Page 139 of Deliria

My focus is a laser, locked on the massive double doors at the end of the hall.

The ballroom.

I know that’s where she is. Wherehe’sholding her captive.

The music grows louder with every step, a grotesque waltz that seems to mock the chaos surrounding us. My lungs burn, but I push harder, faster.

Scarlett is in there.

All this blood, all this noise, it’s nothing if I can’t reach her in time.

Lionel keeps pace with unnerving ease, his movements as precise as a surgeon’s. I almost hate him for it, for the way he seems unbothered, untouchable, while I feel like I’m coming apart at the seams.

Is he incapable of emotion? Is he that devoid of any form of fear?

He doesn’t look my way when he speaks again, his voice a knife’s edge of warning. “The moment we step through those doors, everything changes.”

I ignore him. It’s already been changed. “Save the philosophy for later.”

His silence is damning, but I don’t stop.

We reach the doors, and I swear the sound of my heartbeat is louder than the music now, a frantic drumbeat in my ears. My hand trembles as I grip one of the handles, but I steady myself with a sharp inhale.

What awful things am I going to see when we open them? What horrific scene is waiting for us, just the other side?

Lionel steps beside me, his hand covering the other handle. For a second, we’re both still, breathing hard, our bodies coiled like springs. “Ready?” he asks, his voice almost casual.

I glare at him. “No. Are you?”

He smirks. “Always.”

With that, we push the doors open, and the air inside slams into me like a physical force. Hot, thick, alive with an unnatural energy.

The ballroom is a gilded nightmare, a cruel parody of elegance.

Chandeliers drip with crystal, throwing fractured rainbows across the polished marble floor, but the light feels wrong, too bright, too sharp. Everything is wrong. The air tastes like salt and copper, the metallic tang of blood.

And in the centre of it all is Scarlett.

I stop dead in my tracks. My knees almost give out, but I force myself to stay upright because she needs me. She’s on the floor, sprawled out, held in place by a bunch of men.

And she’s naked. Completely and utterly naked.

Her blonde hair is tangled like a crown of thorns around her pale face.

Alexander looms above her, his hand gripping her chin so tightly that she can’t move while another man was clearly fucking her just moments ago.

My throat burns with the scream clawing to escape, but no sound comes out.

My vision tunnels, the edges darkened by the rage flooding every cell in my body. But before I can take one unsteady step forward, Lionel moves, fast as a viper.

The gunshot shatters the moment. Only, it’s not aimed at Alexander. Instead, it goes up.

Lionel’s bullet punches through the room’s great Tiffany skylight, a massive, intricate piece of art.

The sound reverberates, silencing the music and halting every figure in the room mid-motion. For one frozen second, no one breathes.

Then the glass gives way.

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