Dear Delilah West

Chapter Fifteen

“Thanks, Regina,” I say. “These are to die for.”

She smiles warmly. “Glad you like them. They’re my special recipe.”

I am sitting at the kitchen table, munching on a cookie from the plate in the centre of the table. They are enormous, delicious, and addictive. I’ve had about five already.

I’m not sure where Missy is. Probably the bathroom, having a shower. I wish she would hurry up and join us – I really want to talk to her about what we do next. I’ve been so on edge since our break out of prison; I feel like time is quickly running out.

Just then, Missy enters the room. Her hair is slightly wet from the shower, but she is fully dressed. I wonder if that means we are going out today. I really hope that she has a plan, because I certainly don't.

She sits in the chair opposite me, and just looks at the table top.

“Cookie?” I ask her, nodding towards the plate. I expect her to crack some joke about how many I’ve eaten, but she surprises me by doing nothing but shake her head.

“Is everything okay?” I ask, frowning.

She just sighs. I take that as a negative and sit there, waiting for her to explain.

After a long moment of silence, she speaks.

“There are some things…” she says quietly, “that I think you have a right to know.”

I am instantly on alert. “What things?”

She lets out a breath. “Things that I should have told you in the beginning. And things that have happened recently that I think you should know now. I’m just…scared of your reaction.”

“What are you expecting of me?” I am suddenly nervous.

She looks up at me, her smoky eyes full of tears. Missy? Crying? This is the first time I have ever seen her show any sign of weakness.

“I think…” she whispers, “that you will hate me. That you will never want to see me again. That you will leave, and never come back.”

“Missy!” I say in shock. “I would never do that. Not after what we’ve been through together, and after all that you have done for me.”

“But that’s the thing,” she whispers, so quietly that her words are just breaths, wisps of air that barely reach my ears. “I haven’t done anything for you.”

I shake my head incredulously. “What are you talking about?”

The tears flow freely down her cheeks now. “I am going to tell you the truth. I am going to tell you exactly what has been going on, and how it started.”

I nod slowly. “Okay.”

She takes a deep breath before beginning, and her shoulders slump as she does so.  

“I work for the people who are against Authority,” she tells me, her voice shaky. “We don’t really have a name. We don’t want to be known. We just want to save the world from Authority and their evil ways.”

“I don’t see why that’s so bad,” I say.

She shakes her head. “My boss put me on a mission. It was an extremely important mission – maybe even the most important one ever. I was honoured…and completely determined not to screw it up.

“But I wasn’t stupid. I knew that I couldn’t do it alone – I didn’t have as much faith in myself as my boss did. But I had too much pride to admit it. So I tried to find an accomplice elsewhere.”