Play with Fire

Chapter 15

Delilah ran down the stairs and stepped outside. She had made a quick trip to her patient's apartment to retrieve the bolt cutters. She still couldn't understand how someone could live with the mess. She shivered when the wind caught her as it was particularly cold today. The sooner she got back to the facility, the better. As she was walking to the bus stop, her phone rang. She took it out of her pocket and looked at the screen.

Unknown Number.

Curiosity guided her finger to press accept. She brought the phone to her ear, waiting wordlessly.

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"Hello?" she finally asked.

A male voice came over the phone. "Lilah, you know you're my favorite sister, right?" A voice asked. "No, she's my favorite!"

Delilah froze. She recognized the voice.

Her brothers.

Her eyes widened, her breath hitched, she swore she felt her heart stop. Was that... a recording? "You're a fucking sick, you psychopath!" the doctor tried to hide the shake in her voice. "You're so unbelievably sick, you know that?"

"I'm not going to stop, Delilah."

"Yes, you are!" she gritted her teeth. "And I'm going to make sure you do!" she held the phone over a drain and let go, watching it drop into the water below.

Delilah threw the bag onto her bed and sat down beside it. She looked up, catching herself in the mirror across her bed, and god, she looked like a mess. Trying her best to avoid looking at the photograph of her brothers and her, she focused her attention on her hair, detangling the curls as best as she could. The wind had done quite a number it seemed like.

Sighing, she let it go after a minute, having managed to fix most of it, but it still looked messy. And paired with her slightly messed up mascara, she looked rough.

And then somehow the photo frame she'd tried so hard to ignore was in her hand and she was doing her best not to cry. She was usually pretty good at bottling up her feelings, and her father had convinced her from childhood that crying was just a way to get attention and was useless. So, she resorted to holding her breath and clenching her teeth.

When she finally calmed down a little, she pulled her hair back from her face with her free hand, trying to stabilize her breath. God, she could kill Rhys herself at this point.

Just then, she heard faint footsteps stop at her door. She looked up to the doorway to see Jerome standing there.

He steadied himself with one hand on the door frame.

"Holy shit," she gasped. She looked him up and down. "You...you can walk?"

Jerome didn't reply to her question. "What happened?" he asked. His voice was a little clearer and stronger than the day before.

"I-nothing really. Rhys was just being an annoying son-of-a-bitch." After a minute of silence, Delilah remembered Jerome shouldn't've been walking. "You should sit down. You shouldn't be standing up this early, let alone walking."

"I shouldn't be alive," he smirked. He sat on the opposite edge of her bed, pulling her bag to him. He opened it up and looked inside. Without a word, he zipped it back up and placed it on the floor. He followed Delilah's eyes to the picture. "He called you again, didn't he?"

Delilah said nothing. She continued to stare forward.

Jerome moved his head around to see her face. "Lilith?"

"He did. So I threw my phone in the gutter." She paused. "I also... I saw him, a few days ago," she whispered. She turned her face to him. "He's in Gotham."