Page 20 of Deluge
As I take her in, I can tell she used to be beautiful once. She still is, but I can see she’s been damaged far more than just her appearance.
I don’t look into her eyes right away because I don’t want her to see how angry I truly am at being duped.
That’ll be something that will elicit a question I don’t want to fucking answer.
“Are you Dalton?” she asks me in a quiet tone. One that slightly reminds me of Hailey, and I swallow the lump in my throat as I finally look into her eyes.
A grim smile forms on my lips, then, in unison, we say, “You have his eyes.”
I shake my head ruefully, the smile falling away as quickly as my heart drops down through the battered porch that leads the way into the hell I call home.
With a glance behind me, I take a deep breath through the still-open door.
“Come in,” I say softly, stepping to the side and allowing her to enter, her cane gently tapping with each and every step that she takes.
Epilogue
“You looklike you’ve been busy,” I tell him as he helps me sit on a chair in his living room.
“Yeah. Unfortunately,” he mumbles, looking completely taken advantage of.
“Did you get my note?” I ask as I prop my cane against the side of the chair.
His head whips up from where he’s been sitting across from me, looking like he wishes the earth would swallow him whole.
“That was you?”
I smile slightly and nod.
It took a long time to track most of them down, but Dalton is the one that I’ve been the most interested in. He’s been the most resistant and has kept his distance from Luke.
Until recently, and I have to find out why.
“Have you met him yet?” I press as I lean back and get comfortable in the chair.
He nods as his eyes drop to the dirty carpeted floor beneath his bare feet.
“And what did you think?”
He shrugs irritably and looks away.
“I know how that feels,” I offer with a small smile. He looks over at me and waits. “I was the first one he decided to do all this to. My brothers meant nothing to him because they couldn’t carry on the family name the way he wanted, and he knew I would refuse to fuck either of them. Granted, they were only children when this all started, but I doubt he cared then—or would care now.”
I pause for a moment before I clear my throat and continue. “I gave him a daughter, Darby. The most wonderful thing I’ve ever done was born from the most horrible misdeeds ever done to me, but I loved her more than I loved myself. After I had her, he decided I wouldn’t be useful anymore, so he threw me into the oubliette to die there. Clearly, it didn’t pan out the way he hoped,” I say with a short laugh. I look away from the boy for a moment. “Darby was next. He used my baby to give him more babies, but I watched them from afar. See, after he threw me into the oubliette for a second time, I did what I had to stay alive. I’ve eaten more rats and lizards than I care to admit. I drank my own urine to stay hydrated, then one night, I made the climb. I managed to break through the covering of darkness and ran as fast and far as possible, but I never forgot about my Darby. I saw how resilient she was, how he taunted her with my ‘bones’, but he could never produce them whenever she asked for proof. He killed her, and I still wasn’t strong enough to stop him,” I admit softly as a tear trickles down my cheek.
I take a moment to breathe before I look at him again as tears slowly continue to roll down my face.
“He’s already turned her children. I was going to try to save them first, but when I saw them through the window where I once lived doingthingsto each other, I had to walk away. There isn’t any saving them, but I wonder, Dalton. Is there any saving you?”
His lower lip begins to tremble dangerously before he drops his face into his hands and begins to sob quietly.
“I didn’t know,” he mutters over and over again.
“Didn’t know what?” I press him softly.
“That she’s one ofhis.”
“Who?” I ask as I reach for my cane and get to my feet.