Dear Delilah West

Chapter Eight

It’s been three days. Three horrible, scary days spent on the fifth floor of the Sphinx Hotel, hoping against hope that nobody followed us here. That nobody moved silently and stealthily behind us as we ran for our lives. Lives. So strong, yet so fragile. We often overestimate their validity, take their existence for granted. But we shouldn’t. We should appreciate them while we still have them. The other night – Missy and I were so close to dying. To being caught. Capture means death.

We promised each other that we would not leave the hotel for seven days. That was much easier said than done, though. Sure, we can watch television, play games. But neither one of us really want to do those things. For the last three days, we have pretty much done nothing but eat, sleep, think. Have the occasional short conversation.

The first of those conversations was by far the longest. It was on the morning after we broke into the Authority Headquarters.

I was eating breakfast, a bowl of cereal, when Missy came into the room, walked over to where I was seated, and sat on the tabletop. She looked at me, with her mysterious, smoky crystal eyes for a moment before speaking.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? What we did last night?” she asked quietly. She seemed quite calm. But Missy was always calm.

“Yes,” I had said. “But I would do anything for Delilah. We failed, sure, but we got away, didn’t we? That’s an achievement to be proud of.”

She glared at me, right into my eyes. Her eyes were not dark, beautiful, crystal anymore. They were stone.

“An achievement to be proud of?” she hissed. “This is not a game, Sam. This is reality. In fact, it is more than reality. In a situation of life and death…nothing compares with that.”

I had looked at her in faint amusement, the corners of my mouth even twitching up a little.

“You’re forgetting one detail,” I had said to her.

“And what might that be?” asked Missy coldly.

“It’s over,” I said. “Done. Finished. We got away – it’s as simple as that. We can go back in a few nights and try the back entrance Regina mentioned. The one through the pipes.”

Missy slammed her hand down on the table. I jumped a little at the sudden noise, and the table shaking beneath me. When it stopped trembling, Missy spoke.

“Over?” she spat. “Done? Finished!? You have no idea!!”

I looked at her in confusion. “I already knew that it was dangerous. Before we went – you and Regina both warned me. But I don't see what you’re getting at.”

“Of course you don’t!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. She really was going off her head. “You don't realise the extent, the extremity of our situation. Authority – they won't stop trying to find us until they do. And when they do, we will be tortured senseless for information. And then, we will be killed. But what you don’t understand is the first part – they will find us. Authority are extremely skilled trackers. Very organised. They have most likely already found us, and are merely waiting to strike. You have no idea how much trouble we are in. How much danger.”

It was an awful conversation, although it knocked some sense into me, and made me realise exactly what we had done, and what consequences might result. But I was still set on going back, trying the other way in. If they were already after us, what harm could it do? Anyway, back to the building is the last place they would expect us to go. If they were tracking us, they would assume we were putting as much distance between ourselves and Vegas as possible. Or, if they were as efficient as Missy said, they already knew where we were, and were just waiting for the right moment to strike. Either way, it wasn’t a bad idea.

Since Missy and I vowed not to leave the hotel, the man in the brown suit has been running all of Missy’s errands for her. I really don't get that guy. He is always so happy, so cheerful and pleasant and kind, that I wonder who he is and what he is doing working for a person like Missy. I am really curious as to what the connection is. But I am too scared to ask Missy, and obviously not inclined to ask the man himself.

So it is the third day. I am lying on Missy’s ping pong table, of all places, not quite remembering settling there in the first place. I am thinking. About Delilah, of course.

I wonder if she can see me. If she knows what I am doing – or trying to do, at the very least. Or if she just doesn't exist anymore. Maybe, when you die, that’s it. You simply….aren’t.

But I don't believe that. Delilah has to exist, somewhere, somehow.

My mind wanders, going through memories of Delilah. One sticks in my head and I find myself going over it again and again, running it through my head like a film, lingering on every detail.

We were at the park one Saturday, just lying down on the grass. We were talking, just talking, about random, unimportant things – like kids at school, my mother’s new couches sitting in the lounge room, the colour of the sky. We hadn’t known each other for long back then. I was in love with her, but I think she was only just beginning to fall for me.

There had been a couple of kids in the park that day too, on the playground, but apart from them, the place was deserted. Then, it suddenly started to rain – warm, summer rain – and the kids cleared out pretty quickly.

For some unknown reason, we got up and started dancing. Dancing in the rain. We just let go, and had the time of our lives. Her hands were around my neck and mine at her waist, and we were swirling around, getting wet.

And then we were kissing. Still, to this day, I don't know if I kissed her or if she kissed me. Maybe we both kissed at the same time. I’m not sure. But it was the first time I ever kissed Delilah, and after that….well. I know for sure that that was the day she fell in love with me.

I don't know at which point in time the memory turned into a dream, because next thing I knew, I was being shaken awake by Missy.

“Sam,” she says. “Sam!”

“Mmm?”

“Get off the ping pong table! And I need to talk to you!”

I groan, and, mumbling, stumble out to the lounge room and collapse on Missy’s expensive leather couches. But I manage to keep my eyes open.

She looks at me in disgust. “There’s a bed in there for a reason,” she says. “To sleep in.”

I sigh. “What did you want to talk about?”

Missy looks at me. “I…I want to go back to the Authority Headquarters,” she says. “I think we should have another go at reaching Regina’s husband.”

I take in a deep breath before replying.

“I’m in.”