29. Delilah
DELILAH
Thunder broke through the silence of my room waking me from a dead sleep, and my body instinctively reacted.
All those times where I was assaulted under the cover of a storm came flooding back.
And my body remembered. Suddenly, I was shaking.
Feeling like I was going to die. Was this it?
How I went? My hand pressed down onto my chest, and I could feel my heart racing, thrumming so loud that it pounded in my ears.
My brain was convinced something was deeply wrong and I felt it everywhere. Even in my toes.
“Let me out! LET! ME! OUT!!” Tears streamed down my face as I pounded against the door with my fists. I had to get out. I needed to leave.
The masked man burst into the room, rushing to my side. I went to take a swing at him, but he gripped me holding my arms down.
I thrashed against him, fully immersed in the panic that stabbed me deep in the gut, roiling through every nerve. “Let me out!” I cried again as another wave of thunder rolled through the floor.
And then I heard him. It was soft and full of gravel, but I heard it. A quiet, “Shhh. I’ve got you.”
My spine went straight.
Something about that voice speared my brain like a harpoon. Who was this man behind the mask? And why did I feel myself relaxing in his grasp? Was it because we’d had sex? That couldn’t be it. I’d slept with John hundreds of times and never once felt relaxed near him.
Maybe it was just a neurological response. Something wholly unrelated to whoever it was hiding under there. But instinct told me that wasn’t it.
“Did you… was that… you said something to me.”
My eyes tracked the glassy tint of the mask trying to see past the dark sheen. All I saw in there was my own panicked reflection.
And then he nodded and whatever anxiety I was feeling quieted.
The shaking in my body stalled and I felt him release the pressure around my arms. He was still holding me though, and our bodies were pressed up tightly against each other.
I could feel the sharp ridges of his muscled chest brush against my breasts with each rise and fall of his breath.
My hands gripped onto his biceps and flexed.
He was strong. And alluring. And had me thinking about earlier, and how good he’d made me feel.
Maybe it was the adrenaline still kicking around in my veins but something bold came over me then and I found myself moving my hands up to his shoulders. He didn’t pull away. If anything, I felt his chest begin to rise faster.
“I want…” I said, reaching the bottom of his mask with the tips of my fingers. They were trembling. “I want to see you.”
He went still. I felt his fingers grip onto my hips, but he didn’t push me away. He didn’t say no and so I began to tug.
A strong, sharp jawline appeared. Then two full lips that quivered as I continued to pull. Just as I was about to get over his nose, he stopped me. Grabbing onto my hands with his.
“That’s enough,” he said. That voice again. So rough it sounded like he hadn’t spoken in ages. I stopped immediately, but then he licked his lips and lunged towards me like he couldn’t wait another second. His mouth met mine and I inhaled sharply.
Gone was any hesitation that I’d been so used to. No, this was something else entirely.
My hands wrapped around the back of his neck and my lips moved against his.
Slow at first like we were both afraid of the other’s reaction.
And then with a ferocity that lit a match deep in my gut, he moved on me, kissing me deeper.
Hands exploring the curves of my aching body.
And I let him, desperate to feel something other than fear for once.
No. This wasn’t fear. This was desire. This was need. Hot, and desperate, and raw.
The mask still covered half his face, disguising his identity, but I didn’t care. What I cared about was the fact that even if I didn’t know who he was, he’d made me feel more safe, more seen, more cared for than I had in my entire life.
My hands pulled at his shirt and my eyes fluttered open, feeling dazed and dizzy from desire. That’s when I saw it.
Twin snake tattoos peeking out from under his neckline.
Everything inside me came to a crashing halt.
“Cain?” I whispered, not believing what I was seeing.
He stood up fast, wrenching himself away from me like I’d slapped him.
He yanked the mask back onto his face, chest heaving with deep uncontrolled breaths.
I couldn’t believe it. All this time and he was right here?
He turned away from me, but I followed, needing to know if my suspicion was correct.
“Cain, is that you?” My trembling hands met the hard plane of his back.
“Don’t,” he said, fisting his hands against the back of his mask.
His body was trembling beneath my fingers, but I had to know.
For years I thought the worst. I thought he might be dead.
Or locked up. Or whisked away to some other school.
I had to know if the man who was standing before me was the one that risked everything for me all those years ago.
The one I thought about every single day of my life.
“Please. Let me see you.” I heard the heartbreak and desperation in my voice. I think he did too, because he slowly turned around facing me. He stared down at me through those dark lenses hands shaking by his sides.
“Hello, Delilah,” he said and I knew. It was him.
“Cain,” I sobbed, tears spilling over my lashes. I didn’t know if I wanted to hug him or hit him. Maybe both. “What the fuck?”
His shoulders shook and I wondered if he was crying too.
“I—I’m sorry. ”
I shook my head, feeling an array of emotions all at once. Shock. Anger. Confusion. “What happened to you?”
“That’s a long story.”
“Why won’t you let me see your face?”
He paused, flexing his fingers then bringing them in for a fist. Then again. And again.
“I don’t want you to be scared.”
“Why would I be scared?”
“Because I don’t look like I used to.”
I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying to me. Why the hell would that of all things scare me?
I blinked hard and then pushed him. Hard. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I guess the anger won out.
“I had to get you out of there, Delilah. He was going to kill you. Maybe not that night. Maybe not in two weeks. But eventually, he would take it too far. I don’t know how you survived as long as you have. You’re strong as hell, Delilah, but I couldn’t let him keep hurting you like that.”
“So, you kept me captive instead? I don’t understand.”
“I know. There’s so much I have to tell you. I haven’t...” He coughed. “I haven’t spoken a word in over five years. I didn’t even know I could.”
He hadn’t spoken? For over five years? What the hell had they done to him?
So much time, and trauma, and heartbreak laid between us.
I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to make sense of what he was saying, while red hot anger poked at my belly.
How could he, of all people, have done this to me?
But now it made sense how he had known so much about me.
My favorite foods. My favorite flower. He remembered all of it.
I shook my head, feeling stupid for not figuring it out earlier.
"You better start explaining yourself. Fast."
"I got out of prison only a few months ago.
They threatened me, Delilah. And they threatened you.
The day they took me to my cell, two guys jumped me, and threw some kind of chemical on me, doing this to my face," he said, ripping off the mask for me to see.
He gestured at the marred parts of his skin.
It was red and jagged. Puckering in places that made it look painful, but it was still him.
He was still the same Cain I'd fallen for at Kingston.
"Is that why you hid it from me? You were ashamed of how you looked?"
"Partly," his shoulders were so tight, and his face was pulled in agony.
Those green eyes of his peered down at me.
All I saw was pain staring back at me. I'd thought of that day so many times.
Gone over what I could have done or said differently.
I always came back to the same conclusion— they would have done this to us regardless of anything I said or did.
“What’s the other part?”
“The other part is that when you finally saw me, I didn’t know if you’d be too mad at me for not saving you sooner. And if you tried to leave, you’d end up right back there. With those fucking people hurting you.”
My eyes shone and lips trembled.
“Cain. It was never your responsibility to save me. Those people, what they did to us—” I shook my head. “There was nothing we could do. It wasn’t your fault what happened. And it wasn’t mine.”
He nodded his head slowly like he knew what I was saying was true, but it didn’t erase the years of guilt and trauma that we’d endured. I know I felt my fair share of it.
Thunder rolled through my room again and I flinched as he went to step closer to me.
His face looked pained at my response, “Sorry, it’s not. I’m not flinching because of you. It’s… hard to explain, I just am so used to not feeling safe. Especially during storms.”
“Do you want to tell me?”
Did I? The only other person that knew even a sliver of what I’d gone through was Margot, and even then, I hadn’t disclosed just how bad things were. Cain had been there at the beginning. He knew what we went through at that school. But I hadn’t been able to really talk to anyone about it.
So, I found myself curled up in Cain’s arms telling him about the last five years of my life. Words poured out of me like they’d been waiting for him. From the unwanted wedding, to the miscarriage, to the sleepless nights, and hospital stays that left my body a broken mess. I told him everything.
Through it all, he held me and listened. Not interrupting once. He took it all in, jaw twitching with each new piece of information, until I was spent from speaking. I don’t even know how long it took, but it felt like hours.
“He’s still alive,” he said, chest rumbling against my head. I looked up at him with bleary eyes, feeling tired and swollen from all the crying I had done.
“And they think you tried to kill him,” he said, and my mouth dropped.
“They always blame the spouse,” I murmured. “That’s why I never did anything before. I wanted to. I thought about it. Fantasized, really how I would do it.”
“How would you do it?” he asked, wiping a rouge tear off my splotchy cheek.
I thought about it for a second, filtering through all the ways I’d pictured it.
“If there was a way that I could do it without getting caught, I’d want to have him tied down and gagged.
I’d want to have him listen to every vile thing he’d ever put me through and know it was his own actions that led him to his demise.
And then I’d want to cut his cock off and feed it to him until he choked on it. ”
“Death by dick,” he said, with a chuckle.
“That’s right,” I said back, with a sleepy smile. It felt so unreal to be here with him like this. Him holding me. We haven’t even discussed what came next yet, and I hadn’t decided if I forgave him yet for kidnapping me.
“What do you say we make that happen?” he asked.
“What? Killing my husband?”
He nodded. “I was planning on it anyway, but your way sounds a lot more creative than mine.”
“Are you serious?” I pushed off him and stood up, beginning to pace the room. All the tiredness zapped away from my body as he casually discussed murder like we were picking what toppings to order on a pizza.
One look at him, and I knew the answer to my question. He was serious. And for some reason I wasn’t morally opposed to the idea. After this was all over, I should probably get my head examined.
“Think about it, Delilah. Being able to make him pay for what he’s done to you. Aren’t you tired of seeing him get away with it? With him being allowed to not only harm you but those kids at that fucking school?”
He had a point. It wasn’t just about me. It was the countless others who’d been made to suffer at his hands. Cain, me, the kids at Kingston. We were all victims.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked, and watched a huge fucking smile spread across his face.