Chapter 18

“Mark –” Her mother stutters through the curtains.

Too fucking late, as warm fluid begins to pool beneath Delilah. 

The smirk of satisfaction stains her father’s face.

“Yes, Helen?” The smirk stays plastered, his trousers drooping down to his ankles.

Her mother looks to the floor. “Should I come back?”

Should I come back… should I come back… should I come back?? She cursed her mother to the pits of hell when she did fuck all for Maree, but to witness her father’s atrocities first-hand, to see him atop her own child – fucking her own daughter – and to then respond with “should I come back?", she is beyond despicable. She launches at her mother –

Her father intercepts, sliding in between Delilah and her mother. He raises his hand to maintain the distance, before grabbing Delilah by the breast and wrenching it. “Yes, just wait outside for a little bit, Helen.”

“I’ll just be out here, honey,” her mother, still averting Delilah’s gaze, tiptoes backwards before drawing the curtains close.

“You’re dead to me, Helen,” Delilah hisses under her breath.

He pins her against the bed once again – the rest of the world unaware, negligent of the obscenity one curtain away.

He pulls her neck towards him and winks at her. “Daddy’s ready to go one more time.”

She yells in agony, knowing that her cries will go unheard. His chest hair grates her as he presses his full weight onto her and forces himself inside – the disgust, the shame she’s feeling, she knows all too well.

She remembers the first time he threatened her with her sister. “I’ll fuck your sister again if you resist.”

Months of pleading with Helen – each time, Helen scoffing, laughing in disbelief before sinking back into a drunken haze – couldn’t prevent the inevitable.

As the thrusting continues, her mind replays a scene of Maree’s room glittering with slivers of glass. She remembers rushing towards Maree, removing the shard of glass from her sister’s right hand, shaking her vigorously, crying, wailing, pleading for her sister’s life. Maree’s body remained limp.

After the tears had run dry, Delilah studied Maree’s final trace on earth – her sister’s vacant eyes, streams and gradients of red staining her neck. There was a strong smell of metal on Maree’s T-shirt, a mosaic of white and crimson, a marbled blend of purity and ruin.

As he pulls his trousers up and focuses on fastening the belt around it, his smile – that bloody smug smile – pushes her to take a chance.

She grabs hold of the oxygen canister by the side of the bed and delivers three firm blows to his neck.

He groans, attempting to reach for her hair, but she swings the oxygen canister across his face before he falls to the ground, blood spurting out of his head.

“Mark!” Too fucking late, as always, as streams of scarlet seep from his skull. “What have you done, Delilah?”

“What have I done, Helen?”

“You’re mad –”

“Oh, yes, I am mad, Helen. I am fucking insane.” Tears of fury bleed from her eyes as she falls to her knees.

That was fucking easy.

That was too fucking easy.  She chants to herself. She could have avenged her sister sooner, but she wasted time distracting herself, numbing herself. And Helen, after all that, looks only at Mark.

She bashes her own skull into the floor. I should've killed them earlier, Maree. It's all my fault. She thrusts her hips forward to establish more momentum, just as she did when she barged into Helen’s room the first time. Sorrow pours from her heart beneath the weight of Maree’s hollow gaze – her hands now joining in the steady pounding against the ground. She sees her father in the corner of her eyes; she slams her head into the floor harder, faster, until the crunch of her skull reverberates.

For a moment, she holds still as viscous fluid pools down her face, dripping onto her already blood-stained hands and feet.

It only takes another second before her legs give way, her body falling forwards, her face now at Helen’s feet.

As her vision becomes a little cloudier, she sees the hummingbirds.

She’ll be a butterfly soon, flittering majestically over the dandelions.

Helen’s screams of horror bring nothing but pure joy to Delilah’s ears as they sing her return to her magical paradise.