Worry still filled Verona's thoughts as she ate her blueberry pancakes. Delia could only suffer to look at her cousin and Tristan tried to lighten the mood every time.
After eating, Tristan helped move Delia's things into Verona's little home and promised to visit the next day.
Verona pressed her lips and confronted Delia. "What happened after all these years?" Her voice started to break at the last word. "Why do you look like this?"
No one could blame Verona for acting like this. Delia really looked like a walking corpse.
Delia tapped on the space next to her as she sat on the bed. "I'm really sorry for letting you see me like this but I really can't do much." She started.
Verona gave her a confused look. How on earth could she have all that scars and stitches. She knows that their hometown was not at all violent or demanding when it comes to hard labor. It made her question how she remembered her old home.
Delia only gave her cousin a smile. "Verona...I work for somebody and I betrayed him."
Verona looked at her in shock. "What? Who?"
Delia nodded. "After you left, I wanted to go with you. So, I applied to different jobs and it was going fine until a man came to town. He said that his boss will offer gold just to do this one job permanently. He said it wouldn't be much to do, it would be the easiest job in the world.
I didn't take it too much of a thought that numerous men were rejected for that job and a mere lady like me was accepted to do it."
"A non-suspecting lady. Your looks make you not at all suspicious of anything." Delia said. "That's what the man told me. Apparently, I was tasked to be disguised as a server at a big event somewhere far away from home and my task was to do something so simple but so wrong."
As Verona looked at her cousin, she could see that she was still not ready to share what she did. She could only imagine the worst since this way, it won't shock her into hating the only family that she had left.
Delia lifted her sleeves to reveal more scratches, wounds, stitches, and bruises. Some of her skin looked like it was bitten off and one patch of skin was still healing being wrapped around some alcohol-drenched fabric.
"These scars and wounds are from my punishment. I betrayed my employer but I managed to escape him. That's why I'm here."
Verona swallowed the lump that was in her throat. "You're hiding from them?"
Delia nodded. "I want to change how I look. Will you help me?"
Verona nodded. 'Maybe she'll not tell me now but I will wait until then. I will always try to understand her no matter what happens otherwise. What she did will not change how I see her.'
Delia's smile was now different than before. It was more genuine than it was back at the train station. Verona could feel her heart grow warm. She took a scarf from her closet and Delia wrapped it around her head to hide her hair color and her face.
"To the central!"