Page 140 of Injustice and Absolution

What the fuck am I doing?

I feel like I’ve lost my goddamn mind. This is why I was trying to keep my distance from Delilah … so I wouldn’t make a rash decision that would drastically derail her healing process.

But I fucking snapped.

It's been a week since she woke up. Other than the shrill scream I received when I came to see her that first night, she hasn't uttered a single sound. Maggie’s been taking care of her, seeing to it that she’s eating and bathing on a schedule. Other than that, she doesn’t fucking move.

Well, that fucking ends now.

Does she expect to live out the rest of her days with someone else running her life? We didn’t just rescue her from that psycho, only for her to give up and fall back into the same toxic routine.The sooner she realizes her nightmare is over, the sooner she can get back to her life.

Back to me.

It’s abhorrently selfish of me to terrify her out of her suffering like this.

But I don't give a flying fuck—not a single one.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I refuse to allow her to wallow in pity and self-loathing for months on end like she did when she was fifteen. She's not a kid anymore.

She screams as I pull her to the end of the bed. I lean over her so there’s no chance she can miss the severity in my stare.

“You want someone to tell you what to do every day? Lie there and take it? Be miserable for the rest of your life? Fine. I can inflict more misery on you than you’ve ever felt.”

Until my eyes landed on it, I had no idea this rope was in the closet. Actually, I didn’t know what I was going to do with her until I saw it. Then it hit me.

One of my dumbest ideas yet.

“No!” Delilah screams, as I begin to wrap her ankle in the rope. Begging as tears flood her delicious, chocolate eyes. “Stop, please!”

She kicks her ankle out of my grip, and I cup her flying limb in my hand before it connects with my face.

“I won't stop, Delilah!” I shout. “Where you’re concerned, I’ll never fucking stop.”

“Please let me go!” She sobs as she pulls her legs away from me again, curling them underneath her as she rises off the bed and onto her elbows.

Her plea causes something inside of me to break.

The barrier that’s been deflecting other’s emotions my entire life—the same one keeping my emotions from escaping—incinerates the moment she begs me to let her go.

“No, Delilah. I’ll do anything you ask of me …fucking anything...” I grip my aching chest involuntarily, my breathing feverish, pledging my oath to her with a raspy croak. “I’ll walk through fire for you. I’ll kill for you. I’ll fucking die for you. But the one thing I’ll never be able to do—ever again—is let you go.”

My words put an end to her fight, and I drop the rope to the ground. Gripping her waist, I pull her into a sitting position as I fall to my knees at the foot of the bed. Her tears have slowed, and I no longer see fear in her eyes. Only pain.

“I don't want to keep you here as my prisoner. I want you out in the world, kitten. Living. Blossoming. Thriving. I want you to fight like hell to take your life back. And I want to be the one by your side while you do it. I want to wash away the pain in your eyes. The darkness in your soul. I want to cleanse you of every wrong I, and anyone else, have ever done to you.”

As I prepare to state the words I've never said to anyone else, I put my own worries aside and squash myfear. This girl... ThiswomanI've craved, wanted, and needed for so long, deserves to hear them.

“Delilah, I—”

“No...” she cuts me off, placing her hand at my lips before I can tell her I love her. “Please don’t finish that sentence...”

I swallow, preparing to deny her insistence to walk out of my life, when she drops her hand and continues.

“My father told me helovedme. But he also beat me. Raped me.” She rises to her knees, disgust blazing in her stare. “Drew told me helovedme. He also assaulted me. He groomed and manipulated me. Attempted to traffick me.”

She licks her lips, and when she speaks again, her voice is thick with a renewed conviction.

“Those three words mean something to me, Royce. But it’s not anything good. They’re tainted. Evil. And I can’t bear to hear them on your tongue.”

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