Chapter Twenty-Five Violet #2
Matt’s stare didn’t soften. He clicked his pen and smirked as he stared into my face. He looked down at the paper and started writing.
Agent Landry shifted lanes. “Where did you live before Sweetwater Lake?”
“I already told you,” I said. “I won’t discuss my past without an attorney present.”
Her mouth twitched—not humor, not annoyance, something else that I hated. “All right. We’ll shelve that for the time being.” She flipped a page and wrote something down before grabbing a sheet of paper and pushing it toward me. “Do you recognize this symbol?”
I tried to keep myself calm and not show any reaction as I stared down at the image of what the cult carved into every surface—on every sacrifice—for as long as I could remember.
The symbol stared back at me exactly as it always had: the same perfect circle, the same inverted triangle trapping the bleeding eye. The image was mocking and just enough to twist the knife.
It wasn’t new. It was memory carved into bark, every line as familiar as the scars on my own skin.
My mouth dried, my throat tightened. My closed-up throat burned with the taste of old blood and older prayers.
And then another photo was pushed in front of me, this one showing the marking carved in a tree, the bark cut shallow.
My tree. I made myself shrug. “No. I don’t know what that is.
” When neither responded, I glanced up. Matt watched me as if I were a screen showing him all the crimes in gory detail.
“That right?” he drawled. “’Cause this one,” he said and tapped his pen on the picture of the tree, “was taken on your property.”
“I have no idea why that would be there, but the weirdo that left a heart in my backyard probably put that there, too.”
His eyes remained flat. He hummed, and his tone was flat. “How about you tell me about this Harper coworker? You said she spotted this man watching your place of employment?”
I nodded. “Yeah. She could tell you the same thing if you ask her.”
“To expand on that, just so I get all my facts straight,” Agent Landry said, “you work with her. Tell us about that day, if you would.”
I licked my lips. “She offered to walk me home. She could tell something was off with me, but I just told her I had personal stuff happening. I didn’t want to get into something that would seem like paranoia, especially since at that point I didn’t have organs gift-wrapped on my property.
She’s a friend and a coworker, and was worried about me. ”
Landry scribbled something, and I tried to see what she was writing, but she closed the notebook and glanced back at me. She shifted, and the collar of her shirt tugged slightly, showing the lanyard she wore. My attention caught on that because it was . . . off.
It wasn’t a standard-looking lanyard, but looked like thin rope or braided twine—the same type of twine that had been wrapped around both boxes left at my house.
A memory sparked, and I recalled Marcus teaching us how to braid ribbon, twine—anything he had on hand, symbols of eternity to the Bleeding Ground.
I dragged my eyes back to her face to see her looking at me with her brows furrowed. She touched the cord at her neck. “A gift from my kid. A school project.”
Matt chuckled. “Can’t say no to kids’ wearable artwork, can we?”
They both laughed, but it sounded forced.
“Back to the task,” she stated again. “If you and Mr. Iverson are involved, it complicates things. He’s advocating for a single-protective posture around you. That’s not procedure.”
“Then change your procedure,” I said instantly and regretted being unable to control my brief outburst. “Because whatever you’re doing now—women are still dying.” I couldn’t stop the shaking in my voice.
Matt’s stare flicked toward the mirror, as if he were silently communicating with whoever stood on the other side. I had the strangest sensation of being weighed down, like hands pressing on every inch of me until I sank into the ground.
“You’re not the only one with skin in this game,” he said. “We’re trying to keep you alive and catch whoever’s doing this.” Strangely enough, his softer tone sounded somewhat genuine.
I looked down at the pictures again, swallowed the hard pebbles in my throat, and whispered, “So you don’t already know who’s behind all of this?”
Landry pressed her lips together. She kept her tone careful when she said, “It’s an open investigation, and we can’t divulge sensitive details about the case.” Her gaze searched my face.
A long pause of silence filled the room before Matt gathered the photos and closed the folder.
“Here’s how this goes. You’ll stay reachable.
We’ll put a unit on your street again. And we’ll talk to your employer, your coworkers, and anyone else you’re associated with.
If you think of anything else, you call.
” He slid a business card across the table.
Landry capped her pen and said, “We’ll arrange a follow-up with a victim liaison. Someone to help with the practical side of things.”
“Control the situation,” I murmured as I thought about what she’d rattled off. This wasn’t just about my protection; this was about watching me.
Her head tipped a fraction. “If that’s what you’d like to call it.”
They stood in unison, their chairs scraping the tile floor. The door clicked as it was unlocked, and a breath of stale air rushed in. Matt left first, but Agent Landry lingered one heartbeat longer, watching me before saying, “You did well. For what it’s worth.”
She left and I exhaled, but I still felt the people on the other side of the mirror watching me.
I sat there until my spine hurt, until I forced my fingers to stop picking at the skin around my nails.
Somewhere down the hall, another door opened and shut, and footsteps sounded.
The AC kicked on, and I felt the cool air move through the vent and fill the room.
A man down the hall said something I couldn’t hear, and the hair on the back of my neck lifted. I knew Grayson would come for me when they were done with him. He would bring his steady hands and his quiet voice and the way he would make the room not feel as small as it was.
A part of me hated that I was putting so much weight into how safe Grayson made me feel.
I sat there and thought about everything they’d said, everything that had been happening, and what was happening in my fucking life. The faces of everyone I’d come in contact with softened at the edges before blurring. I thought about Harper’s concern for me, and all her personal questions.
I thought about how Grayson came to my coffee shop that first day, and then at the lake, at my house. I replayed everything he’d said to me, and how he’d been so protective of me, how he didn’t push me on answering things despite the marking on the tree, and the organs left at my house.
I was now questioning everything I thought I knew.
The door had been left open, and a young man wearing a wrinkled button-up shirt and pleated black pants appeared in the doorway. “They’re finished,” he said. “Agent Iverson’s waiting for you up front.”
My legs felt like someone else’s when I stood.
I smoothed my sweater with hands that didn’t stop shaking until I curled them into fists.
When I reached the threshold, I looked back at the mirror and stared at my reflection.
I recognized her, but I also didn’t. Violet Santos, who didn’t exist before she came to Sweetwater Lake.
Vienna, who wasn’t supposed to exist anymore at all.
The Vessel. The focal point of all of this. I was the cult’s primary target. The other women were offerings—steps along the way—but I was the true vessel, the one whose heart would complete the ritual and summon their Blood God.
They wanted my heart as their final gift. They wanted me posed and strung up to bring forth the Blood God.
I kept silent as I followed the agent to the front of the station, where I saw Grayson waiting for me. The morning sun bathed the sterile room in warm light, but I was freezing, like I’d been placed in a cooler.
Grayson placed his hand on the small of my back and led me out of the station, but in my mind, a voice whispered that I didn’t know who was telling me the truth, and who was weaving lies around me.