Play with Fire

Chapter 11

Delilah placed the clothes she had gathered into a rucksack and looked around the bedroom. She remembered Jerome mentioning she should look under the bed. She knelt down and lifted the cream sheet from the side of the bed so she could see underneath. She saw a box. She reached in and brought it out, placing it on the bed. Her fingers grasped the handle and she lifted the lid. Inside was a gun, some bullets, and a knife. Her eyes widened. "Why the hell does he need these?" she asked aloud, mostly talking to herself. Sighing, she decided not to question his request and shoved the items into the rucksack, hiding them under the shirt she had also placed inside. She zipped it up and threw it onto her shoulder. She looked around the apartment once more, thinking of anything else he might need. Her eyes landed on a newspaper clipping. She squinted and took a closer look, it was from the local newspaper.

The article told of the discovery of a body in an apartment not too far from where she was. The victim was identified as Paul Cicero. He had been found in his apartment, sat on a chair, he had been stabbed in the eye.

Delilah wondered what significance this had to Jerome. She picked it up.

Images shot into her mind.

"This is Doctor Delilah Smith speaking. The date is the tenth of November 2019. I am situated in lab 306 with patient 826. The patient is able to feel certain parts of his body. On last inspection, the patient could not feel anything on his legs. I am hopeful that this will change in a few days." She pressed the record button to stop the recording. She turned her attention to Jerome. "So," she began, "not only did you kill Mommy, but Daddy also?" she placed her hands on her hips. "Any step parents?" she took his hand and used her other hand to tap his thigh. "Can you feel that?" she felt Jerome squeeze her hand once, after a second. "You were a bit hesitant there. Does that mean... you can only faintly feel it?" she felt another single squeeze. "Well, it's progress." She began to replace the empty drip bag. "You never answered me last night. I'm expecting an answer tonight, got it?"

Delilah rubbed her eyes and yawned. Writing up notes was not her idea of fun. Then again, this job itself didn't present many opportunities for fun. She was so tired at this point that she could hardly read the words in front of her on the paper. She sat back in her chair and pulled her feet up to her chest, resting her chin on her knees.

Then she was hit with a horrible feeling of sadness, grief, anger, disappointment... all in one. A feeling she, unfortunately, was all too familiar with.

Sighing, she opened the top drawer, moving things around until she came across what she was looking for. A photograph in a simple wooden frame. At that moment, she forgot about her work and her current life. She brought the photo close to her. It was her and her two brothers, all together from when they'd gone on the Midwest Roadtrip. Delilah smiled at the happy scene, wishing she could relive it.

But she couldn't. Rhys had hit them with an 18-wheeler. Why? Because he claimed she didn't spend enough time with him as she did with her brothers. Just the mere thought of him and Delilah could feel a sinking feeling of anger returning.

Delilah luckily had a ton of good memories of her brothers. Of course, it wasn't the same thing as having them with her in real life, but... she still couldn't understand how Rhys could've ever done that to her. Did he really believe she'd never have found out? And if she did, did he think she'd have been fine with it?

From that moment, when Rhys tore her brothers away from her, her only living family, she'd been left alone in the world. She'd changed so much from that newly turned adult to the person she was now. To think she was once so weak. She used to have separation anxiety, for god's sakes! Now, she preferred to be alone. Alone, where no one could hurt her or make her feel weak or, quite frankly, annoy her.

She pulled the photo out and felt her lip tremble ever so slightly. She quickly bit down murderously on her lip, blinking angrily. She wasn't going to cry over anything. Not her brothers, not at her stupidity, nothing. "You were a dumbass bitch then and you'll be a dumbass dead bitch, now," she muttered through gritted teeth. She tore the half of the photo with Liam on it off, crumpled it up into a ball and threw it across the room. She placed the remainder of the torn photograph back into its frame and set it on her table.

Delilah looked down to see she was sitting on a slowly turning carousel horse. Looking around, she could see the other stalls of the circus surrounding her and a large number of people bustling about them. Realizing this was a dream, she looked around for Jerome, but she couldn't find him anywhere. There was, however, another figure. The first time she passed it she couldn't identify who it was. The figure gradually began to become clearer to her every time the carousel turned.

The figure was a tall man, dressed in simple jeans and a t-shirt, with a bottle in hand.

She watched as he took a swing from it every now and again.

Once the bottle was empty, he approached the ride.

She counted every step.

He was right beside the carousel.

The man reached out and pulled himself onto the ride.

Delilah jumped off of her horse, not caring that the floor was still moving. She fell to the floor. Her head began to spin even more when she saw the figure, now recognizable as Rhys, standing on the other side of the horse. She scurried back until she came to the edge of the ride. She looked down at the spinning floor. If she were to fall off, she would no doubt have severe injuries. The ride was faster than any she had been on before and honestly, it was borderline scaring her. She turned her head and looked for the figure of her father. It took her no time to find him clambering over the horses to get to her too.

He placed his feet firmly on the ground after swinging his leg over a pink horse. He loomed above her.

Delilah's hand slipped from the edge of the carousel's floor. She whipped it back to her chest when her fingertips caught the ground. She looked down at her fingers, looking in fear at her once perfect nails. They were now chipped and the tips of her fingers, and some were covered in blood. She clutched her hand with the other and looked for another place to go.

She failed to find one.

She watched helplessly as Rhys's feet moved towards her. She spotted another pair of feet beside him. Reeling her foot back to kick at the figure as a last resort, she almost did so, till she realized it was Jerome. In the second she took to process this, he lunged at Rhys with a knife.

The man dropped to the floor, blood spilling onto the surrounding horses.

Her eyes met Jerome's.

He held out a hand. "You do me a favour, I'll do one for you."

Delilah took another look at Rhys's body. After a deep breath, she took his hand.

Just as she stood, Jerome laughed and Delilah looked at him in slight horror as she felt him push her, forcing her off of the carousel.

"Wake up!"

Delilah awoke with the feeling of shock. She felt pain in her hand. She looked down to see her fingernails were chipped, some fingers with dried blood on them.