CHAPTER 27
When Lennox reaches his childhood home, he takes a deep breath before he gets out of the car.
He can vaguely remember a time when the atmosphere wasn’t as dense, a time he could exist with ease before Kane came into his life and before Delilah’s attempt at protecting herself took him away from the normalcy he convinced himself he could have.
Now, he doesn’t yearn for a family of his own. The priorities of the only family he’s allowed don’t concern him, so he doesn’t look for Helene to greet her like a son would as he walks through the kitchen to the staircase leading to Isadora’s old bedroom, ignoring the disarray of the kitchen table.
The parallels aren’t missed. He knows everything Helene or Rowan does has a meaning deeply rooted in belittling those around them. He also knows where the cameras are and how to disable them. As he enters the bedroom given to Delilah, he does that.
Only, when he steps inside, it’s cold. Delilah isn’t on the bed, and the bathroom door is open, showing she’s not in there either. It takes a moment for him to see her through the small gap between the closed drapes, but he loses some of his apathy at the sight of her emotion.
On the ledge stands a broken girl, hair whipping into her face with one foot raised, ready to walk over the edge. He reaches her in five steps and wraps his hand around her ankle to stop her from plummeting to her death.
Fear makes her blanch as she looks at who has hold of her. She falls backwards, plastered against the glass to stop herself being taken away by the monster from her memory.
“Little doe,” Lennox softly whispers so she knows he isn’t Rowan, reminding them both that he is the lesser evil.
Relief and torment war on her features as she sobs, “Let me go.” She kicks, attempting to get him to release her, but he drags her closer to the window opening so he can bring her inside.
“I’m afraid I can’t,” is all he manages to say instead of explaining that he promised Isadora he would protect the children before she took her last breath. Kane wasn’t aware of his uncle’s presence in the hospital while he was booking a flight back to Delilah—to be her anonymous tormentor.
Her sobs are faster, more pained, turning her voice to an unintelligible mumble as he carefully holds her legs and carries her through the window opening.
Another parallel, he thinks to himself as he remembers the day he came into this same room to find Isadora ready to end her life. He saved the only mother he ever knew, and he’ll save Delilah now.
Her skin is clammy, cold, stricken in sweat as he lays her on the bed, forcing him to ask, “Did you drink the tea?”
“It’s my fault,” she cries. “I did all of this.”
He hums as he gently strokes his gloved hand over her hair. Delilah is trapped in the maze Helene has created, so all she can feel is pain. Her body, her mind, it all aches. For each painful truth she works through, there’s a destroyed future.
One death sparked so many more little deaths.
If she had only allowed Asher to do what he wanted, then she wouldn’t have endured everything she has.
It’s a simple thought, too simple to be true.
Lennox knows this, so when she keeps repeating how she altered events, he corrects, “You would have been tied to them both. In public, Kane would be your husband. In the shadows, Asher would be your tormentor.”
He doesn’t tell her it was his mistake too.
Or recount the second-to-last conversation he had with Isadora, where she pleaded with him to kill Asher because she’d found the recordings he’d made and she knew there was no saving him—before he was ordered to end his sister’s life.
If he had done what she asked, it would have been the lesser evil.
Yet, just like with Sarah’s daughter, he refused to act, resulting in more pain.
Delilah exhausts herself with her tears while Lennox remains at her side, stroking her hair. He waits until she’s in a deep sleep to stand, lock the window, then go back down to the kitchen. The tea kettle is in the middle of the table, and he notices the cake beside it.
To the normal world, cake is given during celebrations.
In this one, it’s a marker that peace has come to an end.
Lennox does what he always has: cleaning the mess so it doesn’t disturb anyone.
The sugar-water mixture is stuck on the wooden surface, so he picks each cooled crystal off with a blunt knife then wipes it all down, returning the semblance of order the room once held.
Once completed, he makes soup for Delilah that will counteract the effects of not being fed and the poisonous tea leaves she’s been given. Soft tapping travels through the walls as he stands at the stove, carefully heating the soup without a reaction.
“You are a curse,” Helene hisses as she enters the kitchen. “Since you were a boy, every time you entered these walls, your presence would disturb what I created.”
She believes it’s a spiritual curse, Lennox’s apathy a sign of something deeper than unbalancing her cameras.
He knows technology isn’t infallible. It’s why he created the programs to pause her surveillance.
He keeps the information to himself as he fills a bowl with soup, sets it on a tray, and retrieves three sealed bottles of water from the fridge.
A mother is the creator was all he was taught. In other walks of life, they may share the sentiment. In this one, it’s something sordid because Helene creates pain and misery.
He ignores her as he carefully carries Delilah’s meal to her room.
She’s still asleep when he enters and sets the tray on the bed before he carries the water bottles into the bathroom to test for any puncture marks.
One bottle of the three releases an air bubble so he sets it aside, taking the others back to Delilah.
“Little doe,” he whispers as he lowers beside the bed.
A wide-eyed expression is what he sees when he gently taps the side of her face with two fingers. If he was capable of laughing, he would in this moment because she shows some of her fight when she glares at him.
Then she shows a different type of strength as she closes her eyes. “Drug me again. I don’t want to remember anymore.”
“I have no desire to touch you.” Lennox shakes his head, tapping her cheek again. “Eat before it gets cold. You’re going to be sick soon.”