Page 72 of Deviant Illusions

The multiple layers of socks help mute my steps against the tile and diminish the harshness of the hard floor as I run with Kane hissing behind me, “Delilah, stop.”

The vines squeezing through the cracks in the windows get denser as I pass the staircase. He thunders behind me as I run in zig-zag lines to avoid the thick, prickly vines crawling along the tile. My hair whips my back and nape. Little pricks of pain erupt on the back of my thighs, stinging as my sweats rub against them, but I keep running. Away. Away from them. Away from everyone. Away from myself.

“Delilah,” he snaps as his fingers brush my hair, but he doesn’t pull me back. I run faster. My legs pump and my chest heaves as the atrium narrows. We’re right on the edge. I push my body to move faster as the glass wall gets closer to my shoulder. The other wall is stone so there must be something behind it—freedom, air, or death. I’ll take any of them.

Both the glass and the stone curve, leading to a large wooden door. There’s no padlock. Fucking freedom. I’ll leave, find Scarlet, and get away from everyone. Ruby is stuck in this shit, and she won’t be able to help me. But Scarlet will. She was always the more stubborn one and she never allowed anyone to tell her what to do.

“Where the fuck are you going?” Kane asks to my back as I reach the door.

Turning to look at him over my shoulder, I press down on the rusted handle and breathlessly say, “Away.”

His steps slow and his breathing is harsh as the sound of the water comes through the open door. Light filters through the gap and he quickly looks over his shoulder before he runs at me. “Fuck, quick, go.”

I run out of the door, away from him, but he’s faster. My momentum has been broken and I can’t stop him as he grabs my hand. But I’m not pulled backwards or dragged into that fuckingmisery. Instead, he threads his fingers through mine and pulls mewithhim. Forward.

His hair blows in the breeze, and he smiles at me. The Kane smile. “Come on, my pretty girl.”

The rocky surface crumbles under our feet as we race to the other side of the large, walled courtyard. A wrought iron gate is the only thing between us and being able to disappear. I’m too busy staring at his profile, at the real Kane who’s holding my hand while we get away from everyone, that I stumble when he roughly yanks on my arm to pull me in front of him. He slows just enough to pick me up and the air is knocked out of me as he cradles me to his chest.

“Hold on to me,” he rushes out. I immediately wrap my limbs around him.

Burying my nose in his neck, I inhale him. This version of him anyway. The one that’s helping me and isn’t being cruel because it’s the last morsel of care I’ll be shown.

The gate creaks as he roughly pulls it open. I’m jolted away from his chest as he curses, “Fuck!”

He nearly falls forward, so I hold him even tighter. His arm is bent behind him, fingers wrapped around one of the bars of the gate. The water is louder, and I slowly turn my head to see that weareon the edge. Little rocks fall from the surface right beside his foot. His socks are covered in a mixture of mud and sand, but he slowly looks at me with so much hurt on his face that it adds to my confusion.

“Drop me,” I whisper.

My arms loosen and his face falls as he whips his free hand out to hold the back of my head. My legs are locked around his waist, begging him to do it now where I have a choice. I don’t want to die, but when he pushes me off him, at least I’ll know that my final choice in life was to allow him to do it.

“Do it,” I urge. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”

I’m sure he stops breathing and his eyes turn red. It’s another thing that’s fake.

“Do it,” I grit.

He slowly shakes his head and I hold his shoulders as I unwind my legs from his waist. I misjudge the edge and one foot slams against it while the other pulls back into open air. We both nearly topple over as he lets go of the gate to wrap both arms around me, but he pulls me into his chest. His heartbeat rivals the waves roaring below us.

“No,” he snaps. “I’m not fucking killing you.”

I hold his sides and force my tears back because he doesn’t get to know he’s broken me. I had one thing left to myself. One thing that no one could take away, but he managed it. My parents, Asher, everyone, tried to make me hate Kane. To see him as something lesser or weak. I never did. But he’s fucking ruined it. The only good thing I had in my life was that Kane loved me, that he cared about me, and he would never hurt me. Now all I have are his promises of the opposite.

Gripping my biceps, he steps back and my body shakes as he tenses and his voice comes out panicked.

“You said not to leave you, so you don’t get to fucking leave me. I’m going to make it right and I can’t do that if you’re not here. So stay; hate me and fucking stay.”

“You said you’re leaving, and you hurt me.”

I sound weak and pathetic. Iamweak and pathetic, begging a fucking asshole who fabricated an entire life and hid his identity just so he could torture me. I don’t even understand how he did it when there are memories of Asher and Ghost being in the same space. He was there when I was speaking to Asher on the phone. Asher was lying beside me when he broke in. The dead body was real.

My blood freezes in my veins at the realization and my bottom lip trembles as I whisper, “He lived, didn’t he?”

A crease forms between Kane’s brows. Or Asher. Is he Asher pretending to be Kane? That makes more sense. That way Kane is still protected. My memories of the boy who loved me are intact.

I lose the battle with my tears as my stomach convulses on a sob. My knees turn weak, and I crumble. Everything falls and he—Asher, Kane, Ghost, whoever the fuck he is—lowers with me.

“Who lived? Your baby? You had a boy?”

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