Chapter 7 Violet
VIOLET
Acrushing weight smothers me, pulling me down so viciously, I gasp, my eyes flying open.
At first, I think it’s sleep paralysis—that sickening awareness where my mind is awake but my body refuses to move.
But it’s worse than that.
A woman sits perched on my ribs like a demon, her seemingly skinny frame impossibly heavy, suffocating the breaths from my lungs.
Her once soft and beautiful face is now a grotesque mockery of what I remember. Sunken cheekbones, eyes stretched wide, pupils swallowing the amber, lips curled into something between a grin and a snarl. Our hair is the same color, but hers is longer, reaching her lower back in silky strands.
Mama.
“You bitch.” The bite in her cold, venomous voice slithers over my skin, seeping into me, crawling under my ribs and settling in my bones.
Like it belongs there.
Like it never left.
I try to move, to shift, but my limbs don’t obey me, remaining as rigid and motionless as cement.
Despite the numbness, I want to reach a hand out and touch her. Beg for her forgiveness.
Ask, Why can’t you love me, Mama?
That’s what other mothers did. They loved their kids and spoiled them. I was fine with not being spoiled, but I desperately tried to make her like me. Since we moved all the time, I had no friends, and she was my only source of affection.
Affection she never gave me.
Right now, her fingers dig into my shoulders, nails as sharp as claws. “Useless.”
She lifts her hand and slaps me, the sting reverberating in my cheek. “Your face is fucking disturbing! You’re the mistake of my life and the weight around my neck, Violet. A thing that shouldn’t have been born.”
I shake my head. A small, weak motion. The only rebellion I can manage—or could’ve ever managed. I want to speak, but my lips remain sealed shut as if stitched together with an invisible thread.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t fight.
I can only listen as she spits her rancid words into my ears, the stench of something decaying curling around my face.
“You killed me, you worthless piece of shit.”
Her hands tighten, her nails biting deeper, slicing through the fabric of reality, into my skin, cutting open the fragile pieces of myself that I try to keep together.
I didn’t, I want to say. I didn’t do it, Mama.
But there are no words in my throat, no sound except the way my pulse pounds and pounds and pounds against my skull.
She leans in, close enough that her lips brush my ear, her breath thick and rotting. “You’re a terminal disease who will kill anyone stupid enough to love you. Starting with Dahlia.”
The weight intensifies. My ribs groan under the pressure, my heart a frantic animal trapped in a cage that’s too small.
I scream.
And suddenly, I’m falling.
The world shatters.
And my shout reverberates in the small closet she shoves me into.
I jolt up, gasping, drenched in sweat, my pulse hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to escape me. Faint light greets me, and I release a breath.
It’s not the closet.
I’m not in the closet.
The air is still thick as my breaths come in ragged pulls. My unsteady fingers dig into the sheets, searching for something real. Something that isn’t her.
But her voice lingers, coiled in my head like smoke, and I press my hands to my ears as if that will dilute the words I can still hear.
I know Mama’s dead.
But, in reality, she never really is.
She lives on in my nightmares, always reminding me how useless I am. How I can never be…more.
My feet tangle in the sheets and I fall on my knees on the hardwood floor, groaning, but I jerk up and run to Dahlia’s room.
My breathing slowly eases when I see her sleeping peacefully in bed. I walk on my tiptoes and pull up the sheet that’s fallen off, then quietly close the door, leaning my back against it.
My fingers still shaking, I slide down to the floor, burying my face in my hands. It’s times like these when I just want to…end it.
Once and for all.
Just stop everything.
The nightmares.
The dark closet.
Mama’s cruel words.
My silly yearning for love and affection that I never received.
Except from Dahlia—she’s always loved me unconditionally. She lost her parents to an accident and, like me, was pinballed in the foster care system.
Unlike me, however, she has no silly notions of hopeless romanticism or an unattainable need for affection.
Or any late-night secret meetings with Death, toying with the idea of it as a coping mechanism.
But now, I’m putting the only person who ever cared about me in jeopardy.
Because he is still there.
Death.
And I know if I continued to toy with the idea, Jude would use her to put me back in my place.
I stand on unsteady legs and walk to the living room window. Tremors still plague my hands as I pull back the muslin curtain slightly, squinting at one of the few working lampposts, its glare assaulting me.
It’s four in the morning, so he should be gone by now.
But he’s not.
Across the street, I spot a parked black car. I can’t see who’s inside, but I know it’s not empty.
Over the past two weeks, ever since Jude declared that my life was his, I haven’t seen him around, but I’ve felt him.
Everywhere.
At first, it was a feeling of being shadowed. At work, in the neighborhood, but also during my college summer classes.
You’d think he’d have summer training or something better to do with his time.
But then I realized he wasn’t doing the stalking himself. About a week ago, I spotted a tall, buff guy near my place—a pseudo stalker of sorts.
That guy comes into HAVEN every day and walks me home.
I mean, not walk me, but sort of walks a safe distance behind me. The other day, he punched a drunk guy who tried to come close to me.
His name is Mario, which I only know because Laura has been talking—and flirting—with him. She thinks he’s become a regular because of her, and I don’t want to shatter her illusions.
Still, even though the whole thing has made me deeply uncomfortable, I’m glad I haven’t had to see Jude.
That man terrifies me. Not only because of his vendetta or his ability to beat people to a pulp without blinking, or his violent streak on the ice I keep hearing about, but something far more distressing.
He has a curious ability to see through the chunks of my soul that I thought I’d expertly wrapped up.
And last night, he did something that probably contributed to the nightmare.
He got into the apartment.
I know because of the last entry in my journal, where I mentioned that maybe I could convince Dahlia to move away from here or even possibly leave on my own since I don’t have the heart to make her lose the scholarship she worked her ass off for.
Unlike her, I don’t care much about mine and would consider dropping out of college altogether and continuing to work part-time and take odd jobs here and there.
Last night, after Dahlia and I binged some Netflix and she went to sleep, I opened my journal to write an entry.
That’s when I saw it.
A sticky note with neat print handwriting.
Abandon any useless thoughts about escaping me. Don’t act stupid and force me to show you what I’m truly capable of.
My body trembled so hard upon seeing that.
He came into my home.
Was it the first time?
Or maybe the first time he’s made himself noticeable?
But why now of all times?
His unpredictable actions are messing with my head so badly, I looked around the apartment, searching for his ghost, terrified that Dahlia would see anything amiss, or worse, get involved.
Because Jude is right. I have no clue what rich, privileged, and violent people like him are truly capable of.
And I don’t want to find out.
Later that night, I’m back at work after spending the afternoon embroidering one of Dahlia’s shirts while listening to an audiobook.
“The usual.” Mario’s gruff words reach me from the other side of the counter.
Laura rushes to serve him his Guinness, grinning while he talks steadily. He’s older than me by a few years, maybe late twenties?
I think I need to warn Laura about him, but when I alluded to the fact that he might be untrustworthy the other day, she gave me a weird look.
So I keep those thoughts to myself.
The bar hums with low chatter, the thunk of glass against wood, the distant echo of laughter swallowed up by the bass-heavy music filtering through the speakers.
The usual crowd is gathered under the neon haze of ‘HAVEN’ like sinners seeking temporary absolution.
I work on autopilot, pouring drinks, wiping spills, and nodding along to slurred conversations that don’t require real listening. But then—
Something shifts.
My skin prickles as if the air has been punctured, the oxygen thickening and darkening in increments.
I don’t see him at first. I feel him.
Like a storm pressing in before the first crack of lightning.
Jude strides in, dressed in black, built like a wall.
No, a warning.
A threat.
The low amber glow from the bar lights drags over him, sharpening every edge, casting shadows where shadows shouldn’t be. His black T-shirt stretches across his torso, and my eyes widen upon seeing what’s on his half-exposed arms.
Full sleeves of unintelligible ink.
They stand out like marks of war, like a language only monsters speak.
He moves like he owns the place. Like he owns everything.
And I hate that my pulse stutters at the sight of him.
That my entire body tenses and my senses go on high alert.
I grip the bar towel tighter, pressing my fingers into the damp fabric, forcing myself to breathe.
Because he shouldn’t be here.
He never comes inside.
He’s only ever been outside, lurking like something too big, too sharp, too dangerous to step into the light.
But he’s here now.
Like he was in my home last night.
Why…?
He sits beside Mario, but his presence carries a different kind of weight. Where Mario blends into the background, Jude shifts the entire atmosphere.