“How do you know about them?”
“Mask.” He points at himself as my throat constricts.
Rowan would call the guards his masks. Notamask which strips them of their personhood, buthismasks. As though anyone who entered belonged to him.
“Me too,” I manage to force out.
He leans his forearms on top of the railing enclosing the balcony, staring straight ahead as he says, “You have to separate those things from everything here. You’re lucky because you know it all already. You don’t have to teach yourself this whole world you never knew existed.”
I laugh as I pull in a mouthful of smoke. “Doesn’t feel like that.” Letting it out in a harsh line to disguise the fear in me, I whisper, “Those months feel like a lifetime.”
“Perspective. You’re forgetting it wasn’t a lifetime. You had a life outside of it. We didn’t. We were born in it.” He smiles without any warmth. “You’re not going to be much use with one hand if it’s still healing.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“Or I can help you.” He sighs, pushing away from the railing.
“Why?”
“Wives. As soon as you put a ring on their finger, they take control of you.”
“Not wives,” I correct. “The Leroux effect. The only ring they need is someone wrapped around their finger.”
“You don’t look unhappy about living there.”
“It’s home. I’ve been living for Delilah’s every whim since I was six.”
Truer words have never been spoken. I’ve belonged to her from the first moment. All those little memories, how she’d laugh, or the most inconsequential detail has been catalogued. I spent my entire sentence reliving those moments with her. From her walking into me, telling me a stupid joke, school trips no child gives a fuck about, to her laying in my bed. They were on a consistent loop I was never able to escape.
“You’re going to have to wait for your stitches to heal,” Daigon says. “Then we can go. But I kill Lizbeth. You can have Harkin to practice on.”
“Deal.”
80
DELILAH
Withdrawals are one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced. Between the sweats, the nightmares, the hallucinations, and Kane witnessing them all, I don’t know how I survived. But him seeing me at my worst, hearing me beg for another vial to get it to go away, while patiently wading through all the secrets I spilled has brought us closer.
It’s why I know he has questions as we lay in bed, battling our insomnia after weeks of agony. He pulls me onto his chest, kissing my crown, softly asking, “Who’s Luna?”
I make shapes on his shoulder with the tip of my finger, readying myself to tell him everything as his heart slows beneath my ear. “She was so small,” I whisper, refusing to look at him. “After we tried to escape the first time, she removed my birth control and injected me with fertility shots so I’d get pregnant. I didn’t know, so when we were going to run, Helene’s tests had come back and she knew I was pregnant. Which is why she sent the guards to get me that day. The last day.”
He audibly gulps, his chest barely moving. “Where’s Luna?”
“She was too small.” I look out at the sky through the large floor to ceiling windows. “I couldn’t keep her safe. Sh-she didn’t cry.”
“Fuck.” He wraps his arms around me. “I’m sorry.”
“I couldn’t stay awake to stop Helene from taking her. That wicked cunt stole both of my babies.”
“Ours,” he softly corrects. “She can’t take them away from us. They’ll always be our babies.”
“I know I wouldn’t be a good mother. I’m not stupid, but I could have helped them.”
“I know, Delilah,” he says softly—the old Kane, the first one I fell in love with. It’s that Kane who lets me cry through our shared grief without judging me or blaming me.
It’s hard to escape Helene’s manipulation. Like she burrowed into my brain and carved out a corner for herself. Now she’s always there so I don’t even know if my thoughts are my own.
