Orthia
10 Days
Delphiniheadsdownthehall towards her old bedroom and I’m fucking glad she never had to share a bed with her ex. Even what little she was willing to offer up on the journey here was enough to make me hate the guy even more. This little scare tactic will be a perfect addition to her revenge.
I look around again, noting the lifeless coffee table books and shit art on the walls. I thought rich people were supposed to have taste, but I guess I’m wrong on that count. Moments tick by and this far inland it’s best not to summon Love. Meditation is an option, but I don’t think Del will be too long. I check the news on my phone instead. It’s an odd habit I have. The dealings of humans, what they consider noteworthy, should not interest me. I can’t stop my curiosity though. I scroll through the headlines and smirk at the chaos of this society. They are crumbling so easily. Greed and gluttony are truly great sins they suffer.
There is an article about Kragnash, his re-election campaign now in full swing as incumbent mayor. He is up against an older white man who looks like he commits hate crimes in his free time.
Nothing about bodies washing up or the coast guard dredging for anyone. It has happened a few times that the remains of my kills have washed ashore, but nothing comes of them. Either because of our monstrous network working behind the scenes to keep us all hidden or because the police service in Gwenmore is simply too stupid to see how the murders are similar.
At the bottom of the site is celebrity gossip. A guilty pleasure, a touch of the woman I used to be. When there was nothing but the market gossip and a temple full of women, it was all there was to do but listen and learn. It feels like I am looking at someone else’s life when I think about that part of my past, the one that is full of more joy than anger.
Pinned to the top of the news site, is a story about some hotel heiress.
An heiress caught cheating, family disgraced.
Family disgraced sounds absolutely archaic, but I don’t care. I open the article, click bait be damned.
Affluent and luxury influencer and heiress dropped by own family brands after sexually explicit images of her surfaced late Friday night.
I have always been one to take this sort of news with a pinch of salt. What most likely has happened is that woman did something with her own body and free will, and now she is being villainized for it. Like all click bait articles, it takes a while for the writer to get to point. They waffle on about exclusive resorts and high-end skincare, before showing a blurred out picture with the caption “NSFW”.
I shouldn’t have clicked.
Her face is half cut out of the shot because her curls, but I recognise the hideous dress she is wearing. The curves of her body are unmistakable to me already. Even in the grainy image, I can tell she isn’t coherent. Hands grope where they shouldn’t, with poorly placed peach emojis to make it safe enough to share online.
The Fields’ family released a statement on Monday morning saying they have cut ties professionally and personally with their daughter, Delphini Fields. This follows eyewitness accounts of Delphini Fields fleeing the scene with her two unknown lovers.
I won’t pretend to know how social media works. I have heard of influencers before, I know some of the tourists who take our tour make their living sharing their lives online. But it is not something I have engaged with beyond lurking and when searching for information. It is also a useful tool to throw off investigations into missing persons. The risk of bringing the police or questioning humans to my gangplank is too great for me to truly engage with it.
But this article makes it out that Delphini’s life is over. The article ends with the announcement that her recent engagement has also ended and the unnamed fiancé, while devastated, will not be commenting on these revelations.
Fields has not responded to multiple inquiries or messages sent to her.
My blood boils.
For her andather.
She hasn’t responded because whoever took these pictures of Delphini killed her. If we had a proper conversation when she first awoke, I would have been able to do some research. Looked her up online to decide how we were going to handle her promise to Love.
Fuck knows what I am going to do now.
Every ounce of me is furious that a man would do such a thing to another, to so publicly shame and ruin them. This hits at something deeper in me, something darker that gnaws at my past, my own death. The tentacles beneath my skin surface and fight against my clothing for freedom.
A brush of a tentacle between my shoulders does nothing to calm me down. Love’s presence with me instead of her does not lessen this fury inside of me. It is too familiar, our stories are not the same, yet we were each ruined. I resist the urge to pull up Delphini’s social media, to search online. I don’t need to see more of this vitriol.
I am at war with myself. Should I show her this article, or is it better she doesn’t know? I know she misses having a phone. It’s evident in the way she sometimes pats her sides like she is looking for the device.
She needs to know what has been done. There should be no surprises when she seeks her revenge so that when Miles begs for his life, she will revel in his weakness. I stand up and start towards her room. Delphini is on her hands and knees, with her upper half stuck under the bed. Her skirt has slid up and even though she’s got matching pink booty shorts attached to this outfit, I am still getting a vision of her ass and thighs. No, this is not about how fucking hot I am for her and the shit I’m gonna share is going to hurt.
“Motherfucker,” she groans, and then there is a scraping sound across the dark wood floors. “Gotcha.”
She tosses a small safe onto the bed that I now see is laden with more clothes and toiletries. That is some fancy shit in that designer luggage. It doesn’t matter; the task at hand is making sure my soulmate is informed.
“Delphini, I’ve got something you need to see,” I say.
She doesn’t look up from inputting the code into the safe. “What’s up?”
