She covers her face with her hands, shaking her head. “Please…”
“I won’t be coming back down here again.” I can’t stand to look at her anymore. I have to get out of this cell, away from her, and put this shit show behind me.
Yet even as I step outside and listen to the lock click as it engages, I know it won’t be that easy. Not with the sound of her brokenhearted weeping still ringing in my ears.
35
DELILAH
He didn’t mean it. He’ll be back. That was just another one of his threats, a way of breaking me down so the next time he visits, I’ll do whatever he wants.
And at this point, I will. No matter what it is, I’ll do it. He can take any hole he wants. I’ll grovel, I’ll beg, I’ll lick his shoes if I have to. Anything, so long as this ends. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to stay in this cell by myself, totally disconnected from the rest of the world.
At least I have some water and clean clothes, right? The half-crazed laughter that bubbles out of me at the thought is worrisome. I’m losing it. I’ve tried so hard to hold myself together, but it’s only a matter of time.
I almost wish he would have announced it was time for me to die. It doesn’t matter how strong I am. If he’s leaving me on my own, washing his hands of me, I’m as good as dead anyway. And he knows it. Now, I’ll have the fun of anticipating it.
I’m still betting on Quinton, but who knows? He might decide to outsource. Maybe he’ll enjoy it more if he gets to stand back and watch.
I’m about to fall asleep—it’s the only thing to do around here—when a sudden click from the lock startles me. I sit up, my heart in my throat, hands clasped between my knees to keep them from shaking. Is this it? Is this when it happens?
Or did Lucas decide he hasn’t finished with me after all?
As it turns out, the person who walks through the door is the last person I ever expected to see. “Aspen.”
“Hi,” she murmurs before giving the guard a pointed look. He’s probably my least favorite of all of them, though at least none of them have put a hand on me or threatened me.
He takes her look for what it means and leaves us alone. “So,” I croak once it’s just the two of us, “They sent you to do it? Or did you feel like you deserved to do it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t play with me now, please. Did you come to kill me? If so, I wish you would get it over with.”
“No, I didn’t come to kill you. Why would you even think that?”
“Like I said, I’m not in the mood for games. If you didn’t come here to kill me, what did you come for?”
“I only wanted to know…” She looks at the floor, hair falling on both sides of her face. “I wanted to know why. I never did anything to you. I even lent you my clothes. I tried to be your friend. I saved your life.”
So this is it. She wants a little closure before I’m gone. Because everything is about her, isn’t it? As always. “You really don’t know? Have you already forgotten what you did?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Nash. I’m talking about Nash.”
Her head snaps up, eyes wide, and now a flush creeps up her neck. “I was defending myself.”
“It took you that many stab wounds to defend yourself? From what I heard, it was overkill.”
“He was going to rape me.”
I want to flinch away from her ugly words. Instead, all I do is scoff. “Says you. Isn’t that convenient since he can’t defend himself now?”
“Maybe you didn’t know him like I did. He hated me. There was some sick, twisted thing in his head, and he turned it against me. After that night, he taunted me. Even though he wasn’t in the video, he knew about it. Because he was there, he took the video.”
Nash was fucked up, far beyond any help, but he was all I had. The only person who seemed to give a shit about me.
“Of course he did. And when you snapped, as you say, you took away the only person who ever gave a shit about me.” I hate the way my chin quivers, but I can’t help it. Even now, after all this time, the pain is so fresh. “Did you know we were going to be married? I was finally going to have a life.”
“I didn’t know that,” she whispers.
“Nobody ever cared about me. I was forgotten. I was shunned by my own family. He was the one person who ever took an interest. He was going to be my husband. Now I have nobody, and you have everything. So yeah, I set you up because you killed the only person I ever loved.”