Angelica began to sing a song. It was quiet, mostly under her breath, but the tune was calming, her voice like that of an angel, and I found myself temporarily pacified. I closed my eyes and imagined a younger version of myself being lulled to sleep by a lullaby my mother used to hum to me every night. 

Every night, and yet I could never remember the melody.

“I killed my daughter,” Angelica spoke and the words immediately sent my eyes shooting open. 

"What?” I was sure I’d heard her wrong.

She continued as if she’d never stopped. “She was a baby. So fragile and innocent and sweet. I went out and picked some flowers for her, just some wild daisies. Thought it would complement her. I thought I was being a good mother.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “The pollen… It did something to her. She died and I’ve never looked at the world quite the same. I didn’t even want her when I found out I was with child. In fact, I bawled my eyes out that night. When she was born, though, there was nothing I loved and cared about more in the world. I imagine it’s of no shock to you when I tell you I’m not fond of flowers.”

“I don’t know what to say,” I muttered. I never would have thought something so dark had ever happened to Angelica. At the very least, nothing as dark as our current situation with Delaney. How something so cruel had happened to her and she still found the courage to care baffled me. It was insane the amount of punishment the innocent had to bear and the amount of sympathy the wicked were expected to receive. 

“I’ve had to bury so many of my demons,” Angelica spoke, each word letting loose a small breath of air to caress the crook of my neck. “It was hard, but now I see so clearly. This isn’t all there is to life, is it? The stars… They stretch so far. There’s more out there, isn’t there?”

Obviously, I wanted to say, but that world wasn’t made for us.

Instead, I said to her, “there are cuts on your legs.”

It was from the glass she’d fallen in but it was nothing major. She seemed to have thought the same because she simply hummed and continued to rock us. The movements were lazy like the lethargic lapping of waves against a shore. 

“I want to leave,” Angelica said.

“Then go.”

“Where to?” she asked, her grip on me tightening further. “Where do we go from here? We have no home. No family. No friends. We have nothing.”

“So what? That just means we’ll leave in the same situation we’re in now.”

I said it like it was that simple despite knowing it was not.

But it made Angelica smile, so it didn’t bother me as much as it should have.

That smile was abruptly ripped off of her face when the door was pushed open and Delaney entered. We hadn’t even realized Atticus and Delaney had finished arguing. He crossed the room with purposeful steps, leaning down to peck Angelica tenderly on the lips, and then turned obviously heated eyes onto me.

“Dove, I’d appreciate it if you would give me some time to speak with her alone,” he said. Angelica began to speak up in opposition but Delaney immediately shut her down, all without tearing his eyes away from me. “It wasn’t a question nor a suggestion, Dove. Go.”

Angelica hesitated, but eventually stood and exited the room, sending me a rather sad smile just before she closed the door behind herself.

Delaney didn’t bother taking his seat. He just stood there, arms crossed and large form towering over me in what was clearly meant to be an intimidating display.

“I don’t appreciate your behavior today,” he said. “Your actions have consequences and sometimes, those consequences don’t fall on you but on those around you. That’s a concept you’ve never been able to understand.”

I remained silent, waiting for him to get to the heart of the matter. 

It didn’t take long.

“She was fifteen years old,” he said with a sigh, gaze pointed toward the ceiling as if he could see the stars through the thick material. “She had a name and quite a beautiful one at that. Her name was Giselle. She had a family. She had goals, ambitions, and an entire life to look forward to until you snatched all of that hope away. And for what? To make a point?”

My eyes narrowed and my lips twisted in a frown. “What are you talking about?”

“You were selfish,” he continued without interruption. “That was your problem and it will always be your problem. I caught her, you know? She’s anemic. I found her passed out in the middle of the street. She could still be alive if you had done as I’d asked. She had a baby, too. His name was Phillip. I’ve got no idea what I’m going to do with him…”

It took a moment, but the moment the realization of what he was talking about came to me, I felt sick. He was talking about the blonde girl with the grey eyes. The one I’d let escape.

“You’re lying,” I accused in a fit of denial. “She’s probably somewhere out there as we speak. Happy and free.”

“Happy and free,” he mimicked with a hearty laugh. “Ain’t that a thought? And all this time I thought you were smarter than this. No one is happy or free. We’re all just doing the best we can. Dressing wounds over and over again until we eventually run out of bandages.”

I shot up from the bed, explosive anger taking a hold of me as I met Delaney’s stare head-on. “You never take accountability for anything you do. No matter what you’ve done, it’s always someone else’s fault. That’s your problem, isn’t it? You don’t see the world for what it is. You don’t see human beings for what they are. All you see, all you’ve ever been able to see, is yourself!”

He cracked a smile, then, and a slight chuckle escaped his lips. “You condemn me as if you’re any better. You only see what you want to see. I’m aware of my actions, always have been, but I just don’t care.”

He cupped the side of my neck, thumb pressing into the place where Angelica had so carefully placed a bandage at the center of my throat. I hissed at the sensation but still refused to back down from the challenge. His smile widened. Then, he abruptly turned around to make his exit.

“You will not leave this room for the next few days nor will you eat,” he said. “Perhaps an empty stomach and endless hours of boredom are what you need to consider your actions and some of their impacts. How real those impacts are whether you want to believe in them or not.”

He shut the door behind him and my ears didn’t hesitate to pick up the click of a lock.