CHAPTER 35
DELILAH
It feltstrange being back at the house. Cain walked right in scouting the area, but I hung back, stuck trying to make myself move away from the opened side door. He’d pulled the van right into the three-car garage, parking it in the empty space.
The scent of disinfectant and bleach hung heavy in the air hitting me like a ton of bricks. Clearly, someone had spent some time cleaning the place up. My feet hit the tile floor and my hand hovered on the doorknob. I should shut it. I should help get set up, but I couldn’t move.
A mix of emotions fought inside me. Excitement. Dread. Nervousness. But worst of all was the way my body felt. It remembered this place and all those horrible memories came flooding back with a vengeance. This time, I chose to use those feelings and not cower from them. Not shrink myself like I was used to. Those memories became a tool buzzing in my veins like a living, breathing weapon that should be feared. I’d been able to heal and morph into something new over these past few weeks. I wasn’t the same woman I was when I lived in this house. That version of me was dead. Now, I felt downright lethal. How fucking crazy was it that this house felt more like a prison to me than when I’d been kidnapped and held captive? I shook my head. And now I was with my captor. By choice.
When I crossed the threshold into the house, I rolled my shoulders to keep from smashing every single thing in there. John loved his expensive possessions, but now he would watch them be destroyed. Just like I would destroy him, and I’d enjoy every fucking second.
We were ready and waiting. Cain had a live feed pulled up on his phone so we would be alerted the moment John was seen leaving the hospital. We’d pulled all the blinds shut so no one could see inside and had the van doors open and waited for when we would extricate him to his beloved church.
In the meantime, we played a game of Uno, which Cain was currently losing.
“Okay, I choose blue!” he exclaimed, setting down a blue eight card on top of my red eight card.
“Uno,” I said, placing down a blue six card.
He groaned, looking at his stack of cards in his hands. There was no way he’d win now.
“Remember if I win, we keep the squirrel,” I said.
“I can’t believe out of all the things you could have asked for, it’s for a menace of a squirrel.”
“Rascal,” I corrected him.
“Now you’re naming him?”
I shrugged, playing with the last card in my hand. “Are you going to play or keep bitching?”
He rolled his eyes then studied his cards. I tried to keep as much of a poker face as I could, but I was so close to winning that I could taste it.
“Has anyone ever told you how ruthless you are?” he asked, waffling between a few cards.
Come on, Cain, give me a red card. Just one red card.
“No, but I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said, watching intently as he finally revealed the card.
A red six.
A wide, cheshire cat smile spread across my face as I laid my last card down.
“I win!”
He tossed his cards on the table and lunged for me. I squealed trying to get away, but he had me pinned. Our gear was in the way, and I couldn’t feel him like I wanted to.
“I fucking love you so much, angel,” he said, hovering above me.
“I fucking love you right back.”
He kissed me, hard, making me wish we didn’t have all these clothes on between us. But then, a loud beeping noise came from his pocket, and he jolted up from me.
My heart began racing for an entirely new reason. John was on his way.
One look at Cain confirmed it.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
