The sound of our feet hitting the ground in quiet steps resounded all around us along with the whistles of wind and the distant chirping of birds.

"We all just want to survive," Delaney sighed. "Someway, somehow. When I was a little boy, I lived with a crowd. I was an adopted child of seven. Now, I'm a firm believer that every heart starts full and then empties with time. As such, I loved my parents to death despite the fact that they used all of us as laborers. 

"I was naive. I didn't understand how twisted it all was in the beginning so I saw no reason to go against any of it. I handed them my entire heart and they crushed it; gradually, slowly, a little more every day while staring me in the eyes as if nothing was wrong.

"One day, I returned home from school and..." Delaney tilted his head, his stare empty. "My youngest sister was dead. Her neck was twisted, and mom was the culprit. My siblings were crowded around her fresh corpse, crying and sniffling while mom just watched. She was manic, panicked, but she just kept...defending it. She said it was discipline, that Eva should have behaved better to prevent that grim outcome. She was only eight.

"Something in me broke. I unzipped the small pocket on the side of my backpack and pulled out a pocket knife, switching it open. My mom was still pacing back and forth, but her footsteps stilled when I shoved the knife into her chest. Directly into her heart, I think, because she screamed and then collapsed. Knowing my father would wake up to investigate the commotion, I ushered my siblings out and told them to run. I told them not to stop for anything. To stick together. To love each other. That they would be okay."

Delaney chuckled. "I still don't know what happened to them to this day. Just as the last of them rushed out, something heavy struck me in my temple and I went out cold. When I woke up, my hands were cuffed behind my back and I was in police custody..."

Delaney trailed off suddenly as if lost in thought, his steps halting. I stopped beside him, turning to him and waiting for him to continue. He did after a solid minute, some of the light coming back to his eyes as he cleared his throat and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"If I hadn't done what I did, I wouldn't be here today. I learned that this world truly couldn't care less what happens to you. Everyone's looking out for themselves and their pockets. Money makes the world go round, am I right?

"You look out for yourself and you take what you want if you want to survive." Delaney placed a hand on my shoulder, staring deeply into my soul. I was frozen in place by that piercing, crazed gaze. "That's what I'm doing. I'm taking back my life, the one thing that will ever be within my control. You can't tell me that's wrong."

"You didn't just take back your life," I said, my voice choked as I forced the words out of my mouth. Finally, I reached up to shove his hand away and found I could breathe a little easier as he allowed it. "You've taken other lives, as well. My mom and dad, Atticus, Angelica, Jules—"

At the mention of Jules, Delaney broke out in bitter laughter, and the rest of what I had been going to say escaped me. 

"Jules," Delaney said with a scoff. He didn't further elaborate, instead taking the conversation in a direction I would have never expected in a thousand years. "And wrong again, Valorian. Angelica approached me. To think you know so little about the girl you worship so much..."

He trailed off and then scoffed again in what had to have been the most condescending tone he could muster.

Nevertheless, the words set off a rage so intense within my body that there couldn't have been any appropriate words to describe it in the entire dictionary. My jaw clenched, my left eye twitching as I leveled Delaney with a razor-sharp glare. Delaney leaned away with a leer.

"If you cared about your life at all," I said menacingly, "you would have left me alone. The minute you brought me here, you signed your death certificate in ink."