Defy Me (Shatter Me #5)(20)

Delalieu obeys.

“How long?” I say again. “How long have you known her as Ella?”

“I— I’ve”—Delalieu hesitates, looks around—“I’ve known Ella s-since she was a child,” he says finally.

I feel the blood leave my body.

His clear, explicit confession is too much. It means too much. I sag under the weight of it—the lies, the conspiracies. I sink back into my chair and my heart splinters for Juliette, for all she’s suffered at the hands of the people meant to protect her. I can’t form the words I need to tell Delalieu he’s a spineless piece of shit. It’s Nazeera who still has the presence of mind to spear him.

Her voice is soft—lethal—when she speaks.

“You’ve known Ella since she was a child,” Nazeera says. “You’ve been here, working here, helping Anderson since Ella was a child. That means you helped Anderson put her in the custody of abusive, adoptive parents and you stood by as they tortured her, as Anderson tortured her, over and over—”

“No,” Delalieu cries out. “I d-didn’t condone any of that. Ella was supposed to grow up in a normal home environment. She was supposed to be given nurturing parents and a stable upbringing. Those were the terms everyone agreed t—”

“Bullshit,” Nazeera says, her eyes flashing. “You know as well as I do that her adoptive parents were monsters—”

“Paris changed the terms of the agreement,” Delalieu shouts angrily.

Nazeera raises an eyebrow, unmoved.

But something seems to have loosened Delalieu’s tongue, something like fear or guilt or pent-up rage, because suddenly the words rush out of him.

“Paris went back on his word as soon as Ella was in his custody,” he says. “He thought no one would find out. Back then he and I were about the same, as far as rank went, in The Reestablishment. We often worked closely together because of our family ties, and I was, as a result, privy to the choices he made.”

Delalieu shakes his head.

“But I discovered too late that he purposely chose adoptive parents who exhibited abusive, dangerous behavior. When I confronted him about it he argued that any abuse Ella suffered at the hands of her surrogate parents would only encourage her powers to manifest, and he had the statistics to support his claim. I tried to voice my concerns—I reported him; I told the council of commanders that he was hurting her, breaking her—but he made my concerns sound like the desperate histrionics of someone unwilling to do what was necessary for the cause.”

I can see the color creeping up Delalieu’s neck, his anger only barely contained.

“I was repeatedly overruled. Demoted. I was punished for questioning his tactics.

“But I knew Paris was wrong,” he says quietly. “Ella withered. When I first met her she was a strong girl with a joyful spirit. She was unfailingly kind and upbeat.” He hesitates. “It wasn’t long before she grew cold and closed-off. Withdrawn. Paris moved up in rank quickly, and I was soon relegated to little more than his right hand. I was the one he sent to check on her at home, at school. I was ordered to monitor her behavior, write the reports outlining her progress.

“But there were no results. Her spirit had been broken. I begged Paris to put her elsewhere—to, at the very least, return her to a regular facility, one that I might oversee personally—and still he insisted, over and over again, that the abuse she suffered would spur results.” Delalieu is on his feet now, pacing. “He was hoping to impress the council, hoping his efforts would be rewarded with yet another promotion. It soon became his single task to wait, to have me watch Ella closely for developments, for any sign that she’d changed. Evolved.” He stops in place. Swallows, hard. “But Paris was careless.”

Delalieu drops his head into his hands.

The room around us has gone so quiet I can almost hear the seconds pass. We’re all waiting for him to keep going, but he doesn’t lift his head. I’m studying him—his shaking hands, the tremble in his legs, his general loss of composure—and my heart hammers in my chest. I feel like he’s about to break. Like he’s close to telling us something important.

“What do you mean?” I say quietly. “Careless how?”

Delalieu looks up, his eyes red-rimmed and wild.

“I mean it was his one job,” he says, slamming his fist against the wall. He hits it, hard, his knuckles breaking through the plaster, and for a moment, I’m genuinely stunned. I didn’t think Delalieu had it in him.

“You don’t understand,” he says, losing the fire. He stumbles back, sags against the wall. “My greatest regret in life has been watching those kids suffer and doing nothing about it.”

“Wait,” Winston says. “Which kids? Who are you talking about?”

But Delalieu doesn’t seem to hear him. He only shakes his head. “Paris never took Ella’s assignment seriously. It was his fault she lost control. It was his fault she didn’t know better, it was his fault she hadn’t been prepared or trained or properly guarded. It was his fault she killed that little boy,” he says, now so broken his voice is shaking. “What she did that day nearly destroyed her. Nearly ruined the entire operation. Nearly exposed us to the world.”

He closes his eyes, presses his fingers to his temples. And then he sinks back down into his chair. He looks unmoored.