Page 129 of Delirium
“Ophelia!” Zoe cried out, followed by a loud thump. I turned around, seeing her lifeless body on the ground.
“No, no, no,” I cried, tears streaming down my face. “Zoe.” I rushed toward her, but I didn’t get far as a strong pair of hands wrapped around my arms, holding me still.
I thrashed and tried hitting him with the back of my head, but there was no use. He was stronger than me, more agile at the moment.
I’m so sorry, Storm, I told myself, hoping he would be okay. I knew this was the end. The end of me, of us, of our kids. She, fucking Belladonna, had fucking won.
“We finally have you.” The man in front of me chuckled darkly, approaching me with a syringe in his hand. My eyes lowered down, looking at the object, while the fear coursed through my bloodstream, rendering me speechless.
But I wasn’t going down without a fight. I wasn’t about to let them take me and my kids without at least trying.
The man came closer, his brown eyes filled with venom. Just as he came within reach of me, I kicked out with my right leg, hitting his crotch, earning a pain-filled grunt from him.
He crouched down, holding his fucking balls with one hand while the other one still clung to that syringe.
Think, Ophelia. Think. What can you do right now? What can you do?
But I didn’t have time to think, because the man who was standing behind the van stepped forward, taking the syringe from the motherfucker who had approached me first, and without preamble, came to the side of me, laughing darkly at my face.
“This is going to hurt, bitch,” he said gleefully, pushing my head to the side, exposing my neck. Within seconds, he stabbed me with the needle, pushing into me whatever the fuck it was.
“No,” I moaned, trying to get free. “Please. My kids.”
“They’re not yours.” The one holding me chuckled. “Not anymore.”
I opened my mouth to deny it, to say something, to scream, to yell, to call out for help, but my tongue was weighed down, my teeth tingling and my eyelids heavy.
“W-hat ha-ve yo-u d-done?” I slurred, but I never heard their answer.
The darkness slowly beckoned me into its embrace, and before I could even think about fighting it, I was falling, my mind shutting down.
Storm, I thought to myself before getting lost in the hollow void of darkness.
* * *
Storm
Something was wrong.
Something was terribly wrong, and as I kept pacing from one side of the living room to the other, the gnawing worry in my gut just kept increasing, telling me to go to the mall, to find her myself. Ophelia wasn’t answering her phone, and neither was Zoe. I knew I should have listened to my gut when she demanded to go alone with Zoe.
I shouldn’t have let her. Fuck. I should have gone with her.
“Calm down, Storm,” Atlas said from the other side of the room, trying to call Zoe’s phone. I knew what the result would be—a big, fat nothing.
They weren’t reachable and the mere idea that something had happened to Ophelia felt like a gut punch, as if a sledgehammer hit in the middle of my chest.
“I can’t,” I grunted, dialing Ophelia’s number again. “I can’t fucking calm down.”
It kept ringing, and ringing, and ringing until her voice came through the line, indicating that the call was going to the voicemail.
“Something’s wrong, Atlas,” I said, looking down at my phone, as if I could make her call me. “Something is terribly wrong. I just know it.”
“Storm.” He came closer to me, clasping my shoulder with his hand. “Maybe they’re in the tunnel, or something.”
“How many tunnels do we have around here, Atlas?” I growled, irritated beyond measure. I knew he was trying to reason with me, to calm me down, but it wasn’t helping. If anything, it was just making things worse. “It’s impossible that both of them aren’t answering. Absolutely impossible. It’s been three hours since we last spoke, and I am telling you again… Something. Is. Wrong.”
“Okay, okay,” he relented. “We’ll go to the mall then. Get your keys, and we’ll drive there. But I’m sure they’re just having too much fun.”
