Page 115 of Deliria

I’ll kill them both, kill my father and my brother. I’ll slaughter them where I find them.

And then she’ll be free. She’ll be done.

She won’t have to sully her hands any further, won’t have to blacken her soul any more.

I’ll save her my way. I’ll stop this before we even have to reach the final scene.

I grab a knife, moving quickly. It already feels like I’m out of time.

I don’t know where they are. If she’s with them. I just know that Ihaveto get to them.

The house feels like it’s alive, breathing, its shadows curling and pulling me in deeper as I race through the hallways. Everyinch of this place reeks of rot—of secrets buried so deep even the walls resent them.

But I don’t care. Not now. Not tonight.

None of it matters tonight. Not my history, not my family. Nothing but her.

I’m going to find her. I’m going to save her.

It ends here. Tonight.

The thought of Scarlett—her face, her voice, the way she looked at me the last time we spoke, fuels every step. I scan each room frantically, feeling every second leaking away.

They have her. My father. My brother.

And if I don’t get to her soon, they’ll break her the way they’ve broken everything else they’ve ever laid their hands on.

Not Scarlett. Not her.

The oak doors groan on their hinges as I shove them open one by one—library, study, dining hall. There’s nothing. Only dead air and the suffocating stench of liquor and smoke, remnants of my father’s obsession with drowning his sins—or maybe just his boredom.

Where are you, Scarlett?

And where the hell is Alexander?

My fists tighten as I move, sweat pooling on my palms, making the handle of the knife slicker, harder to keep a grip of.

My brother doesn’t deserve her. He doesn’t deserve to breathe after what he’s done—after what I know he’s planning to do.

It’s his talent, really; taking, twisting, destroying. And Father? He’s no better. He taught Alexander everything he knows, bred him, moulded him into his own image.

God, they’ve always been alike. Two devils who can’t get enough of their own selfish wants. They’d set the world on fire if it meant warming themselves for a fleeting moment.

But what they don’t realize, what they’ve never been able to realize, is that I’m the thing they should fear. For all their power, for all their sadistic games, I was the one thing they could never fully control.

And now? Now, I’m going to finish what they started.

The faint creak of a floorboard snaps me out of my spiralling thoughts. My head jerks toward the noise, my heart hammering in my chest.

“Scarlett?” I rasp, my voice low and rough as it bounces off the silent walls.

Nothing.

Just the cursed wind.

I press forward, forcing back the rising panic clawing at my insides. Panic won’t help her. Panic is what they want—what they’ve always wanted. To see me unravel, to see me as weak.

But I’m not that boy anymore.

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