Page 140 of Deliria

It shatters.

Shards cascade down like deadly jewels, catching the garish light in fragments of ruby, sapphire, and emerald. Chaos erupts. People scream, diving for cover, and Alexander’s grip on Scarlett slackens as he instinctively shields his face.

In a flash, Scarlett is up, on her feet. I see the movement as if in slow motion. See as she picks up a piece of jagged blue glass, the fragment is almost the length of her entire arm. And with deadly accuracy she drives it into the throat of the man who was just raping her. Impales it right in his Adam’s apple.

He splutters. He coughs. Blood seems to explode from the wound, covering him, covering her.

And that’s all the opening I need.

I run.

Lionel’s shouting something behind me, but his words are muffled under the pounding of my pulse, the roar of desperation in my ears. I barely feel my legs moving, but suddenly I’m there, slamming into Alexander with the full weight of my body. He stumbles back, losing his grasp on Scarlett entirely, and we bothhit the floor hard. My knees crash against marble, sending a jolt of pain up to my spine, but I don’t care. I lunge at him.

I don’t see his face anymore, just a blur of sickening confidence replaced by something I’ve longed to destroy. My fists find his jaw, his ribs, any part of him I can reach. There’s a cracking noise; bone, maybe his nose, but it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.

The rage in me is endless, bottomless, and for a fleeting moment, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to stop even after he’s unrecognizable.

Scarlett’s voice cuts through the red haze.

“Rafe.”

It’s broken and small, but it’s her. Her voice sounds nothing like the haunted cries I heard in the dungeon, all shadowed hallucinations compared to the rawness in this single word. My movements falter, Alexander’s blood slicking my knuckles as I lower my hand.

In that instant, Alexander twists beneath me, his knee driving up into my stomach with a bruising force that knocks the wind out of me. I grunt as my breath feels like it’s been stolen from my lungs, and roll off him, clutching my abdomen for a fleeting second that feels too long.

Alexander scrambles backward, a guttural snarl escaping his lips, blood streaming down his face from where I split his brow. His eyes burn with a manic hatred that’s too familiar; it’s a fire I’ve seen before, in the smirking devil who orchestrated this nightmare.

A gunshot rings out again, and I instinctively flinch. My body feels torn between shielding Scarlett and searching for its source. But it’s Lionel. Of course, it’s fucking Lionel. The older man stands at the edge of the chaos he’s created, quiet and composed despite the riot of screams echoing through the ballroom. His gun is raised, smoke curling from the barrel, andthe body of one of Alexander’s goons lies in a heap near the doorway. Lionel’s eyes meet mine briefly beneath the fractured light of the shattered skylight.

“Hurry up,” he snaps. No sympathy, no concern for the carnage surrounding us. Just urgency, razor-sharp and demanding.

I roll to my feet, the taste of blood metallic in my mouth as I force my legs to steady beneath me. My body protests every movement, a chorus of aches and burning muscles, but I don’t care.

Scarlett. Scarlett’s all that matters.

Scarlett

“Daddy?”

My voice wavers, it sounds so small.

But I am not small. I am not weak.

Even after all they’ve done to me, they cannot break who I am, because I refuse to let these arseholes come out on top.

I force myself to stand. The cold air swirls round my naked skin and though I should feel shame at being exposed, I don’t. I’m a warrior. A fighter. I’m no longer the invalid wife, or the drugged-up victim I’ve pretended to be.

I draw in a deep breath, taking one step as the broken glass digs into my heel, but I don’t feel it.

I’m not numb anymore. I’m not empty. I’m not broken or any of those things.

I’m a goddamn avenging angel. I’m the stuff of nightmares. Of Horrors.

I bend down, my lips twisting into a crooked smile with the way my jaw is hanging, and I snatch at a jagged piece of glass that more resembles a blade than a piece of the window.

It slices through my hand as I hold it, blood trickling between the cool surface and my palm but my grip is firm, and I show no pain on my face.

Rage.

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