Chapter 11 Delilah
DELILAH
My tears don’t stop. Such a stupid emotion, serving exactly zero purposes other than making my eyes and cheeks sore.
I’m not hiding in the bathroom like I did throughout my childhood.
Instead of being alone in my misery, trying to quickly get the tears out so my body is depleted in front of my parents, I let them fall as Kane holds my hand.
He listened to me. Actually listened to me. For the first time in my life, I know what’s going on. Better than that, I’ve been allowed to say what I need to without being shut up or told I’m crazy. I lean against him, holding his hand even harder as the waves get louder.
His lips brush the top of my head as he whispers, “Delilah, my head is fucked up.”
“Mine too.” I nod, sniffling.
“I want to believe you.” He sighs as I hold my breath. “But it doesn’t take away the image of you on the night that means so much to me.”
“You don’t have to believe me. Thank you for listening to me though. No one’s done that before.”
He refuses to look at me and I can’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to look at me either, not now. So I weakly admit, “It means a lot to me too. I never told you why I was alone that night.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to know what it would be like to disappear, so I stood there, imagining what would happen if I copied Ruby and Scarlet. The parties would still go on, my parents would make an excuse like they did with my sisters, but…” I shrug, picking at the cut edge of the chiffon floating against my thigh. “I wouldn’t be there.”
I don’t tell him how I thought my only options were to find Ruby or kill myself. I wasn’t suicidal. It was a fleeting thought when I felt trapped, before I realized I’d lose Kane if I left.
“She’s telling the truth,” he softly mumbles to himself. “She is.”
He never used to talk to himself before, but he keeps doing it. First the screaming, then the way he was zoning out while he pinned me down, now it’s like he’s having a conversation with someone I can’t see.
“Kane?” I gently lay my hand on his chest.
He stares at my hand, slowly blinking as tears cling to his bottom lashes, turning them spiky.
“My head’s fucked. I can’t work out what’s a lie or the truth anymore.
” I flinch as he roughly punches his temple with the side of his fist. “I’ve spent so long alone I don’t know who I am.
As a ghost, I had a purpose. As Kane…I’m weak. ”
“You’re not. When you get hit you know you’re going down, you can watch those marks heal. When someone unleashes the same violence on your mind, it creates different branches, and you’re never confident in yourself. I remember now though. I’ll help you.”
Shaking his head knocks the tears loose. His voice is even lower, strained as he explains, “I’ve spent too long on my own. In here?” He punches the side of his head again. “It’s broken. I can’t be around other people, but I can’t be on my own because the thing causing the damage is in here.”
His face twists in disgust as I try to wipe his tears away. I don’t let him ignore me as I cup his face with both hands, forcing him to look at me. “I won’t let you be alone. We’ll keep playing this game in front of Helene. Then we’ll make her pay for it all.”
“You remembered?”
“Everything.” I nod. “She’s the reason for everything, Kane. Your mom wouldn’t speak to her, so she made my family move to be in your lives. She took my baby out of my arms.”
“Wait, you had the baby?”
I lower my voice as I lean closer to him.
“Yeah, it was so cute and it smelled like…I don’t know the smell, but it was like everything good in the world.
There’s still some fuzzy parts so I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, but I held them.
They had rosy cheeks with loads of fine hair.
” My fingers dig into his nape as I drag him closer. “That fucking bitch took them.”
“You’ll hold them again,” he whispers, kissing the top of my head. “Keep telling me things—keep me here—and I’ll make sure you hold them again.”
I remind him of everything that’s happened to us. Each piece of information makes him stare wide-eyed even though we both lived through it.
“Solitary always fucks with my perception of time.” He breathes deeply, staring off into the distance.
I’ve never thought about what prison was like for him.
Maybe it’s my willful ignorance or selfishness.
Now I do as I watch him shakily breathe.
Tears slip between his closed lashes, but I remain silent, laying my head on his shoulder and kissing his jaw.
“You’re not alone anymore. I promise I’ll stay here with you. ”
The most peaceful sleep in my life was on a window ledge with a collar around my neck and metal between my thighs. If I don’t laugh, I’m definitely crazy.
I stand in the bathroom, lifting the dress away from the surprisingly comfortable medieval chastity belt tied around my waist and looping between my legs.
I don’t know if it’s hygienic to wear or how I’ll pee without it running down my leg.
Fuck me, I have so many problems but I’m focusing on peeing. Totally normal.
There’s a thud in the room behind me, then Kane’s shout dulled by the glass. “Delilah!”
I run out of the bathroom, uncaring about the pain. My foot gets caught on the heavy drapes as I brush them aside while he stares down at the rocks.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, peering over the edge.
“I thought I dropped you.” He sighs in relief, sinking against the glass at his back.
“You didn’t.” Lifting his hand from the ledge, I bring it to my lips and kiss his knuckles. “Remember to hate me again when you come inside.”
He nods without any conviction.
“Kane, you have to do it. Hit me, try to kill me again, make her believe it or she’ll keep punishing you.”
“I should fucking kill her,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand down his face.
He better fucking not.
The stupid leash gets caught on the window latch as I climb out, kneeling beside him so whatever surveillance is in the room doesn’t pick up our voices.
“You can’t. There’s no way for us to get off this island. You need to make her believe you’ll work with Rowan, so she arranges it.”
His face twists but I’m going to fucking hit him if he tries to go against my plan.
I don’t know what time we fell asleep, but it was dark, and he was close to throwing up after I told him about our families’ collective businesses.
All the memories alongside Melantha’s information have given me the details I need.
We have to let them keep thinking I’m crazy or stupid so we can be a step ahead of them.
“Let me hold you one more time,” he whispers as he weakly smiles. “Once, before we go back to the charade of their lies.”
I crawl forward but the leash tugs me back. He softly laughs, stretching around me to unhook it. “In another life, I’d like you like this.”
“Pretend it is.” I climb over his thighs, straddling him as I wrap my arms around his neck. “Pretend this is all a role-playing game where I’m giving my husband permission.”
Warmth spreads down my back as he uses both hands to massage down my back to cup my ass, his fingers brushing the thin edge of the metal. “No one can touch you now.”
I hug him tighter in gratitude for not dismissing me.
He listened to me, actually took in the information as he fought through the voice in his head telling him I’m a liar.
Kane finally believes me. Now we both know the truth.
After years of manipulation and lies, we’re on equal footing with the monsters.
“You made me think you were dead,” I whisper, kissing his cheek. “This will be easy.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, pulling me back to look into my eyes.
Two words aren’t enough to undo what he did, but they’re enough of a bridge in our current situation.
When we leave this place and everyone’s dead, we can part ways knowing I’ll forgive him.
I’ll never trust him enough to be in a relationship, but we have a vested interest in our families downfall, so I can trust him with our common goal.
The boy I loved doesn’t exist. In his place is a broken man who loses energy with each slow blink as he stares so deeply into my eyes it becomes hard to breathe. I hold his wrist like I’m afraid of it as I bring his hand to the locking mechanism against my waist. “You need to take this off.”
Smoothly moving his hand up my body, he cups my chin while I ignore the way goosebumps rise in the wake of his touch. Those pale green eyes remain on me as he blinks some of the desolation away. “Why?” Before I can bring up our plan, he says, “I don’t want to fuck you. It’s staying on.”
At least I’ve found a remedy to the goosebumps. I slap his hand away, huffing. “How nice, I don’t want to touch you either.”
Lie.
I want him to keep holding me, so on those lonely nights when my self-esteem dips—I tell myself having someone who treats me like shit is better than being alone—I’ll be able to recall how warm it is against his chest, how his biceps flex as he tightens his arms around me, how comforting it is to feel his chest move under my cheek.
“You know what I mean, pretty girl.” Resting his cheek on my crown, he hides me in his chest as he pulls the thin chiffon up to my waist. “Not here with these fuckers as an audience where I have to hurt you because of them.” He hesitates as he picks the key up from the side of the ledge.
“What if I said I like it when you hurt me?” I wrap my arms around him, pushing my hands under his t-shirt as he holds my waist, pressing the icy metal key to my skin.
“I like hurting you,” he whispers. “I like hearing you scream for me, seeing you run.”
There hasn’t been a single moment in my life I was in control outside of Kane.
He was mine and he was the only person who would ever stop if I wanted him to.
But I can’t keep chasing the elusive feeling of more.
More fear, more distractions, more attention, more, more, more until I overloaded on it to keep the painful memories away.
Now they’re back, I can’t lose them.
I keep focusing on our plan, playing the stupid little girl that was so dumb she didn’t even realize her parents were drugging her, her father was raping her and pimping her out.
“Remember this is our game now,” I say with more strength. “I know you won’t allow anyone to touch me, then my screams are for you.”
I swear to fuck, this idiot needs to move instead of staring at me.
“You can put it back when I’m not with you.” I grab his face. “But they need to think you’re one of them.”
He cups my cheek, stroking my cheek with his thumb as he leans forward so our noses brush. “I love you, so fucking much, you know that, you know I love you?”
“I loved you too,” I admit. “You were the best part of my life, and you were the only place I ever felt safe.”
His eyes dim at my use of the past tense.
He’d have to be insane to think I’d ever fully trust him after he left me chained up in a building he set alight.
When I thought he carried me out, I’d justified it as another ploy to scare me, but he had every intention of leaving me inside to burn to death.
“Play pretend I’m still that person?” he whispers.
What use is sanity around egotistical fucks, when the only way to beat their sinister minds is to be like them?
“I love you, Kane.” My fingers tighten against his face as I pull him forward, whispering against his lips, “Will you help me now, baby?”
He slowly nods, brushing his lips against mine as he counters, “If I can make up for the pain with pleasure? Don’t come in front of anyone else, let that be mine. Will you let me fuck you right here with the stars as our only witness?”
Trading my body isn’t an issue, it’s the standard for my life, but this is my choice so I agree. “As long as you’re good, I’ll let you do whatever you want.”
“Have my mind, koukla mou.” He kisses my cheek, his lips lingering as he grinds up into my inner thigh so I can feel him hard. “Make no mistake, I’ll have you in return.”