Page 139 of Delirium
28
CILLIAN
The lights from the paramedics’van flashed brightly in the night, illuminating the building in front of us, where Storm and the rest of the guys ran almost half an hour ago. The sirens from inside the building blasted shortly after, but I couldn’t move.
The knowledge that we could lose Ophelia today froze me to my core. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink, could barely think, and I fucking hated the fact that my family was once again involved in something this vicious.
No, this went beyond being vicious. This was downright insane—kidnapping a pregnant woman and trying to steal her kids from her. Who fucking did something like that?
Gunshots slowly quieted down. The illuminated windows inside the large hangar where Tristan and Ava took Ophelia looked ominous, like the fire itself burned from within, even though it was only the lights that were turned on. This was pure hell, waiting, looking on as everyone else helped, while I was too powerless to do anything.
Storm rushed in first without waiting for the rest of the guys to catch up, taking down the guards by himself, trying to save the woman he loved. The woman he couldn’t live without.
The moment I stepped inside the Club, the moment I saw him, I recognized the lost look in his eyes, because I felt the same. I couldn’t lose Ophelia. I wouldn’t survive without Ophelia, no matter what. All the fucked-up things we did, all the good deeds that were supposed to wash away the sins from our souls, they would all be for nothing if Ophelia wasn’t a part of my life.
She would never know how much I loved her, how much I bled every day, knowing she would never belong to me. And she shouldn’t belong to me. She shouldn’t have a person as fucked up as I was in her life.
She was happy with Storm, finally content with her life, and now my family was destroying it all over again.
Kieran had Maya. Rven if they were at each other’s throats more often than not, he had her. Me? I had no one. If we lost Ophelia… there would be nothing left to live for.
I scratched at the wound on my arm, the one I kept a secret, pushing in the poison through my body, using it as an escape mechanism. But even the poison wouldn’t help to forget the sound of Ophelia’s voice or her eyes.
This was all my fault, not seeing what Tristan was up to. I was too caught up in my own shit to see that he was playing two sides, fucking fooling us all. And Ava… I couldn’t comprehend how she could do something like this.
It made no sense. She was alive. All these years, all that heartache all of us felt over her death, and she was alive, playing with us like puppets, feeding us wrong information, pushing us over the edge. I fucking held her hand when the doctors pushed us out of her room.
I fucking watched her as she took her last breath when they brought in the crash cart.
They told us she would make it, until she started crashing, and none of us ever questioned it. We trusted our father who swooped in, sharing the news with us. We never got to say goodbye, and now our sister was the monster, lurking in shadows, hurting those close to us.
“Did they find her?” Maya asked as she stepped close to me, looking at the entrance to the building. I was surprised the police hadn’t gotten involved yet, but I knew that it was only a matter of time.
“No,” I answered, scratching at my arm furiously, the hit I used before we came here doing nothing to calm me down. “They’re still inside.”
“Kill, hey.” She laced her fingers with mine, pulling my attention to her. “Ophelia will be okay. She’s a fighter. She’s got this.”
“I know,” I murmured, but my words held no weight, because I didn’t know. Right now, I didn’t know anything.
I just wanted to see her, to make sure she was alright. To make sure that I didn’t fuck this up, that I didn’t kill the woman I loved, my best friend, the only person who ever understood me.
She was never mine, but I was always hers, and always would be, for better or for worse. Seeing her struggle, go through life with her head held high, made me proud of her. And all those times I hated her, believing in lies that Ava fed us while pretending to be Belladonna, I would never forgive myself.
I would never forgive myself for not seeing the woman behind the mask that Ophelia wore, because she was always the best fucking person I ever knew. And now she could be dead, completely alone, somewhere inside that building.
“I need to get out of here,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t stand here and just do nothing.”
“We can’t go in,” Maya added. “But we can go for a walk. Come on.” She pulled me as she started walking toward the side of the building, avoiding the paramedics standing around, waiting for Storm. I had no idea how he pulled this off, but I was glad Ophelia had someone like him with her.
Someone strong enough to withstand this, to fight for her even when every single atom in his body screamed at him to surrender. He was stronger than me, because while he went in, guns blazing, determined to get her back, I walked around the building because I couldn’t bear the thought of her dying.
“What the fuck?” Maya hissed, pushing me to the side, right at the corner of the building, looking at something around the corner.
“What’s going on?”
“Shhhh,” she murmured. “Look.” She pointed at something behind the building, something she was looking at. As I stepped aside, trying to gauge what she saw, my blood turned to ice when my eyes landed on two figures, moving away from the building.
“Is that—”
