Defy Me (Shatter Me #5)(21)

Castle and I share a knowing glance from across the room. Something is happening. Something is about to happen.

Delalieu is a resource we never realized we had. And for all his protests, he actually seems like he wants to talk. Maybe Delalieu is the key. Maybe he can tell us what we need to know about—about everything. About Juliette, about Anderson, about The Reestablishment. It’s obvious a dam broke open in Delalieu. I’m just hoping we can keep him talking.

It’s Adam who says, “If you hated Anderson so much, why didn’t you stop him when you had the chance?”

“Don’t you understand?” Delalieu says, his eyes big and round and sad. “I never had the chance. I didn’t have the authority, and we’d only just been voted into power. Leila—my daughter—was sicker every day and I was— I wasn’t myself. I was unraveling. I suspected foul play in her illness but had no proof. I spent my work hours overseeing the crumbling mental and physical health of an innocent young woman, and I spent my free hours watching my daughter die.”

“Those are excuses,” Nazeera says coldly. “You were a coward.”

He looks up. “Yes,” he says. “That’s true. I was a coward.” He shakes his head, turns away. “I said nothing, even when Paris spun Ella’s tragedy into a victory. He told everyone that what Ella did to that boy was a blessing in disguise. That, in fact, it was exactly what he’d been working toward. He argued that what she did that day, regardless of the consequences, was the exact manifestation of her powers he’d been hoping for all along.” Delalieu looks suddenly sick. “He got away with everything. Everything he ever wanted, he was given. And he was always reckless. He did lazy work, all the while using Ella as a pawn to fulfill his own sadistic desires.”

“Please be more specific,” Castle says coolly. “Anderson had a great deal of sadistic desires. Which are you referring to?”

Delalieu goes pale. His voice is lower, weaker, when he says, “Paris has always been perversely fond of destroying his own son. I never understood it. I never understood his need to break that boy. He tortured him a thousand different ways, but when Paris discovered the depth of Aaron’s emotional connection to Ella, he used it to drive that boy near to madness.”

“That’s why he shot her,” I say, remembering what Juliette—Ella—told me after Omega Point was bombed. “Anderson wanted to kill her to teach Warner a lesson. Right?”

But something changes in Delalieu’s face. Transforms him, sags him down. And then he laughs—a sad, broken laugh. “You don’t understand, you don’t understand, you don’t understand,” he cries, shaking his head. “You think these recent events are everything. You think Aaron fell in love with your friend of several months, a rebel girl named Juliette. You don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know that Aaron has been in love with Ella for the better part of his entire life. They’ve known each other since childhood.”

Adam makes a sound. A stunned sound of disbelief.

“Okay, I have to be honest— I don’t get it,” Ian says. He steals a wary glance at Nazeera before he says, “Nazeera said Anderson has been wiping their memories. If that’s true, then how could Warner be in love with her for so long? Why would Anderson wipe their memories, tell them all about how they know each other, and then wipe their memories again?”

Delalieu is shaking his head. A strange smile begins to form on his face, the kind of shaky, terrified smile that isn’t a smile at all. “No. No. You don’t—” He sighs, looks away. “Paris has never told either of them about their shared history. The reason he had to keep wiping their memories was because it didn’t matter how many times he reset the story or remade the introductions— Aaron always fell in love with her. Every time.

“In the beginning Paris thought it was a fluke. He found it almost funny. Entertaining. But the more it happened, the more it began to drive Paris insane. He thought there was something wrong with Aaron—that there was something wrong with him on a genetic level, that he’d been plagued by a sickness. He wanted to crush what he saw as a weakness.”

“Wait,” Adam says, holding up his hands. “What do you mean, the more it happened? How many times did it happen?”

“At least several times.”

Adam looks shell-shocked. “They met and fell in love several times?”

Delalieu takes a shaky breath. “I don’t know that they always fell in love, exactly. Paris seldom let them spend that much time alone. But they were always drawn together. It was obvious, every time he put them in the same room, they were like”—Delalieu claps his hands—“magnets.”

Delalieu shakes his head at Adam.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you all this. I’m sure it’s painful to hear, especially considering your history with Ella. It’s not fair that you were pulled into Paris’s games. He never should’ve p—”

“Whoa, whoa— Wait. What games?” Adam says, stunned. “What are you talking about?”

Delalieu runs a hand across his sweaty forehead. He looks like he’s melting, crumbling under pressure. Maybe someone should get him some water.

“There’s too much,” he says wearily. “Too much to tell. Too much to explain.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I—”