyes with the back of my good hand—well, my not-bleeding hand. Something was still wrong with it. The bones were setting in a way that was not right, limiting my range of motion.

Godrick would be so disappointed to see this—another gut punch I couldn’t handle right now.

“This is a prison you can choose to leave, if you allow yourself. The door is always unlocked, even when you can’t see it.

All you must do is feel. Feel everything fully, thoroughly.

Sit with it until it no longer takes your breath away.

It’s okay to hurt. It’s not okay to rot, and it’s certainly not okay to add to the pain. ”

Once I’d removed the glass, I fell back against the barrel again, screwing my eyes shut. My prison was intentional, and I deserved to waste away in it…but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to suffer this existence anymore, but I didn’t want to die, either. Not anymore.

Was that progress? Or a step sideways?

Fuck. It felt like I took one step forward, two steps back, and three steps to the side.

The only thing I was sure of was that I didn’t want Thana suffering in this prison with me, but no matter how hard I pushed her away, she came right back.

She refused to leave the rapidly shrinking cell; instead, she plopped down on the floor beside me.

If she left, she returned, and if I shoved, she held on tighter.

It made the hatred grow heavier in my gut because not only was I running myself into the ground, but I was taking her with me.

We hadn’t talked about Doran yet, though she had to realize it was her hands and magic that turned him. Only one soul weaver lived at a time, so it couldn’t have been anyone else—but she hadn’t known he was alive. She’d had memories taken, too, just as I had. Augustus and Mya, too.

Adonis had dipped his hands in all of our heads, and I was the only one who’d had his vile fingers removed. I could still remember the feeling, the sickening fog that infiltrated my skull and invaded my every waking thought. I felt…off but couldn’t find the reason why.

Looking back, it felt so fucking obvious. Any memory or thought he’d warped came with a sense of wrongness. At the time, I’d attributed that to living with my brother’s supposed murderer. Now, I realized it was the truth screaming behind a wall I couldn’t see or hear through.

Ara was dealing with that same wall, and I didn’t know how to help—not that she’d want my help if she knew what I’d done. Even if she did, Rogue wouldn’t allow me in the same room as her ever again.

What good would it do to tell her about the damned wall, anyway? She already knew she had lost her memories.

Muffled laughter sounded from the other side of the door as people walked by, and I peeled my eyes open to stare at the wood.

It sounded like Livvy and one of her men—or both.

They were happy. I used to be happy, too, despite the tragedy in the world, in our lives.

Doran and I suffered, but I managed to shove it down, so all I saw was good.

Now, the wool had been pulled from my eyes. It had been an illusion, my own willful ignorance or maybe just naivety. Everything was bad, touched or infected in some way by darkness. Some people were good—Thana was good—but they existed in a world designed to swallow them whole.

The good were prey, eaten to sate the hunger of evil, and in the game of survival, only the selfish emerged unscathed.

What was the point of love when our lives hung by a thread, easily cut by the whims of those who wouldn’t give it a second thought? We all ran from the inevitable: death or corruption. Those were our only options, and neither felt worth it.

Three steps back. Five. Progress obliterated.

My stomach twisted, a nauseous churn that had nothing to do with the whiskey, my ears hot. I swallowed against the dry knot in my throat, thirsting for more alcohol. I needed more. I needed to drink until my thoughts were silenced into a dreamless sleep.

The room spun when I moved to stand in search of another bottle. It had grown too dark in the absence of light, my vision too blurry, and I stumbled through it, searching for relief—a perfect reflection of my life.

A laugh bubbled in my throat while tears welled in my eyes. I laughed until my belly ached, the useless emotion streaming down my cheeks, because there was no relief to be found. Not here, not out there. Not in this life.

My back hit the wall, my laughter choking on sobs as I slid down to the floor and wrapped my arms around my legs, burying my face in my knees.

There would be no relief, no mercy.

I didn’t bother looking up when the doorknob turned, or when dim firelight poured in. I didn’t look up when footsteps paused, then darted forward, and the door clicked shut behind them. Kill me, maim me, drag me out, and berate me—none of it would matter.

Feet grew closer and stopped within inches of mine.

“Delphia?”

I stilled, holding my breath. Fuck. Another flood of tears poured from my eyes, but I refused to make a sound. I wished I’d sink into the floor, or melt into the shadows, or cease to exist entirely.

“Delphia?” Thana asked again, her voice sounding closer, lower. She’d crouched in front of me.

She hesitantly placed a hand on my arm, but flinched away when I tensed.

A heartbeat later, she replaced it, her thumb rubbing back and forth.

The scent of lavender wafted over me, and I resisted the urge to throw my arms around her.

I wanted to bury myself in her. I wanted to sleep in a room drenched in purple, stare into amethyst eyes, and run my fingers through violet hair. I wanted her .

Instead, I tightened my arms around my legs, biting my lip when it trembled.

“Hey, it’s me,” she whispered.

I rolled my eyes. As if I wouldn’t already know that.

Her hand slid to my shoulder, my neck, my chin, and she attempted to lift my face to hers. I resisted…at first, but it was for naught. Thana had always been persistent, and now was no different.

My cheeks burned as our gazes locked, and disgust slithered through me—disgust at myself, at how far I’d fallen, at everything I’d done and everything I hadn’t. I hated myself.

Why didn’t she hate me?

She sucked in a shaky breath before gently brushing the wet strands of hair away from my face and tucking them behind my ear. With her head tilted and brows furrowed, she cupped my cheek, watching her thumb as she wiped another falling tear.

“What are you doing?” she asked almost too quietly for me to hear—but I did hear, and my heart broke, a deep shattering within my rib cage.

I turned my head away from her and muttered, “Dying.”

She wrenched my face back to her. “No, you’re not.”

Stunned, I didn’t immediately reply. She’d never been angry like this, not at me.

Her fingers curled around my jaw, her amethyst eyes burning as she drew me in an inch closer. My breaths were quick and uneven, useless. No air in my lungs. No thoughts in my head.

“If you die,” she whispered, “I’ll just bring you back, because you’re mine, and I’m tired of pretending like you’re not.”

I blinked rapidly, shaking my head to clear the hallucination—because this was a hallucination, or a dream. Had I fallen asleep? Was this the relief I sought? This didn’t feel like relief, exactly. My heart raced, my nerves on fire, and a different kind of nausea swirled in my stomach.

She tightened her fingers and pulled me closer. “Yes?”

Would it be deranged for me to talk back to my hallucination? Yes. Yes, it would.

Did I care? Not at all.

“Yes,” I whispered.

Her mouth ticked up in a smile before she tipped my head back, forcing my eyes to hers as she ran her thumb over my lower lip. “Good.”