Dear Delilah West

Chapter Eleven

I sit up, disoriented, blinking the fierce sunlight out of my eyes. My head spins, and my fingernails dig into the soft, warm earth beneath me as I try to focus. After a few seconds I do, and stand up.

I look around me, and gasp inwardly. I am in a park. Not just any park, though – this is Redford Park. Redford Park is in my hometown, Violet Bay, situated just around the corner from the beach. This park…I was thinking about it the other day.

A noise sounds, interrupting my thoughts, and I look up. There are three or four kids playing on the playground, their loud laughs and shouts echoing throughout the otherwise empty park. I look around. And almost faint at what I see.

In the distance, on the other side of the grassy field, someone is having a picnic. Just one person, sitting on a red tartan rug that looks awfully familiar. The person is standing on it, facing me, her long caramel hair blowing around her waist in the breeze. Her light dress swishes at her knees as she looks at me.

I can’t help it. I break into a run, sprinting straight through the playground, not knowing – or caring – if the children see me. As I am running, I feel it begin to rain. It is warm, fresh rain – summer rain. I collide with Delilah, and as I put my hands around her waist, she puts hers around my neck, and I pull her in for the long awaited kiss. It is warm, and sweet. Perfect. But when I begin to pull away, she draws me in close. Her lips brush my ear and her breath tickles as she whispers:

“You must hurry. Time is running out.”

                   

****************************************************

I told Missy about my strange dream, and she was quite taken aback.

“How strange,” she said. “A memory twisted to reveal the truth of the present, sent to you in the form of a dream.”

“What?” I had said. “So you think that it was a…message, of some kind?” I was very confused.

Missy sighed. “I once knew a strange woman who could make such things happened if someone asked her. You could always tell her by her most unusual purple eyes. Her name was-“

“Leanna,” I breathed.

“Yes,” Missy said. “I forgot that you met her.”

“I owe her my life,” I told her. “She helped me escape from capture.”

Missy lets out one short, humourless laugh. “She is quite kind. Who knows what Authority would have done to you, had she not helped you escape.”

I shrugged, but inside the feeling of immense gratitude was bubbling back up.

“I hope she is okay,” I whispered.

Missy had looked to the ground. “That isn’t very likely, if Authority got her. But if she escaped, she had a much higher chance of survival. She could have been the one who sent you that dream. Perhaps on behalf of-“

“Delilah!” I yelled.

Missy glared at me. “Please, don’t make a habit of finishing my sentences like that.”

I had grinned. “Sorry.”

**************************************************

Now I sit on the wide, luxurious seat of a plane, in the first class section, Missy beside me. The memories of the past few hours are nothing more than a surreal blur. Arriving at the airport, boarding the plane – all of it mushed up into one ball of colours and sounds that mean nothing to me now.

After our conversation about my dream, Missy recounted to me the full story of what happened to her at Authority HQ. When she spoke to Patrick, he told her more than just “Delilah is alive.”

He said that Delilah was held captive in that very building for just over six months, which means that just after her ‘death’ she was taken to that building. Then, about a week before Missy spoke to Patrick, Delilah was taken out of her cell by a bunch of important Authority members. Patrick didn’t have a clue as to where she was being taken.

Whilst we were at Regina’s, Missy and Regina had a conversation, while I was asleep. Regina had told her that the Delilah case had been an ongoing operation for a decade and a half. Only the most skilled and loyal Authority members were involved, which did not include Regina. Apparently, Ryder Black wanted to get revenge on Delilah’s mother, for something that she did, and was bent on killing Delilah to hurt her mum. This news shocked me. I don't know what I was expecting – but not that.

Regina also said that the most likely place for Delilah to be was New York, where the second largest Authority HQ was located.

So here we are. On a plane headed to New York.

I just hope we find her.