Page 94 of Deviant Illusions

I don’t know if I can trust what the bitch said about Delilah’s baby or whether I’m a product of biological incest. I don’t even fucking know if it’s still incest if they only provided their DNA for my mom to have a child. It wasn’t a secret that they got fertility treatment since Asher found the paperwork?—

Fuck, did he know? Is that why he was always such a dick to our dad, and he’d call him weak, pathetic, any other word he could come up with?

Because he wasn’t our dad. He was the man who raised us while the identical copy of our actual father encroached on our lives.

I wish they were alive so I could ask them, to get clarity on what the fuck is happening. Is this how I made Delilah feel? Constant confusion and unable to trust myself?

Fuck! I locked her outside of the window and the wind is picking up. She’ll be cold and she better not have fallen, or I’ll kill her myself.

I leave the creepy room to go back to the kitchen as Helene walks her sex slave into the piano room. She pauses at the doorway and says, “Our walls have eyes and ears. Bring your wife inside.”

“She disobeyed me,” I lie. “That’s her punishment.”

Her eyes narrow, assessing me. “Do not lie. You wouldn’t harm her without a mask. If that’s what you need, you’ll find an array of them in the kitchen. Make me proud, sweet boy. It would be a shame if I had to find entertainment elsewhere.”

I look down at the person on all fours with their hair in Helene’s hand like a leash. Is she fuck forcing my wife into that role? Delilah will only ever crawl, breathe, live, for me. No one fucking else.

41

DELILAH

There’s something peaceful about one wrong move killing you, so you’re forced to remain still. It allows me to reflect on everything that’s happened, and I can finally breathe.

I’m not crazy. My parents are liars. They made me think I was because I was right about everything. I worked it out and that’s why they sent me to that godforsaken hospital.

I’m not crazy. Kane is and he made me think Asher was alive because he’s an idiot who didn’t take two seconds to think through the facts. If he did, he would have come to the same conclusion I did. If he did, he would have known that our parents are fucked up and that I saved him.

I’m not crazy yet…I don’t feel sane. Do crazy people feel crazy? I always felt like I wasn’t while everyone shouted the opposite. Maybe that means I am.

I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting on this ledge, but the sun has moved, the warmth muted with the waves crashing together below me, enticing me closer. My emotions feel like that—angry, volatile, erratic—and I don’t know how to balance them. All these years, I’ve buried everything. Constantly runningfrom my thoughts, the phantom of my parents’ influence re-entering my life, then from myself. In the end, I don’t even know who I am anymore.

But I know that whoever I am is numb. So desensitized to everything around me that I don’t even flinch as the drapes are pulled back. Kane unlocks the window, then climbs out like his back isn’t raw and red. He pulls the drape over the window opening as he reaches out for me with his other arm, incapable of spending a second without controlling me.

The numbness is nice, so I don’t stop him as he places me between his thighs. Or when he wraps both arms around me. “We need to talk.”

I should react to that, yet I just hum.

“Delilah,” he whispers as he places his chin on my shoulder, “when we go back into that room I need you to hate me. I need you to fight me and I need you to know that whatever I do, I’m doing it to protect you.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.” He tightens his arms around me. “It’ll be a game.”

“Okay,” I repeat again.

We sit there, me numb and Kane tense, just staring at the water. I wonder if it would hurt to fall. Every other fall in my life didn’t hurt and I never felt it.

I fell in love with Kane, it felt amazing.

I fell in love with Asher, it was too orchestrated.

I fell into my mind, becoming numb.

But if I fell from this ledge, would it hurt? Would I feel the impact of my body hitting the rocks? Or would it be the same as the other times I’ve fallen and the pain would only come after? But if I do fall from here, there won’t be an after. I’ll be dead. The dead aren’t cursed with feeling so that may be the only fall that doesn’t harm me.

Kane strokes down my thigh as he leans back, taking something out of his pocket. The spark of a lighter makes me move and I tilt my head to watch the flames dance as he brings it to the tip of the cigarette between his lips. I still can’t get over the sight of him smoking, but he’s notmyKane.

He has tattoos and he smokes.

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