Dear Delilah West

Chapter Five

I get up slowly, stretching my arms, my back, my legs. My whole body is sore, but my legs are the worst, because of how far and how fast I had to run last night. My tummy gives a loud rumble, and I nervously walk out to the lounge room.

No one is there, and I don't know what to do, so I just sit down on one of the couches. Someone has been up this morning, because the blinds on the windows are open, letting the bright morning light stream into the room. I walk over to them.

They go from the floor all the way to the ceiling, made completely of glass and looking very delicate.

I can see the ‘Welcome to Vegas’ sign in the distance. All its lights are off. It just stands there innocently, like any other ‘welcome’ sign. But it isn’t. It has to be one of the most famous welcome signs in the world. I don’t see what is so special about it. No, I don't think the sign itself is the reason for its fame. No, it is what it is welcoming people to. The ultimate party experience. I have always hated parties. I could count on one of my hands the amount of times I have been drunk in my life. I could never live in a place like this. If I were to live in Vegas, it would be far, far away from the Strip, in a nice, quiet house. I wonder if Missy is into partying. Somehow, I just can’t picture her in a wild scene like that. She seems so calm, so collected.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”              

I whip around, startled out of my reverie. I didn’t hear her approach, but Missy is standing right behind me.

“The view?” I ask. “Yes, it is quite amazing.” I don’t mention that I would much prefer the sea, or a garden. Not a bunch of twinkling, cheap buildings swarming with idiots.

“No,” she says. “Not the view. How different Vegas is in the morning to how it is at night. The change is quite extraordinary.”

It is. Vegas is so different in the daytime. Most of the lights are off, and the noise is like any other city in the morning – the low murmur of voices, car doors slamming, the occasional horn honking. It is amazing how the whole place transforms in the absence of the night. I can’t hear any music, and loud, drunken shouts, no police sirens. No tinkling glass, no screaming as someone loses their last dollar gambling.

I give a quick laugh. “You’re right,” I say.

She nods. So far, she hasn’t smile once. I wonder if she has ever smiled before. I imagine going my whole life without smiling. It would be an awful life.

“Are you hungry?” she asks.

I nod. She walks away, into the kitchen that is behind the lounge room, and I follow. My stomach is rumbling louder than ever.

She quickly makes me a bowl of cereal and pushes it to me over the counter. It is a very large, spacious kitchen; everything made of white marble. I wonder how she could afford these luxuries. I still have no clue as to who she is and what she does. And what her connections are to Leanna, the purple-eyed woman who helped me more than anyone else has ever helped in my whole life. I am so deeply in her debt that I wonder how I will ever repay her. If she is alive, that is. She may have sacrificed her life for me last night. Delilah must have meant a lot to her.

“So,” says Missy, leaning on the counter top with her elbows. “You wanted me to help you. Help you uncover the secrets, the mysteries of Delilah’s death? That I can do. Help you avenge her? That I can also do. Bring her back to life? Don’t even think about it. I may be special, but I’m not that special.”

I consider. “Just the first one. The second I’d like to do on my own. No help.”

I knew that would be impossible, but I would rather die trying to kill the men myself rather than hire someone else to do it.

Missy doesn’t question this, however. She continues on.

“We can start as soon as you want,” she says. “But first, there are some things I think that you should know.”

“Fire away,” I say. I don’t know where my sudden confidence is coming from. Maybe I’m just on edge. Of course I’m on edge.

She thinks for a moment, as if contemplating how to put her thoughts into words. She looks down at the bench.

“Remember last night, when I asked you who Delilah was? What you knew about her?”

I nod slowly, remembering.

“You said everything. You were…quite wrong about that.” A few seconds pass. She looks up, waiting for me to say something, but I don’t. So she goes on.

“Delilah…her father is not the man you know.”

“I- what?” I met Delilah’s father on several occasions. I recall a kind man, his head beginning to bald, his trousers pulled up a little too high and his glasses slightly askew. He was always laughing, telling jokes. It was as if he radiated happiness.

Missy merely looks at me, patiently.

“Then who is he?” I ask.

Missy pauses, gazing out the window. I wait silently for her to speak.

“You know those people, who go around dressed in black and stuff – Satan worshippers?” she asks. I nod without a word. I had never actually seen a person like that, but I had heard enough about them to know that I didn’t ever want to see one.

“The biggest Satan worshipper in the world was named Ryder Black. He was the leader of a strange group, a secret society, who called themselves Authority. They were evil. They wanted to condemn the entire world. They wanted everyone to worship the devil.”

“Why would they want that?” I ask.

Missy shrugs. “I told you. They were evil.”

She stops for a moment to fill up a glass of cold water from the fridge, and takes a few sips.

 “So, when did these people live?”

Missy sighs. “Ryder is still alive. Those men who locked you up? They were Authority. Not all of Authority, of course – it is much, much larger than that. I highly doubt Ryder Black was anywhere near you last night, or any time before that.”

I nod.

“Authority is made up of extremely dangerous people,” says Missy. “It is  very large – they are in almost every part of the world. Some of them look exactly as you would imagine – dressed in black, tattoos, scarred up wrists. But most look very normal; you could walk past them in the street without knowing. They are extremely quick and efficient in what they do. But they are all very smart, very strong, and very capable of kidnap and murder. The police have been after them for decades. But Authority have proven too intelligent, too strong for capture.”

“I still don’t see what this has to do with Delilah,” I say.

Missy sighs. “Delilah’s father is not the man that you know,” she tells me. “That man is just Delilah’s mother’s husband. Delilah’s real father is Ryder Black. He and Delilah’s mother had two daughters together before she realised who he was  and what he had done.”

“Who is Ryder’s other daughter?” I ask. As far as I know, Delilah was an only child.

Missy shrugs, looking at the table. “No idea,” she mumbles. “But I know for sure that Delilah was one of them.”

She was. Of course she was. Not is. It is only in that moment, that moment right there, that I realise I had never accepted Delilah’s death. I had always clung onto that thread of hope, that tiny silver thread of hope, that she was still – somehow – alive. Now I let that go, and I feel it disintegrate into nothing.