heart like yours (jennifer jareau)

3. sixteen

AN: hey guys!

so big one again today, 6000 words! it's a lot bc of what's going on rn so i hope everybody is okay and there's a long list of trigger warnings down below.

i also wanna say that most of this arc in this book will be from lilah's pov except a few minor parts from jj's pov SO if you wanna see the whole investigation unfold from a profiler POV, it'll be worth checking out liv's books starting from 3.16 for her perspective of events and how they unfold in her book

i will say before anything that there are no scenes depicting actual violence or assault or anything in this chapter. it's just hinted at and mentioned by both delilah and ziggy, just not in the exact words.

i hope you're all having a good monday and i'll see you in a week! <3

TW:
mentions of child abuse
mentions of sexual abuse
mentions of violence
thoughts of death
dead bodies
psychological torture

please do tell me if you think i've missed any so i can go back and add them <3

•

"i've dreamed since i was four years old
that the house is slowly on fire
that the house is slowly on fire
and i can't get you to leave it
and i can't get you to leave it."
- alice notley

•

Delilah knew she'd made a mistake going to get Ziggy as soon as she regained consciousness. She knew she had fucked up massively, and she knew that everything that happened now was her own fault.

She didn't blame Ziggy. Even as she lay there on what she knew was the mattress in the cabin's basement, the familiar feeling of chains weighing down her wrists and ankles, she could hear ragged breaths from the mattress that had once been Dylan's and she couldn't blame Ziggy because he was down here, too.

Delilah wanted to scream from the rooftops how unfair it was that, once again, her father got what he wanted out of an innocent little boy. She wanted to scream about the fact she had obviously led Ziggy right onto Elliot's radar as a target.

She hadn't expected him to still take her if he took Ziggy, though.

He had fucked up, there. Sure, she would've found out about him taking Ziggy from Elle, anyway. She wouldn't have been able to tell anyone where the cabin was, though. Even now, once she got into the woods, she had no idea how she would get back to town.

She didn't remember anything other than the stars from the last time she ran away from here.

But he had taken her, and JJ knew she was supposed to be home by a certain time. Nora and Colin would've woken up and found her gone, would've called in the FBI by now. They would be planning how to find Delilah.

She hoped they were, anyway. Truth be told, she didn't have the greatest time management skills to begin with, and there were no windows down here. She had no way of knowing what time of day it was. She could've been out for days, for all she knew, and she wasn't about to ask her nephew.

She still didn't blame him for what he'd done, though. It was fuzzy in her mind, their reunion, but she remembered the blood on his back and the way he had cried in pain. He had been with Elliot since he ran away, if he did even run away at all, and Delilah knew Elliot would not have waited to hurt the poor kid in a way he'd never fully heal from.