Page 113 of Delirium
“And Skylar is dying along with him,” Casimir added.
“With Ash following after them. That one though, that one is blaming himself for not being able to stop it. Skylar is blaming herself for going there that night. They’re all blaming themselves for things that were out of their control, and they’re not talking to each other as they should.”
Silence could be your best friend and your enemy. If you allowed it to take over your life, if it distanced you from people who loved you, it could destroy your mind. Because in those dark moments, everything bad you ever did, every single mistake, seemed to be bigger than it actually was.
“Let us know if we can help,” I said, looking at Casimir. “I mean it. They have our support.”
“I just want us to catch that bastard,” Casimir gritted out. “I’ll kill him myself. I just want to bring him to us. Prison isn’t enough for men like him.”
I understood him because it was what I felt for Nikolai for so many years. It was what kept me alive, this anger that one day I’d be able to destroy him, just how he destroyed the others. I turned around, looking at Ophelia and Ash, seeing them hugging each other.
“She blames herself for that night,” I murmured.
“She shouldn’t,” Casimir added. “Skylar talked about Ophelia, of how strong she is, how she gave her back her strength. It wasn’t Ophelia’s fault.”
“I know, but I think she needs time to realize that, to fully comprehend it. She thought that what she was doing was right.”
“We all did,” Atlas added, suddenly joining the conversation. He’d been quiet this whole time, listening to us talk. “I shouldn’t have left her alone that night, but I forgot that Skylar isn’t Ophelia, and she isn’t us. She didn’t know how to fight back, how to push that motherfucker into the river.”
“She’ll learn,” Casimir grunted. “She will have to if she wants to survive in this world.”
And the saddest thing was, every single one of us had to learn to fight if we wanted to survive. One way or another, we had to fight to push through life, because nothing ever came easily. Not one single thing.
23
OPHELIA
A heavy armwas draped over my middle as I stirred awake, my eyes focusing on the window opposite of the bed, seeing the morning sunshine slowly filtering in. My feet were frozen, the blanket no doubt on the floor already. Knowing Storm, he pushed it off of me not too long after he settled behind.
After the events in Portland, things became… quiet. Too fucking quiet, and I couldn’t help but wonder if we were maybe, by some miracle, finally free from Belladonna or if she was only quiet because we found her compound. The plans Storm retrieved from the warehouse, the pictures of all of us lingering around, the psychotic letters she had prepared for all of us, they chilled me to the bone, and there were not many things that could do that.
I had no idea why someone would go to such lengths to kill me. I would’ve understood if she went only after me, but it was obvious that she was after Cillian and Kieran, as well as Tristan. She had information on Zoe, Maya, Atlas, Indigo—every single person who meant anything to me. She knew Lazar was my real father, not Nikolai, and she was hellbent on destroying them all, alienating me from the people I loved.
Sometimes it felt as if the truth was just there, at the edge of my mind, pointing me to the person who was behind this all, but I never managed to reach it. So I stayed in the dark, unable to figure out who this monster was. And it killed me that I had no idea.
It killed me that Storm had to bring in more people for protection.
I hated that Zoe couldn’t go back to her apartment, or that Cillian felt as if he was trapped when he decided to come to Las Vegas to stay with Kieran.
I hated the fact that I had to warn Maya,again, knowing full well that she didn’t need this shit right now. It killed the pieces of my sanity that we had a ghost trying to kill us, while none of us were anywhere closer to the truth.
My hopes that the insanity would stop with Nikolai’s death were slowly getting extinguished, and even the reassuring words from Lazar and all my friends that nothing would happen to them, weren’t helping.
At least Tristan called back, explaining that he was tracing Belladonna’s movements, which managed to ease some of our worries. What was funny though, was the fact that Kieran and Storm slowly but surely started becoming friends.
If I voiced it out loud, I knew that Storm would grumble and mention something about killing Kieran, but I knew he liked him. Hell, he liked him enough to go for a drink with him, getting away from all of us. It warmed my heart knowing that all my people were finally getting along, that there was no more bad blood between all of us.
When I looked at the past, at all the things that had happened to all of us, it was hard to imagine that something like this would happen, but it had.
Storm grumbled in his sleep, pressing his dick against my ass, rubbing, making me chuckle as he kept on whispering in his sleep.
“Stormy,” I murmured, pressing my hand over his, trying to wake him up. “I think we need to wake up.”
“No,” he grunted. “It’s too early.”
“I don’t know about that.” I chuckled. “It’s almost eight in the morning.”
“No.” He burrowed his head in my hair. “I want to stay in bed today.”
