heart like yours (jennifer jareau)

3. seventeen

AN: hey guys!!

so just like last week we've got a heavy chapter ahead of us, it's 6000 words so it's a lot :/ i apologise in advance bc the TW list is quite extensive

and again like last week, the profiler side of things takes place in liv's book. it's from 3.16 onwards so 3.17 here takes place at the same time as 3.17 in liv's book

i hope you guys are all having a good day, and i'll be back next monday! <3

TW:
psychopathic fathers
rampant daddy issues
psychological torture
mentions of murder
mentions of sexual abuse
guns/knives
fucked up family game night
DIY medical care

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"i think i wait for people to hurt me, and when they do, i feel a certain smugness at being right. and, after that, i just feel pain." - sue zhao

•

The chains were back.

They were the first thing Delilah felt when she came to, again. She'd nodded off after a while of waiting to be gassed, and she could feel the lethargy in her bones that meant she'd been gassed, again.

Delilah opened her eyes, looking over at Ziggy's mattress.

He was wide awake, staring at her with terrified eyes, knees tucked to his chest as he lay in a ball. His eyes flickered over to the corner, then back at Delilah.

Delilah's blood turned cold. She dragged her eyes over to the corner.

"Hey, Izzy," Elliot Milner grinned at her. "Welcome home."

He was sat on the floor, cross legged in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. His hair was greying and grown out to his shoulders, but he looked stronger than he'd been all those years ago. He looked more maniac and psychotic than he had back then, too.

He had only been twenty one when Delilah was born, which was just red flags all around because Delilah's mother had been twenty seven. He was only fifty, now, and he had always been physically active.

It kind of felt like looking into a mirror, in a weird way. Everybody said Delilah looked more like her mother, but she had her father's smile and eyes, and she had more of her father's personality than her mother's.

Delilah was only so scared of turning out like her father because, fundamentally, they were very similar. They both had the same walk, and the same grumpy eyebrows. They had the same tendency to resort to anger when people irritated them. They had the same instinct to lie about everything.

They both fidgeted with their jewellery when they were nervous, and both of them preferred coffee to tea. They were both medicated (now unmedicated), and both had been traumatised by their parents long before the world had the chance.

Delilah hated to admit it, but their survival instincts made them into foils of each other. She was so terrified to become the monster he was because she knew it was all to easy for her to snap.

Gideon had been right about the bio, genetic and social factors defining somebody's psyche. Delilah just hadn't had a psychotic break that sent her head first into a killing spree.

Delilah never wanted to take a life because she could, or because it would be a way of revenge, but she would kill Elliot. She had to.

"What?" Elliot pouted, tilting his head. "No hello for your old man?"