Page 131 of Delirium
“Maya,” Kieran growled.
“I’m sorry, Storm. You’re on speakerphone,” Cillian murmured, while Maya and Kieran fought in the background. “I’ll come to Santa Monica today. We need to get this—”
“Oh, no no no,” Maya interrupted. “We’re all coming to Santa Monica, and you better pray that bitch is still there. I always hated her guts.”
“That’s my sister you’re talking about!” Kieran thundered.
“And she’s trying to hurt my sister!” Maya replied. “Don’t fucking stand there with that look in your eyes, Kieran. She’s trying to hurt my family, my blood, and she’s going to pay.”
This was bad. This was so fucking bad, and no matter what she did, I knew that Cillian and Kieran wouldn’t be able to stay objective. This was their baby sister—the sister they thought was dead. I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea to have them involved in this.
“Kill,” I murmured. “Are you sure it’s a good idea for you guys to be involved? I mean, I’m going to go and find Ophelia and we will make a plan, but—”
“I’m sure, Storm. Ophelia is like a sister to me. Ava… I have no idea what happened or why she’s doing all of this, but it isn’t right. None of this is right, and Tristan…” his voice broke as he mentioned his brother’s name.
“We’re coming,” Maya announced. “Find her, Storm. Find Ophelia,” she practically ordered before dropping the line.
I sat on top of my bike, staring at my phone, trying to understand what had just happened. Ava was Belladonna. Ava, the girl Ophelia mourned and tried to help before that. Ava, the girl the Nightingales wanted to go to war for.
My God.
“What’s happening?” Atlas asked, sitting on his bike beside mine, his helmet on his head, ready to leave.
“We know who Belladonna is,” I whispered, almost in a trance. “We don’t know why she’s doing this, but we know her identity.”
“Who?”
“Ava.” I looked at him, putting my phone in my pocket. “Ava Nightingale, the dead girl.”
“Wait.” His eyes widened. “What? I thought—”
“That she was dead? Yeah, so did the rest of us. But there’s more, Atlas.”
“What more could there be, man? The dead girl is not so dead, and she’s trying to hurt Ophelia. I think that’s enough.”
“Tristan is working with her.”
“Tristan? Cillian and Kieran’s brother, Tristan?”
“Yeah, that one. He’s been feeding her information, telling her everything about us. I’m pretty sure he’s the reason why it seemed as if Belladonna was three steps ahead of us at all times.”
“Fuck,” he mumbled. “So what—”
My phone suddenly started ringing again, and I pulled it out, relieved seeing Zoe’s name.
“Zozo, where the fuck are y—”
“Storm,” she cut me off, her voice wobbling, barely a whisper. “They got her,” she cried. “They got Ophelia.”
The sledgehammer came back in the full force, hitting me from all sides, rendering me speechless. They got her, she said. They took my Sunshine. They took her.
The phone slipped from my hand as I climbed off of the bike, looking at the ground as the war waged inside my chest, anger I had never felt before brewing, threatening to spill into reality.
Like in a haze, I saw Atlas picking up my phone, talking to Zoe, his lips moving, but I couldn’t hear the words that came out. I couldn’t listen, couldn’t comprehend how this could be happening.
She was gone. Gone from me. They took her.
Atlas came to me, standing in front of my body, but I still couldn’t hear a word he said. The buzzing noise in my ears silenced everything else around me. All I could hear, all I could even see, was Ophelia’s laughter, her brilliant blue eyes, the happiness we felt for the last three months.
