"You better start explaining yourself. Fast."
"I got out of prison only a few months ago. They threatened me, Delilah. And they threatened you. The day they took me to my cell, two guys jumped me, and threw some kind of chemical on me, doing this to my face," he said, ripping off the mask for me to see. Hegestured at the marred parts of his skin. It was red and jagged. Puckering in places that made it look painful, but it was still him. He was still the same Cain I'd fallen for at Kingston.
"Is that why you hid it from me? You were ashamed of how you looked?"
"Partly," his shoulders were so tight, and his face was pulled in agony. Those green eyes of his peered down at me. All I saw was pain staring back at me. I'd thought of that day so many times. Gone over what I could have done or said differently. I always came back to the same conclusion— they would have done this to us regardless of anything I said or did.
“What’s the other part?”
“The other part is that when you finally saw me, I didn’t know if you’d be too mad at me for not saving you sooner. And if you tried to leave, you’d end up right back there. With those fucking people hurting you.”
My eyes shone and lips trembled.
“Cain. It was never your responsibility to save me. Those people, what they did to us—” I shook my head. “There was nothing we could do. It wasn’t your fault what happened. And it wasn’t mine.”
He nodded his head slowly like he knew what I was saying was true, but it didn’t erase the years of guilt and trauma that we’d endured. I know I felt my fair share of it.
Thunder rolled through my room again and I flinched as he went to step closer to me.
His face looked pained at my response, “Sorry, it’s not. I’m not flinching because of you. It’s… hard to explain, I just am so used to not feeling safe. Especially during storms.”
“Do you want to tell me?”
Did I? The only other person that knew even a sliver of what I’d gone through was Margot, and even then, I hadn’t disclosed just how bad things were. Cain had been there at the beginning. He knew what we went through at that school. But I hadn’t been able to really talk to anyone about it.
So, I found myself curled up in Cain’s arms telling him about the last five years of my life. Words poured out of me like they’d beenwaiting for him. From the unwanted wedding, to the miscarriage, to the sleepless nights, and hospital stays that left my body a broken mess. I told him everything.
Through it all, he held me and listened. Not interrupting once. He took it all in, jaw twitching with each new piece of information, until I was spent from speaking. I don’t even know how long it took, but it felt like hours.
“He’s still alive,” he said, chest rumbling against my head. I looked up at him with bleary eyes, feeling tired and swollen from all the crying I had done.
“And they think you tried to kill him,” he said, and my mouth dropped.
“They always blame the spouse,” I murmured. “That’s why I never did anything before. I wanted to. I thought about it. Fantasized, really how I would do it.”
“How would you do it?” he asked, wiping a rouge tear off my splotchy cheek.
I thought about it for a second, filtering through all the ways I’d pictured it.
“If there was a way that I could do it without getting caught, I’d want to have him tied down and gagged. I’d want to have him listen to every vile thing he’d ever put me through and know it was his own actions that led him to his demise. And then I’d want to cut his cock off and feed it to him until he choked on it.”
“Death by dick,” he said, with a chuckle.
“That’s right,” I said back, with a sleepy smile. It felt so unreal to be here with him like this. Him holding me. We haven’t even discussed what came next yet, and I hadn’t decided if I forgave him yet for kidnapping me.
“What do you say we make that happen?” he asked.
“What? Killing my husband?”
He nodded. “I was planning on it anyway, but your way sounds a lot more creative than mine.”
“Are you serious?” I pushed off him and stood up, beginning to pace the room. All the tiredness zapped away from my body as hecasually discussed murder like we were picking what toppings to order on a pizza.
One look at him, and I knew the answer to my question. Hewasserious. And for some reason I wasn’t morally opposed to the idea. After this was all over, I should probably get my head examined.
“Think about it, Delilah. Being able to make him pay for what he’s done to you. Aren’t you tired of seeing him get away with it? With him being allowed to not only harm you but those kids at that fucking school?”
He had a point. It wasn’t just about me. It was the countless others who’d been made to suffer at his hands. Cain, me, the kids at Kingston. We were all victims.
