Chapter 36 Delilah
DELILAH
Peaceful isn’t the correct word to describe the atmosphere as I lay face-down in the middle of the bed with the soft call of the birds filtering through the open window. I turn, staring without any motivation to move.
There’s a piece of paper poking out from under the bag.
I check the door then quickly climb out of bed, grabbing my hoodie on the way to the window to snatch the paper up.
The bag is open, filled with small paper roses.
They roll in the breeze as I gently lift the sheet of paper from underneath the bag, revealing Kane’s neat scrawl filling the page.
Koukla mou. My strong, beautiful wife.
I respect you.
I adore you.
You mean the fucking world to me.
I have to leave you here because there’s someone else who needs me too. Please don’t ask me to take you with me again. Be strong like I know you are. Find our baby then. . .
Fuck. Then we’ll have everything.
I loved you then. I love you now.
I’ll love you tomorrow, no matter what I become.
There’s someone I want you to meet when the time is right.
Every time I see you, I’ll fuck you. It isn’t because it’s all you’re good for, okay? Remember that. Remember you’re more than a body to me. A beautiful fucking body though. Still, more than a body.
I’ll speak to you like shit. Hurt you. Hate you. Make you crawl for me. Fuck that lying mouth. Fill my cunt. Make you into my little cum slut who’s starving for me. And you’ll be my good wife, taking it all eagerly.
You belong to me like I belong to you. But you belong to yourself first, so the key is in the bag.
No one else can control what happens to you. Hide the key, even from me if you need to. I just want to love you openly. One day I will. We won’t have to hide. You said there won’t be any dates, but I’m getting you back no matter what fucking happens.
Right now, though, I need you to be my strong god.
Find everything you need, then bring these motherfuckers to their knees for everything they’ve taken from you.
Do not forget you are Delilah. You’re not a silly or stupid girl.
You are my Delilah, who burnt these fuckers once.
Do it again, koukla mou. I’ll be waiting on the other side of the embers with the rest of our family.
You are mine, Delilah Xandros. Only mine.
I am yours.
Your husband x
I turn the sheet over, expecting more to be on the back, but it’s blank. I reread it. Kane is confident we’ll be okay, that I’ll be able to find our baby. I need it to bolster me because the longer I’m alone, the more I question myself, the weaker my resolve becomes.
In theory, being trapped on an island without anyone else sounds like a dream. The reality is vastly different. There’s always dread weighing me down, so I spend more time anticipating what Helene can do until it exhausts me.
Kane isn’t going to leave me here. We’re going to leave. I’m not a stupid na?ve girl anymore. He’s right. I fucked their plans up once, fought through the fog of my mind, the drugs, the abuse. I can do it again.
I take the key and letter to the bathroom.
That bitch will use Kane’s words against me, which forces me to read it one last time before I run it under the water until it’s an unintelligible, crumpled mess.
I push the soggy pieces of paper through the gaps in the drain then take the chastity belt from the corner of the shower.
In any other world or circumstance, Kane giving me the key to a chastity belt would be a fucking insane thing to do.
Given our current circumstances, it’s sweet.
Or I really am crazy. Fuck it, you can’t beat crazy with sanity so I’m going to embrace being insane.
Helene’s mind is warped to the point a normal person couldn’t anticipate her next move, so all I need to do is out-crazy her.
Once I’m dressed with the key around my neck, I leave the room like I belong here. That seems like something a crazy person would do.
I strengthen my spine as I go to the kitchen, where she’s already seated at the table, humming to herself while skinning a snake.
The tail curves over the edge of the table, hanging limp against the table leg.
My resolve wavers as I get closer, but I don’t drop my chin.
I can’t stop my curiosity as I watch her peel the leathery skin off the snake’s muscle.
It has two fucking heads.
The body is long, thick, forking into two, and she delicately slices a line between the scales before she unwraps the other head.
“Would you like some tea?” Helene asks without looking away from what I’m hoping is a taxidermy project.
“No, your tea doesn’t agree with me.” I stiffly walk around her and take out safe, packaged foods to make a sandwich.
Then sit opposite her, uncaring that she’s desecrating a dead animal as I eat without looking away from her.
She must be in a good mood, or whatever constitutes as a good mood to a raging fucking nutcase, because she doesn’t try to harm me.
“What are you making?” I ask to appear unaffected.
“The rarest things in life have power behind them. It’s why they survive at odds with the environment they’re born in.”
Her cryptic answer provides a barrier to seeing her as human. The more oddities she shows, the more likely I’ll be able to retain my sanity.
“This piece will be magnificent, don’t you think?
” She cradles the snake’s two heads in her bare hand.
“A predator evolved to have the ultimate protection. While one satisfied itself, the other watched over it. After all, aren’t we all the most vulnerable when satiating our appetites?
” She pointedly looks at the sandwich in my hand.
“Survival,” I agree, taking another bite. “It’s engrained in nature to survive. Flowers will turn towards the sun, pack animals will leave their group to hunt alone, humans will disregard their morals to survive.”
You ugly fucking cunt.
“Would you?” she asks, temporarily pausing her taxidermy.
“I’m human, aren’t I? Turning that natural instinct off isn’t possible, so I’d survive. At any cost.”
She nods.
“Just like you have,” I say gently. “Alone on this empty island with nothing other than your hobbies to keep you company.” I take another bite of my sandwich. The smell of raw flesh perfumes the air.
The sides of her jaw become sharper, but she keeps her tone light in the same way my mother did when she felt slighted. “Now I have you to keep me company.”
“I know.” I hum. “You’re very lucky.”
I expect Lenny or Kane to walk in when the front door opens, but my muscles seize when a carbon copy of Lenny walks to his mother.
His shirt collar shifts as he lowers his head to kiss her cheek, unveiling the mottled skin.
Helene doesn’t ignore him like she did with her other child.
She turns her head, catching his lips instead of his cheek.
I can feel my face contorting as bile rises in my throat at the sight of their lips parting, then a flash of pink.
I drop my sandwich and get the fuck away from their incestuous shit. I’ll watch her skin an animal, whip someone, anything other than tonguing her adult son as he gushes about being a good boy. The force of my escape makes the double doors swing as she coos, “Did my darling boy miss his mother?”
I need bleach. For my eyes, my body, to pour into my ears.
“Yes, Mother,” he says back so softly, he doesn’t sound like the same person who would tie me to a bed before ordering my father to entertain him by raping me.
It makes me turn around to watch them through the murky glass in the doors.
Only to instantly regret it as he kneels beside her, lifting her dress to uncover her chest. A grown fucking man is kneeling beside his elderly mother, suckling from her like he’s a baby while she holds the back of his head in the crook of her elbow to continue skinning the snake.
Thank fuck her back is to me so I can’t see everything, but there’s no disguising what’s happening as Rowan pushes his hand flat against his groin.
Filthy fucking cunts.
I can’t be exhausted or wait for Kane. I need to get out of here, away from whatever the fuck this circle of a family tree is. They make my family appear normal in comparison as she moans at whatever her vile son is doing.
The other parts of the house are unreachable without passing them, so I slowly walk up the spiral staircase, careful to avoid making a sound.
Rather than go back into my room, I turn towards the rooftop entrance Lennox showed me.
Fear of Helene’s torment stopped me from entering any of the other rooms before, but she’s busy fucking her son now.
I wince while opening the first door, checking behind me to make sure no one is watching me.
The thick layer of dust is disturbed, little pieces glimmering in the light as I poke my head into the gap to see the bedroom is empty, except for an ivory sheet over the bed and a few frames hung on the wall.
Even the drapes have thinned and yellowed from the sun.
I go to the next room, which is the same, other than the bare walls. The silk wallpaper peels from the corners where it meets the plaster cornice. Large, obnoxious corbels bracket the window. Each has a lion’s head with its teeth bared, holding the brass curtain rod.
My grandparents have something similar at their vineyard home, with a ram head instead of a lion. The curved ram horns held their curtain rod.
Helene’s stick has a lion’s head, a ram’s head, and a snake.
Three families. She created The Three, so she has three symbols.
The ram is on my family crest. She keeps the lion of her cane free from any dirt, which must be the one for the Kobalts.
All I have to do is find the family that she discarded—the snake—then we’ll know her weakness.
Fuck, I can’t remember any of my grandparents’ friends who would stay at their vineyard.
The summer house was always full due to the parties, but they only allowed a select few to visit the vineyard.
I search the other rooms, trying to recall anyone who had any snake insignias during my family’s events.
All of the rooms are the same.
Every single fucking one is empty—along with my memories.
I keep walking through the hallway, avoiding the door leading to the roof. At a certain point, it becomes a maze. The same empty rooms with a bed covered in a dust sheet, the same hallway, and the same questions with no answers because the rooms are fucking empty!
When I reach the end of the hallway, I stop at the large arched window and trace the lead strips separating the panes of glass to soothe my mind.
Trace a line, don’t think about where Kane is.
Complete the rectangle, don’t think about how you let her take your baby away.
Follow the lead piping, Kane believes in me.
Yeah, Kane believes in me, so does Lenny. They both know their family more than I do, so I can trust their opinion.
I reverse my steps as I go back through the hallway, checking each room again.
This time I lift the sheets, disturb the drapes, look for any loose floorboards.
Anything. These motherfucking cunts had to drug me, pull my memories away with their abuse, but I figured it out before. I can fucking do it again.