35. Delilah
DELILAH
It felt strange being back at the house. Cain walked right in scouting the area, but I hung back, stuck trying to make myself move away from the opened side door. He’d pulled the van right into the three-car garage, parking it in the empty space.
The scent of disinfectant and bleach hung heavy in the air hitting me like a ton of bricks. Clearly, someone had spent some time cleaning the place up. My feet hit the tile floor and my hand hovered on the doorknob. I should shut it. I should help get set up, but I couldn’t move.
A mix of emotions fought inside me. Excitement.
Dread. Nervousness. But worst of all was the way my body felt.
It remembered this place and all those horrible memories came flooding back with a vengeance.
This time, I chose to use those feelings and not cower from them.
Not shrink myself like I was used to. Those memories became a tool buzzing in my veins like a living, breathing weapon that should be feared.
I’d been able to heal and morph into something new over these past few weeks.
I wasn’t the same woman I was when I lived in this house.
That version of me was dead. Now, I felt downright lethal.
How fucking crazy was it that this house felt more like a prison to me than when I’d been kidnapped and held captive?
I shook my head. And now I was with my captor. By choice .
When I crossed the threshold into the house, I rolled my shoulders to keep from smashing every single thing in there. John loved his expensive possessions, but now he would watch them be destroyed. Just like I would destroy him, and I’d enjoy every fucking second.
We were ready and waiting. Cain had a live feed pulled up on his phone so we would be alerted the moment John was seen leaving the hospital. We’d pulled all the blinds shut so no one could see inside and had the van doors open and waited for when we would extricate him to his beloved church.
In the meantime, we played a game of Uno, which Cain was currently losing.
“Okay, I choose blue!” he exclaimed, setting down a blue eight card on top of my red eight card.
“Uno,” I said, placing down a blue six card.
He groaned, looking at his stack of cards in his hands. There was no way he’d win now.
“Remember if I win, we keep the squirrel,” I said.
“I can’t believe out of all the things you could have asked for, it’s for a menace of a squirrel.”
“Rascal,” I corrected him.
“Now you’re naming him?”
I shrugged, playing with the last card in my hand. “Are you going to play or keep bitching?”
He rolled his eyes then studied his cards. I tried to keep as much of a poker face as I could, but I was so close to winning that I could taste it.
“Has anyone ever told you how ruthless you are?” he asked, waffling between a few cards.
Come on, Cain, give me a red card. Just one red card.
“No, but I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said, watching intently as he finally revealed the card.
A red six .
A wide, cheshire cat smile spread across my face as I laid my last card down.
“I win!”
He tossed his cards on the table and lunged for me. I squealed trying to get away, but he had me pinned. Our gear was in the way, and I couldn’t feel him like I wanted to.
“I fucking love you so much, angel,” he said, hovering above me.
“I fucking love you right back.”
He kissed me, hard, making me wish we didn’t have all these clothes on between us. But then, a loud beeping noise came from his pocket, and he jolted up from me.
My heart began racing for an entirely new reason. John was on his way.
One look at Cain confirmed it.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
I nodded, gathering the cards with steady hands. I was more than ready. Gone were the nerves I had before.
“Fuck yes.”
He looked at me with so much adoration, I swear I felt like I could burst from happiness.
We hid in the coat closet, waiting until we heard John arrive. His gait sounded labored and he must have had a mobility device with him from the way it pinged and dragged across the floor.
“Ma, I got it. Would you stop? Go get your hair done. I’m fine. I don’t need you babying me,” I heard his voice and it sent a wave of shivers down my spine. Bastard. You could tell a lot about a man from how he treats his mother.
I couldn’t hear her response, but the door closed hard a moment later, and Cain’s video feed confirmed she was speeding away in her white BMW.
Good. One less person to worry about. John and his mom weren’t particularly close anyway, so I knew she wouldn’t want to stick around for long.
He wasn’t someone people liked to be around for long stretches of time anyway, despite his holy reputation.
The sound of ESPN playing filled the room and Cain tapped me on the shoulder three times. It was go time. We pulled on our matching masks and exited the closet as a united front. Cain, with John’s own gun drawn and pointed at him, and me, with a knife in hand ready to spill some blood.
“Oh, fuck!” John yelled, looking far weaker and frailer than I’d ever seen him. His face went ashen as he scrambled for his phone.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Cain said, head cocked.
“What do you want? I’ll give you anything!” his hands were shaking. It felt empowering seeing him be the scared one for a change.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Cain replied.
“I’ve got money upstairs—” John started.
“I don’t want your fucking money,” Cain screamed interrupting him. “I want your soul.”
John’s mouth dropped open as he looked between me and Cain. I watched as he realized he wouldn’t be able to buy his way out of this. His confusion and fear morphing quickly into anger.
“Do you know who the fuck I am?” he screamed. Then I watched his hand twitch, trying to unlock his phone so he could call for help. The hell he would.
The knife left my hand quickly, embedding it straight into his, making him drop his phone. He screamed out, and Cain moved on him, injecting him quickly with a tranquilizer so he couldn’t cause any more of a scene. If the neighbors didn’t hear the commotion yet, I would be surprised.
“Quick, help me tie him up,” Cain said to me, yanking the knife out of his hand.
Blood seeped out and stained the stark white couch.
I chuckled seeing it mar something so precious to him and his aesthetic.
Cain handed me the knife, and I sheathed it back on my leg with its sisters.
I was thinking of naming them all. There were three in total.
The only names that popped in my head were the characters from Friends.
Monica, Rachel, and Phoebe. That worked for me.
We made quick work of tying him up, remembering all the training we’d done together. The knots held and we carried him out together. Me holding his feet, and Cain grabbing under his armpits.
The tranquilizer would last a good half hour, so we had to move quickly. I didn’t fancy dealing with a thrashing, pissed off John the next time we had to haul his body.
Before we left, though, Cain set the oven to bake while cutting a gas line inside the kitchen. The authorities would be too busy dealing with the explosion to come looking for him and would hopefully, assume he’d perished inside.
We peeled away from the place laughing, while John’s tied up, unconscious body rolled around in the back. Personally, I hoped he got a little banged up back there.
Phase one of our plan was complete. I’d even drawn a little blood. It only made me hungry for more. When he woke up, I’d make him wish he’d never even been born.