Chapter 34 Violet
VIOLET
We sat in Whip’s car in front of a house I thought I would never see again.
The last time I’d walked out of it, my shoulders had hunched, arms wrapped around myself, eye swelling from a backhand I’d received for no apparent reason, other than my foster father had been in a mood.
Losing income because I’d aged out of the system would do that to a guy, I guessed.
I’d been a broken shell of a girl, my foster mother’s sweet reminders echoing in my head. I could hear them again now, clear as day.
What do you mean you’re leaving? You’re just going to walk out? We need the money from your job! What the hell are we supposed to do?
You’re a fat, ugly bitch, Violet. Your heart is as ugly as your face.
You ungrateful piece of shit, you aren’t even going to thank us for everything we’ve done for you? You owe us.
She’d always had the sharpest, most vile tongue. I’d preferred my foster father’s blows. Physical bruises had always been easier to heal from than the constant torment of my foster mother’s cruelness.
“Vi?” Whip said quietly from behind the steering wheel. “You don’t have to do this, you know? We can take care of it.”
The thought was tempting. It would have been so easy to just let them take me back to the clubhouse. So easy to curl up in Levi’s bed and be lulled to sleep by the knowledge I was safe.
But the girl who’d lived in this house once upon a time, all those years ago, screamed I would never be safe until I faced down the demons that had haunted me my entire life.
That just like Travis popping up again, so would every other monster from my past, until I slayed them all.
I couldn’t just sit back and let them take care of this for me. I could let them back me up and support me, but I had to face it myself, or I would never be truly free from the shackles my shitty past held me in.
“I’m fine. Let’s do this.”
Whip didn’t seem terribly happy about it, and I knew all three of them would have preferred to tuck me up somewhere safe. But none of them argued with me.
They just silently got out of the car, and one by one surrounded me, the four of us moving as a group on near silent feet.
The house wasn’t big. It was a shitty three-bedroom place, practically falling down in ruin.
It reeked of rot and despair. A junky, rusted-out car sat on the overgrown lawn, a new addition since the last time I’d been here.
Weeds grew up around and beneath it. There was a dim glow from behind the ratty curtains covering the windows, and the sound of a TV beyond.
The front porch, where I’d copped one of my worst beatings ever, looked like it hadn’t had any maintenance in the entire time I’d been gone.
It had squeaked something fierce fifteen years ago.
I pointed at it and shook my head at the others.
They got my meaning. We crouched in the darkness. All three of them turned to me.
Despite the situation, despite the fact my heart hammered and my palms sweated just from being back here, the fact they valued my opinion meant everything.
“There’s a living room at the front of the house, and a kitchen and dining area at the back. Bedrooms upstairs. My guess is they’ll be in the living room, watching TV.” I eyed the living room windows. “Front porch will be a dead giveaway we’re here. We’ll be better off going through the back.”
Levi nodded. “We need to split up. The two around the back enter first. Two of us stay here and come in through the front after.”
“How many people do I get to stab?” There was no laughter in X’s question. None of his usual hyperactivity or humor. His eyes held an expression I’d really only seen once before.
When I’d watched him stab a man to death in cold blood.
This was the side of him I should have been scared of. I had been, in the beginning.
But things had changed. The only people X was going to hurt were the ones who truly deserved it.
And the people in this house truly did. They’d lived in my nightmares for years. It was no wonder Travis had run back to them. No wonder they’d happily welcomed him back with open arms.
Travis had come from a fucked-up family home, and they’d only made it worse.
They’d created the monster he was today. Nurtured it with their neglect and hate.
But it was me paying the price. Me. Toby. Nyah.
I swallowed thickly, refusing to believe Nyah was dead. Travis was a liar. Through and through. A narcissistic son of a bitch who would have said anything to hurt me.
Maybe I couldn’t blame him for that. Hadn’t I done the same thing to him? Hadn’t I told the police he’d hurt that girl, just so I could be free of him?
I squeezed my eyes shut tight, forcing out the past, focusing on the now. Because anything else would get us killed.
“I’m going through the back,” I whispered.
Levi squeezed my fingers. “I’m coming with you.”
For once, X and Whip didn’t argue. They knew each other well.
They might have fought like cats and dogs the majority of the time, but they moved in unison, like a well-oiled machine through the darkness, each of them taking up a spot either side of the porch steps, crouched in the darkness, and just waiting for all hell to break loose.
I drank in the sight of them as I followed Levi around the back of the house, dodging rusting car parts and broken toys.
We reached the back door, and he leaned in, pressing his mouth against mine. “I love you.”
God, I loved him too. I kissed him back hard, making sure he knew.
“I’m going first,” he whispered, gun pulled out of the waistband of his jeans and clutched in strong fingers.
I wasn’t stupid enough to argue with him. I needed to be here, but he and Whip and X had done this a million times. While I had exactly no experience and wasn’t even sure which way to hold the knife.
Was there a right way? I had no idea.
But now wasn’t the time to ask. I lurked behind Levi, my heart thumping when he reached up and turned the handle.
It gave easily, clearly unlocked. It squeaked a little as he pulled it open, but when no gunshots or shouts rang out, we both breathed again and crept inside.
The TV blared from the front room, light flickering around a shadowy corner.
But the kitchen, where we stood, was in darkness.
The smell hit me hard. I wrinkled my nose, covering it with my arm. Flies buzzed somewhere around us, though it was too dark to see them. Rotting food sat out on the counters and the tabletop, dirty dishes and pots and pans stacked up in the sink.
The house was as disgusting as I remembered it.
But the smell. I fought back the urge to gag and was glad I hadn’t come in here with X because he and his weak stomach wouldn’t have stood a chance.
I did not remember that smell. It had never smelled good, but this was next-level revolting. We crept toward the living room, me sticking close to Levi, the rustle of chip packets and the clinking of beer bottles giving away exactly where Travis was, even if his shouts at the football game hadn’t.
Levi reached the corner first and peeped around it.
He recoiled so fast fear jumped into my throat. I waited for gunshots to ring out, Travis realizing we were here.
I gave Levi a questioning look, but he just shook his head, motioning for the back door.
I frowned at him, trying to understand what he meant.
There was no time. A shotgun cocked in the darkness. “Come out and say hello to Mommy and Daddy, Violet.”
There was no chance to run. He knew we were here.
I flipped the light on.
Travis sat on the couch, football on the TV, beer in one hand, shotgun in the other.
And two dead bodies sitting either side of him on the couch.
I gasped, horror clawing its way up my throat, a sick realization that the smell in the house wasn’t just moldy food and unwashed clothes.
It was the decaying bodies of my foster parents, with bullet holes in their foreheads.
There was dried blood everywhere. More of it than I’d ever seen in my life. Sprays of it across the walls behind them. Pooled on the floor where they’d dripped blood until they’d bled out. Seeped into the couch where Travis sat like he’d just dropped by to have tea and a chat.
The scene was so bitterly gruesome and horrific that it took me a good minute to even register that he now had that shotgun trained on me.
“Well?” He barked out a bitter laugh. “Don’t be so fucking rude, girl. Say hello to your parents.”
I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop staring at the bodies of the two people who’d haunted my childhood and teenage years.
They hadn’t been good people. I would cry no tears over their deaths. I wouldn’t mourn them.
But the way Travis sat between them on the couch, despite the stench and the flies, the way he’d killed them then left their bodies there as some sort of sick decoration while he continued to live around them…
All of that was too much for my brain to process. Too much for anyone to comprehend.
He’d completely lost his mind.
“Say hello to your parents, Violet!” he screamed.
I whimpered, cringing away from the shotgun aimed at me. “Hello,” I whispered, giving him what he wanted.
I gave myself another long moment to feel the fear. To feel the disgust and the shock and the horror.
And then I let it go.
This house wanted me to be that scared teenage girl who’d had to lock and barricade her door at night to keep out the monsters living beneath this roof.
And now one of them was staring at me again.
But I’d defeated him once.
I could do it again.
“What did you do, Travis?” I asked softly.
He laughed bitterly. “Sorry I didn’t invite you to the family reunion. It didn’t last long.”
“Have you just been living here with dead bodies?”
Travis glanced over at them, like it was the first time he’d really even considered the question. When he turned back to me, his eyes were hard. “Where else was I going to go?”