Chapter Four Violet
Chapter Four
Violet
The nightmare had its claws in me again, even though I was awake and conscious and knew it hadn’t been real.
But I heard the Prophet’s voice in my head, Marcus’s voice slithering through my mind even now, even standing here with the cold air biting into my skin and the scent of lake water thick in my lungs.
You were chosen for a reason, Vienna.
That name. No longer an identity, it had become a curse. It was a name I’d buried deep beneath the one I wore now.
Violet was soft. Sweet. Safe.
But safety was an illusion in this world, and now it was even more of a facade in Sweetwater Lake.
The lake was too quiet. The wind barely rippled its surface, moonlight glinting off the dark water like it knew something I didn’t.
I shouldn’t have come here. Not when I knew this was where the bodies had been found—now that I knew they had been carved with ritualistic markings that were far too familiar.
But something pulled me here.
Maybe I wanted to feel close to the victims? Maybe I thought standing on the same blood-soaked soil would make me understand? Maybe I was just too haunted to stay away?
A twig snapped behind me.
I froze, breath held in my chest, cardigan wrapped tightly around me. The air shifted. It was thicker now. Heavy with awareness.
The atmosphere pressed in, not just silent but weighted with unspoken threats, as if the trees themselves were listening, their branches like fingers ready to grasp.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose, and before I could turn fully, I heard footsteps—measured and slow, like whoever was approaching had no reason to rush.
I looked over my shoulder and saw a figure. Tall, shrouded in darkness, coming right toward me.
Something flashed in the moonlight, perhaps a glint off metal or an alteration in the solid wall of shadow formed by the tree line, just enough to draw my eye before I could look away.
And then the moonlight cut across gray eyes that were too perceptive.
Grayson.
He stood just a few feet away, his hands in his coat pockets, his jaw tight like he was holding something back.
His gaze moved over me, sharp and unreadable.
“You come out here often?” he asked, voice low and quiet but laced with curiosity and maybe suspicion.
I hesitated. “No.”
He nodded once, looking out over the water like it held secrets neither of us could name.
“You come out here often?” I asked the same question.
The corner of his mouth kicked up like my question amused him.
“Actually, I do. I usually come to the scene after dark,” he said.
“It helps me think.” He closed his eyes for a second and inhaled deeply before looking at the lake once more.
“No noise. No people. Just the quiet and my thoughts trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.” He glanced at me again. “Helps me feel the truth of it.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say.
“What about you?” he asked after a beat. “Why are you here?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Because I didn’t have an answer that made sense.
“I don’t know,” I finally whispered, shrugging. “Maybe I thought I’d find something. Or . . . feel something.”
He didn’t push. Just stood there, his gaze lingering on the lake’s edge like he could see the past soaked into the soil.
“They found the last body right over there,” he said, nodding toward a shadowed bend in the trail.
I knew. I’d recognized the site from the picture.
A ripple moved across the lake, though the wind was still. I thought I heard a whisper carried in it—chanting, faint and low, the rhythm too familiar. My chest locked. When I glanced at Grayson, his gaze was fixed on the water, like he’d heard it, too.
His eyes cut to mine, dark and piercing. “I noticed something in your expression yesterday.” I didn’t respond. “You’ve seen the markings before.”
I hesitated too long.
“People see a lot of things,” I whispered.
He stepped closer. “You didn’t react like someone seeing it for the first time. You reacted like someone remembering something.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. My mantra came rushing back to me. Hide your truth. Don’t get close to anyone.
“Violet,” he said, and the way my name left his lips made something inside me twist. “If you know something—if you’ve seen something—now’s the time.”
“I don’t know anything,” I said too quickly.
His jaw flexed like he knew I was lying. “Then what brought you here?” His tone was sharper. He was frustrated.
The truth sat heavy in my throat. I didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to name the ghosts.
But they were already here, weren’t they?
“I think I came to pay my respects,” I finally admitted.
He was quiet, his gaze unreadable.
“You’ve got ghosts in your eyes,” he added.
“I’m sure we all do,” I replied.
“You’ve seen something. Lived something.”
I tightened my arms around my chest and stared out at the lake again, refusing to meet his gaze head-on as he told me a truth I’d tried to keep hidden for so many years.
“The way you carry yourself . . . I’ve seen it many times in my line of work. It’s like you’re always waiting for someone to figure it—you—out.”
My heart pounded. “Figure out what?”
Grayson stepped closer. Close enough that I felt his body heat seep through my clothing.
“I don’t know yet,” he said, voice low. “But I want to.”
Something in his words—something about the way he said yet—felt dangerous.
A shuddering breath left me. He was too close to . . . figuring me out.
And then he lifted his hand. His movements were slow, measured. Before I knew his intentions, he brushed a strand of hair from my face. His fingers grazed my skin, the touch light but electric. My breath hitched, and on instinct I moved away.
“My apologies,” he said in a flat tone. We were silent for a suspended moment before he said, “I’ve spent a long time looking for answers to . . . everything.” He went on. “But now I’m focused on these murders, and what they mean. It all seems like it means more.”
“They always do.” I looked at him, seeing him visibly stiffen. It was the first real admission I’d given him. That silence fell again, thick and heavy with unspoken things.
“If you know something, help me stop it. Help me save another woman.”
I wanted to say no. Wanted to run.
“You know there will be another, and another. It won’t end until it’s forced to.”
I didn’t move. The truth was—I was tired of running. Tired of silence. Tired of pretending this thing inside me wasn’t real.
“What are you really looking for, Grayson?” I asked.
He didn’t speak for a moment, and when he did, his voice was a gravel-thick whisper. “Like I said—the only thing that matters. The truth. I won’t push,” he said. “But I’m not walking away, either.”
I exhaled shakily, the tension between us sharp enough to cut and make me bleed.
“We’re all haunted, Violet,” he added.
Strangely enough, his words made me feel seen for the first time in my life.
We stood there in the dark, surrounded by the ghosts of the lake and the weight of the past.
I didn’t know what was happening, not in Sweetwater, not with Grayson.
But something had begun.