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“I found her foster brother in her room, that’s true. But I went in then because I heard his scream. Aurora had already killed him.”
“I wasn’t the only one who came running. I found myself facing Aurora’s foster mother. Aurora was crying, waving this bloody knife—sending blood flying everywhere—” he tutted disapprovingly. “And she told me how awful her stepmother had been. Aurora was a mess, crying and wild and desperate. And then…a switch flipped.”
He didn’t hide the pride in his voice.
“I would have killed the woman, of course. She was witness to the second birth of my Delilah, and besides that, she deserved to die. But I wasn’t the one who killed her.”
The room was stunned and silent. I looked around at the faces of Pax, Stellan, and Nina. Did they believe this story?
“You think Aurora is yours,” the Demon went on, his voice boasting. “But she’s always my Delilah.”
Photos and videos began to play in a loop then. Blood-splattered crime scenes, starting with that first one in Aurora’s bedroom. Aurora smiling in school photos. A video of Aurora holding a scalpel where I couldn’t read her face. A photo of the Demon and Aurora dressed for a father-daughter dance.
“Tell me why you left her,” I demanded, looking at Nina. Then, as a full picture rose in my mind, I corrected, “Tell me why you were afraid of her.”
Something had triggered Nina’s abandonment.
“I wish you knew what she was like as a child,” she whispered. “Aurora was never…the typical psychopathic kid who hurts animals and wets the bed. She was different. Sometimes it was like…two people in one body.”
“You know what I said about how she wasn’t the kind of kid who hurt animals? Once, when we lived in this shitty apartment, we saw two of the neighbor kids drowning kittens in a bucket. I yelled at them and they ran away. Delilah and I tried to save the last kitten, but we couldn’t. She held it to her chest,” Nina clasped her hands against her chest, unconsciously mimicking Aurora, a faraway look on her face. “And she was just crying and crying. She was so sweet.”
“So what happened?” I demanded.
“About a week later, the two kids disappeared,” she said. “I took Delilah with me and we went out and joined the search party. But they didn’t find them until…later.”
“Where were they?”
“The police said it was a tragic accident. They couldn’t swim, and they had drowned in the lake.” She had a faraway look in her eyes. “But I had caught Aurora playing with them that week. I’d asked why—she knew they were bad kids, and she’d been so sad about the kittens. She wouldn’t tell me why she’d wanted to play with them.”
Then she added, “But once they found the bodies, I knew.”
“So she needed you,” I said. “She’d seen things a kid shouldn’t, and it turned her into someone else…that didn’t make her bad.”
“I just…started to feel nervous when I had to scold her. There were little moments when she thought things were unfair, when I saw that blank look in her eyes that she had when I tried to talk to her about if she’d gone to the lake with those kids. She led them there…I’m sure of it.”
“And all the while, the Demon was killing women who looked like me. I had to get away from him. It would’ve been easier to disappear and start a new life on my own…and yes, before you say it, I thought about the Demon finding Aurora. But I didn’t think he would! I thought she’d have a chance to have a new life with a family who had the resources to take care of her, instead of a single mother who was never around while she murdered other children!”
“You thought the foster care system was going to give Aurora a better life?” Pax asked in disbelief. “I have some serious misgivings about your ability to pull the sheets over your head.”
“I thought he would leave her alone and I’d finally be able to sleep at night! He’s a psychopath. What kind of psychopath wants to raise a child?”
“A psychopath who wants to make a child just like him,” I pointed out.
She shook her head, but she was crying. “Don’t you see why I did it, why I abandoned her?”
“Here’s what I think,” I said slowly. “The Aurora I know would absolutely hurt someone who hurt the innocent, but she wouldn’t hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. So what did you do to her?”
“Now you’re blaming me?”
“I think there’s more to the story than you’re telling us. What kind of woman abandons her kid?” Pain flashed across Stellan’s face. He had been abandoned by his mother too in a different way.
She shook her head. “I want to see the best in Delilah, too. If you’re right, if you changed her…you make her better… you can save her from herself.”
“Aurora can save herself,” I disagreed.
Then I realized the Demon had said the same thing.
23
