Delphine was still not used to the dank concrete monstrosities that were Canadian parking garages. Like so many things, the French versions were somehow more refined. She felt a sharp pang of homesickness as she waited for the driver of the car in front of hers to take his ticket from the automated till. How had she ended up here?
Tapping her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, Delphine's thoughts turned to Cosima. The way her eyes burned with sweet intensity behind her glasses, the touch of her lips lighting up Delphine's heart with a gentle glow of warmth. Had it been cruel, Delphine wondered, to kiss her that one last time? Or would walking away have been worse?
The car in front of hers had disappeared into the darkness of the garage and Delphine pulled up to the till. It was strange, but she was not as frightened as she had expected to be. She would never see the sky again, but this thought did not disturb her. Her work was finished.
Delphine took her ticket and drove forward, allowing the gaping blackness of the near-empty garage to swallow her. She turned right and descended down the concrete ramps, passing rows of vacant spaces until she reached the lowest level of the garage, empty save for a few cars. She pulled into a parking space and cut the engine.
When she stepped out of the car, she was struck by the sheer colorlessness of the landscape that surrounded her. The walls and ceiling seemed to pulse with it, pressing in on her like the tomb that they were.
Delphine set her bag carefully on the ground beside her, the sleek leather of the purse clashing starkly with the layers of dirt and oil caking the cracked concrete floor. That was fitting, she thought; it only made sense for her glossy veneer of lies to be laid to rest in a grave of filth.
As she straightened up, Delphine was careful to keep her expression blank, her eyes cold and empty the way she had learned to make them. She leveled her gaze at the face across the aisle from her, and all at once Delphine was hit by the full force of what she had become.
She thought of the power she had felt standing over Rachel's hospital bed, the sense of safety she had found in the other woman's screams. She remembered sitting on the edge of Shay's bathtub, turning the razor blade over and over in her fingers, and wanting— uncontrollably, undeniably wanting— to see Shay's blood stain the water a dark red. Even killing Dr. Nealon had not shaken her as it should have. She had been ready, the gun concealed inside her jacket as though it belonged there, nestled against her breast like a lover's kiss.
Once, not so long ago, Delphine would have hesitated to take the life of a living, breathing person, but she was not so innocent now. She had turned herself into a monster, no better than those she had tried so hard to fight against. She had tried, but none of it had mattered in the end.
"What will happen to her?" The words burst from Delphine's mouth like gunfire, startling even her. If all that she had done would be enough to keep Cosima and her sisters safe, then maybe she had at least done one good thing.
Delphine did not expect a response to her question, and the gunshot was answer enough. She felt it before the sound had registered, an explosion of pain in her abdomen, ripping her insides apart. She fell backwards, catching herself on the car's back fender, smearing blood all over the white exterior as she slid to the ground. Everything was red, and then black.
It was seven o'clock sharp when the black car pulled into a space on the lowest level of the parking garage. The passenger door swung open and a tall woman in a severe cream-colored coat stepped out. She walked a few paces, surveying the woman lying motionless in a pool of blood, a hand still pressed protectively over the bullet wound in her stomach.
"Check her pulse," the woman ordered, and a man who had stepped from the backseat of the black car crouched down beside the body, holding two fingers to her throat.
He remained in this position for a moment before turning back to the tall woman.
"Well?" she said brusquely. "Is she alive?"
""Her pulse is weak but we may still be able to save her," the man replied.
"Excellent," said Marian Bowles, allowing a thin smile to curve her lips. "I do believe Dr. Cormier will prove most useful to us."