Page 149 of Delirium
“I wouldn’t mind stabbing you as well, K,” I grunted, coming closer and closer. “An eye for an eye, darling.”
“She’s not well,” he murmured. “Please don’t do this.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck, Kieran. Forgiveness is something I don’t have left in my soul.”
“No, please. You forgave me,” He stepped closer to me, taking a hold of my left hand, lacing our fingers together. “Please don’t do this. Please.”
“There was nothing to forgive, Kieran. You used me and I used you,” I murmured. “That’s where the story ends. I know that Ophelia thinks otherwise, but I have nothing to forgive you for.”
I hated the feel of his fingers between mine, the lost dreams I wanted to shake off coming back in full force. The dreams where he loved me, where we were happy, far away from this fucked-up world. But dreams were a slippery slope into the field of sorrow, and I’d had enough of pain and sorrow to last me a lifetime.
I pulled my hand back from him, shaking off the feelings coursing through me, and glared as he stepped between me and the entrance to the cell.
“We still need to talk, Maya,” he murmured.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I beg to differ,” he stated, glaring at me now. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why—”
“Because it was none of your business!” I blasted, done with this entire conversation. “It was your family that took him away from me!” I bellowed, remembering my screams, my wails, the pleading with the woman who took him away. I remembered myself on my knees, begging to see my son, to just hold him one time. “She,” I pointed at Ava with the knife, “orchestrated it all. She took my baby boy from me, and she’s going to pay for it.”
“Maya—”
“Move, Kieran!” I closed the distance between us, pushing the knife under his throat. “Move or I’ll kill you as well. I don’t fucking mind.”
“Do it,” he breathed out, his lips close to mine. “Come one, do it.” He pressed into the knife, the tip cutting through his skin. As his blood rushed down his throat, disappearing into the black T-shirt he wore, my resolve started shaking, because we both knew I wouldn’t be able to hurt him. “If you want to hurt her, you’re going to have to hurt me too, and we both know you won’t do it.”
Did we now?
Kieran Nightingale thought I was still the same girl he dragged around, hiding me in shadows, only visiting when it suited him. He thought I was still a naive girl following him around, living off of the breadcrumbs he decided to throw my way, because I didn’t know better.
I didn’t want better. But I deserved so much more than that.
“Kieran,” I purred, pressing my chest to his. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with.” I smiled. “But you’re about to find out.”
In the moment of weakness, while he was too preoccupied with my lips right in front of his, I grabbed the back of his hair and lifted my leg, hitting him behind the knees with my heel, pushing him right behind me, opening up the pass toward the cell door. I already knew it was unlocked, otherwise they wouldn’t have kept her inside the cell like this, chained to the wall.
“Maya!” he bellowed as I slipped inside, shutting the door behind me and turning the lock from the inside, putting the key in my pocket. “Don’t!” He slammed against the bars, trying to stop me from doing what was inevitable, while Ava followed my every move, every step, until I was in front of her.
There were no witty remarks this time, no sarcasm dripping from her poisonous lips, only Kieran’s wails and pleading to stop, to go back to him. But it was too late now. There was stopping me from what needed to be done.
It was too late for pleading, for fake professions of love, too late for anything, because I had a target, and she was right in front of me.
“You came,” she finally said, eyeing the knife in my hand. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“You don’t know anything about me, Ava.”
“No?” She smirked. “I know a lot more than you’d like me to, Black Mamba.”
I stumbled backward at the name she used—the name I hadn’t used since I came back with Kieran. The name none of them knew, and I wanted to keep it that way.
“You look shocked, Maya.” She snickered. “I know everything.”
“Really?” I grinned, coming closer to her. “Then you must know that today is the day you die.”
“He will never forgive you if you kill me,” she answered, so sure of herself.
“I know,” I murmured. “But I can live with that, Ava. I can live, knowing that you will never hurt another human being. I can live with that because I’ll know that I got the revenge I always wanted to have.”
