Chapter 37: Delilah - Hunter or Hunted

I shouldn’t do this, she thought.

Sitting in the old wooden chair before the computer desk, Delilah stared at the Facebook login screen. The other windows open in the upper left said things like Anatomy 101 and Childhood Development.

She had come to the Black Pines library for one reason, and one reason only. Study. Familiarize herself with the curriculum she would start after the holiday. Read the intro packets, remind herself of ninth-grade biology. All things she would need to know heading into her first semester of college.

Then she finished reading over the introduction packets, and she had a list of everything she needed to get from the store to properly complete her assignments. Highlighters and sticky tabs and sticky notes and an external keyboard, maybe an external mouse, and, if she really wanted to go all out, one of those cool little stands to mount it all so she could feel professional and smart while she completed her online courses in her studio apartment.

She finished all that, and the thought hit her.

What’s everyone up to? What’s going on back home? How’s Ava?

She and her little sister had never been close. Delilah couldn’t put her finger on why. The fact that, from childhood, her parents had pegged them to their personalities? Delilah was the cute, silly one. Ava was the smart, levelheaded one.

They sat beside each other at meals, they fought about the clothes they took from one another’s closets, but Delilah always figured their friendship would develop in adulthood. Their home life could have been worse, but it could’ve been better. Maybe when they both got away from it, that would change.

Rhiannon hadn’t forbidden them from accessing their old social media. She just said that if you wanted to keep tabs on your old friends and family, not to do it from the ranch where it could be traced back to all the women who had tried so hard to get away.

Delilah respected that rule. It limited the temptation most of the time.

But now she sat in the library, away from the ranch, and that Facebook login screen stared back at her.

She only wanted to cure the curiosity. What would it hurt?

But God, did it hurt.

She logged in. She immediately went to settings to disable her location, and then she scrolled.

At first, it was just the usual. Friends at football games, friends home for the holidays—all of which she expected. Not much had changed. She had hundreds of messages, which she also expected, but that wasn’t why she was here. She just wanted to see.

An old friend, Chloe, shared a cluster of photos from the high school team’s last game. Chloe had graduated alongside Delilah in the summer, but she still went to the games because her younger brother had played since middle school. Delilah flipped through the photos, watching her old friends live out their simple, small-time lives, when her heart jumped into her throat.

Eight photos down, there he was. Evan. Profile view, always Delilah’s favorite, although the thought of it now made her stomach clench. That image alone—him laughing with a beer in his hand, lights down low, smiling at someone—would’ve made her sick no matter who stood before him.

But who stood before him was what had her hands shaking, her stomach turning, and terror gripping hold of her lungs. Unable to breathe, hardly able to think, she stared at that photo a moment longer. Hopeful that she was hallucinating. Because that would’ve been better.

But no amount of blinking changed the image on the screen.

Ava.

Ava stood mere inches from his chest. One of her hands wrapped around his shirt like she was tugging him into her. He towered over her, and she stood with eyes so big, so wide, like a baby deer. Entranced by his beauty. His maturity. His muscles. His strength.

All the same things that had entranced Delilah once.

Of course, Evan and Ava knew one another. They had all grown up as friends.

Delilah recognized that look on her little sister’s face because she had seen it in the mirror a thousand times. She was falling for him. Ava was falling for Evan, and Delilah couldn’t let that happen.

Not because of jealousy. If Evan were even a half-decent man, things would look a lot different.

But Delilah knew what that look turned into. That adoration, that longing.

He would do to Ava what he’d done to Delilah.

How could she stop it? From so far away, how could she stop them?

Ava wouldn’t listen if Delilah sent her a message. Ava was the smart one, after all. Why would she need to listen to the cute, silly big sister? She had always crushed on Evan, the same way Delilah had when she was younger. Come to think of it, maybe that had something to do with the wedge between them.

But Evan? Evan would listen if Delilah sent him a message. She had blocked him on Facebook, though. If memory served, he’d blocked her back.

She remembered his number, though.

So she texted him.

Delilah

Hey, it’s Allie. Can we meet?

He called. Delilah didn’t answer. She only wanted to engage with him via text until they were in person. And once they were in person…

She didn’t know what she would say. She had no idea what came next. But she had to do something, didn’t she? What kind of person would she be, what kind of woman would she be, if she didn’t try to stop it?

Delilah gave Evan no details. When he asked where she had been, why she was contacting him now, she just said,

Delilah

There are some things you need to know.

Evan took that as answer enough. She asked when the soonest he could make the drive would be, and he said the following evening. Not because he had prior obligations, but because they were half a country apart. He asked why she was in Montana. She said she would explain tomorrow and gave him the location.

Obviously, they couldn’t meet inside the ranch. Anywhere in Black Pines would be safer, but someone would notice them together. If she went to Maple & Thyme, the only café in town, Gwen would see them together. Gwen would ask questions. Delilah couldn’t lie to Gwen.

Hence, the state park nearby. Delilah had hiked it a few times with other girls from the ranch. She knew it well enough, and she only needed a short conversation. She would hold the blade in her pocket the entire time. She would fight back if she needed to, and hopefully, by the end of it, Evan would be too ashamed of himself to get within ten feet of Ava ever again.

At the very least, she would get the last word in.

Delilah asked Eve to borrow her car. Gave her some spiel about needing to get those supplies for college in town. Eve didn’t mind. No one at the ranch did, really. Everyone there would take the clothes off their backs to give to someone else in need.

As she drove into the forest the following night, those words fresh in her mind, guilt wrapped around her heart and squeezed. She shouldn’t have lied. She shouldn’t have been doing this. But she had to. She had to make sure that, if nothing else, someone stood up to him. Someone told him this was wrong. It was wrong for a man of his age to have any interest in a girl so young. It was wrong when it’d happened to Delilah, and it was wrong as it happened to Ava. No one else would tell him so, but Delilah would. Delilah would get under his skin the way she always had.

When she made it to the parking lot of the trail she had walked with Eve and her son, she shifted the car into park. Staring out at the barren, snow-blanketed trees, the squeezing around her heart intensified. Not excitement, not anticipation, but guilt. Guilt that she hadn’t told Ava her story. Guilt that she kept it all inside and another girl would hurt because of it.

She got over that in therapy with Rhiannon. Rhiannon said the feeling was valid, but Delilah couldn’t blame herself for anything Evan did.

Delilah heard those words, she understood them, but it didn’t change the reality. Maybe if she had talked, maybe if she had ruined his reputation in town, he never would’ve hurt someone else again.

Nearly twenty minutes after she parked, headlights bounced down the snow-covered gravel road behind her. They flickered in the rearview mirror.

Evan didn’t have snow tires. No one really needed them in Missouri.

Watching those lights bob closer, that squeezing around her heart softened with hope.

Maybe he’ll hit a patch of ice, slide over the hill, and that monster truck will crush him like a pancake.

Hope didn’t last long. Soon enough, those headlights shone like spotlights in the rearview, illuminating the entirety of Eve’s car. As the rumble of the engine lulled to silence, Delilah pulled the keys from the ignition. She stuck them between her middle and forefinger in her left hand and gripped the blade in her right. Tossing open the door, she stepped out. Evan’s lights stayed on as he stepped out as well.

“Where the hell are we?” he asked, clearing the distance between them, arms open like he expected a hug. “Where have you been? What happened?”

Delilah raised the blade. “Stay back, Evan.”

He glanced at it, then at Delilah, then laughed. Not a chuckle, but a deep belly cackle. “Did you just pull a knife on me?”

“If you want to call it that.” She still held it upright. “This isn’t a reunion. Just a conversation, Evan. We don’t need to hug and kiss.”

Ego clearly bruised, he huffed. With a roll of his eyes, he turned around and headed for the bed of his truck. “Whatever, Allie. What do you want to say? What did you have me drive all God damn day and night for?”

Now it was Delilah rolling her eyes. “We’re gonna talk while you sit in the bed like a teenager?”

He hoisted himself up onto one of the tires and leaned over the edge. He stretched down, coming out with something, invisible from Delilah’s perspective. She stood in the direct line of his headlights while he was behind them.

“This damn shovel’s been sliding around back here for the last fifty miles,” he said. “Might as well tie it down while you run your mouth.”

“While I run my—holy shit, dude.” Delilah’s hands balled into fists so tightly that the knife and the keys would leave an indent when she finally set them down. “You really have to ask why I left? What happened? You happened, you sorry piece of shit. This is how you talk to people, this is how you conduct yourself, and you wonder why we had so many problems?”

He hopped off the tire, still holding something in his hand. Delilah couldn’t make it out until he stepped closer, in front of the headlights. The rope to tie down the shovel.

“Don’t give me that poor-pity-me shit,” he said. “You’re not a victim. You did just as much in every fight we’ve ever been in⁠—”

“Never once did I throw the first punch. And even if I had, after everything you put me through, you would’ve deserved it.”

He laughed. Another deep belly cackle. “Oh, and you didn’t?”

Gritting her teeth, Delilah shook her head. She could argue that, but it was pointless. She never started the fights. She never escalated to violence until it meant defending herself. He knew all that. He’d been there. He was here now. This was the most confrontational Delilah had ever been, and it still came nowhere close to touching all the damage Evan had done.

“That’s what I thought.” Evan leaned against the front bumper and crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you want, Allie? Why did you have me come all the way out here? Why are you here anyway? Had to go all the way up to Montana to find some new guy to mooch off of, huh? Were you screwing him before you left me?”

She wouldn’t dignify that with a response. “I saw the picture of you and Ava that Chloe posted.”

A devilish little smirk.

This was the first time. The first time in all the times they’d argued when Delilah really considered raising her fist first.

“Oh, did you?” he asked. “Thought you’d like that.”

“What the hell is wrong with you? Hurting me wasn’t enough? You gotta hurt her, too? You gotta ruin her last couple of years of high school, steal her best years, keep hanging out with teenagers so you don’t have to face the reality that you passed your peak?”

“I missed you. She missed you.” His voice stayed too calm. Calm but cutting. Each word was a blade, and he wanted them to slice. “We started hanging out. That’s all. You don’t have to throw a little bitch fit over it. You’re so dramatic, Allie. All of this—make me meet you in the middle of nowhere, an entire day’s damn drive, so you can complain about a picture of me and Ava? Seriously?”

“You wouldn’t be so smug if it wasn’t exactly what I think it is,” Delilah said. “Leave her alone, Evan. You want to go ruin somebody else’s life, fine, but leave my little sister alone.”

More of a chuckle than a laugh this time. He rubbed his eyes between his thumb and forefinger. “Here I was, thinking you wanted to meet to make things right. I should’ve known⁠—”

“You should’ve known what, Evan?” Delilah was all but stomping her feet now. “That I hate you? That you’ve done so much damage to my brain that I can’t even sleep at night? That never, in a million fucking years, would I ever want you back? Because yeah, dipshit, you should’ve known. After everything you did, there’s nothing, nothing, that would make things right.”

His jaw tightened. “Sure. Because I’m just the big bad wolf. Allie can do no wrong⁠—”

“I was a kid!” she screamed. Those words trembled on her vocal cords, aching over every syllable. “I was a kid, and you took advantage. You’re trying to do it again, and I can’t stop you, but I can make sure you know that I fucking hate you for it. I hope you rot. I hope your life is as sad and empty as it was for me in all those years we spent together. I hope you know that we would’ve had a baby, but I lost it, because even God knows that bringing another you into the world would be a crime against humanity. And the thing is, Ava was always the smart one. I was stupid enough to fall for your shit, and she might for a little while, but she won’t take it like I did. She won’t be a punching bag for years and years. She will hate you, and she will leave you, just like I did. Just like your daddy did. And you know what? You deserve all the pain that comes with it.”

Delilah spun around.

She stomped to Eve’s car, hands balled into fists, every cell in her body electric with fury and heartache. Not for herself. For her sister. Her sister who would have to save herself, the way Delilah saved herself, because no one was coming around to save girls like them from men like him. This was the way the world worked, and it hurt, but Delilah had learned, and Ava would learn too. Ava would⁠—

Footsteps.

Snow crackling under footsteps.

Just as she started to turn around, the rough, scratchy rope fastened around her neck from behind.