Chapter 16
Sixteen
Violet
Sitting in the back of Theo’s car with a gun in one hand and a protein bar in the other was anticlimactic after the day we’d spent traveling and planning.
Or rather, Uncle Connor and Theo had planned while I sat there.
We met him only a few hours into the drive, picking him up from what seemed to be the middle of nowhere.
Then they sat in the front while I listened, resentment trying to chip away at my resolve.
It was strange seeing Connor again after the last time. Mine and Theo’s decision to run from him after the train station, after what had happened there, well, I can’t imagine it did anything but anger him. He’d expected us to be waiting for him, but we’d stolen from him and disappeared.
When he climbed into the car, he stared at me, turned around in the front seat to let his eyes skirt over all of me, picking me apart. After a few heavy moments, he said nothing, turning back to the front and beginning his talk with Theo. Leaving me to sit and stew and worry.
Theo bristled but let it slide. This was another thing to bury until there was time. Including the brewing resentment in me.
In the back of my mind, trying to break to the forefront, was the question of why they didn’t do this for me? Why they left me to suffer for so long? The more I thought about it, the angrier I got, but I bottled it up. Breathed through their planning and plotting instead of losing my mind. Kind of.
They were coming for Margaret. It took a long damn time for anyone to come for me.
Theo was so achingly full of regret for his lack of action, had begged and pleaded with me for forgiveness, so I’d given it.
And I meant it. It was him, after all, that had burst through those cabin doors and carried me away to relative safety, to healing.
No one had known how bad it could get. Now we did. But still, resentment lingered.
Now it was dark, and I was alone. And that resentment continued to eat at me.
Theo and Connor had left me in the car, tucked up between a heavy copse of trees, demanding I lock the doors and sit tight with no noise and no light. Sit tight. Hide. Be ready to fight with the gun in my hand or flee in the car I hardly knew how to use.
The look on Theo’s face before he turned and left was pained, scared. He didn’t want me alone, but also didn’t want me near any of the danger. He’d given me a hard, demanding kiss, ignoring the shout of horror from Connor, before shutting the door and giving me one last look through the window.
They weren’t far, but it was far enough. A mistake, I think, to leave me alone.
It didn’t fit right, that it was all so close, but out of sight. I needed to see.
I needed to see.
Each time an owl hooted or an animal chirped or a tree branch rustled, I damn near leaped out of my skin I was so jumpy, too much pent up energy they weren’t letting me release.
I had a tracker behind my ear at Theo’s insistence, remembering how they’d found me the last time we’d been separated, but I still felt more exposed and alone than I thought I would.
Action was calling to me, need crawling under my skin.
Theo’d asked Christian if they had anything that would work to track me, and he directed my brother to a drawer in the surveillance room. Ten minutes and a syringe later, I had a fresh wound behind my ear, a little tracker.
For a moment, I’d wondered what kind of person, what kind of family, we were getting help from, but then I remembered my own and found it just didn’t matter. I didn’t care. As long as Christian was good, I didn’t care.
Ten minutes had wandered by, alone in the car, and still nothing. With the windows wound down, against Theo’s instructions, I heard only the animals and the wind.
Nosiness got the better of me, and against all judgment, I climbed out of the car, through the window, still holding onto that gun, enjoying how heavy it felt in my palm.
I stretched out, gave myself time to second guess this stupidity, but I had to know, had to see.
I’d killed two men already, one by mistake but the other on purpose.
They didn’t need to hide me from the dark side of what they were doing.
I’d lived in the black. I started moving.
“Holy crap,” I muttered to myself when I got a little tangled in some brambles, but it was the most direct route, the fastest way just to follow their path, my feet carried me forward, toward the road. I just had to know.
What was happening? Had the cars come by? Was my sister about to appear from behind a tree, bewildered and rescued? Would she be relieved or angry? Spitting feathers or fawning over her family for freeing her from the hell?
I itched to know, felt that blackness settle over me that was becoming too familiar.
My palms were crawling with the desire to hurt, to make someone suffer.
A person who’d hurt me first. I moved closer to the road, fantasies rolling around my mind as I picked my way through the bushes, wondering how the men had managed it without making noise.
Theo shouldn’t have left me to suffer alone.
As I got nearer the road, I did, in fact, second guess myself.
I was turned around, didn’t know if I was even going in the right direction anymore, cursing myself under my breath.
God knows what possessed me to think I could navigate through a thick woodland when I’d spent most of my life locked away.
I was an idiot, a fool, to think I would be any use. With a small cry, I twisted around, then span again, trying to get my bearings. This was a disaster. It was too dark; the air was frosty and heavy with something I couldn’t name.
Every time a bush rustled, even by my own feet, I tensed up, my heart stuttering. I’d made such a huge mistake.
My mouth opened to call for my brother, to ruin his cover, and hope I hadn’t stumbled too far in the wrong direction.
This was the way they’d gone though. It was. Both of them, my brother and my uncle, shoulders tense, legs long and stealthy. I just needed to keep pushing, get over myself and the fear creeping in.
Something in the air shifted after a few more minutes; I was near the road. I could just feel it. Then, as if from nowhere, a shadow appeared in front of me.
I opened my mouth to scream in shock when they lurched forward, a familiar hand pressing over my face. Theo. It was Theo. The relief I felt made my bones quiver. Theo.
A very displeased Theo.
Despite his anger, I smiled.
“What the hell, Vi?” he whispered to me, tension high in his body, rolling from his shoulders to the balls of his feet, making his entire body coil. “This isn’t safe!”
“I wasn’t safe back there either,” I snapped, annoyed again that he had tried to leave me out. It wasn’t fair; I was as much a part of this as they were. My body was jittery, aching for pain, for something. I frowned at him.
Theo noticed, tugging me to him with a grunt, his grumpy face in shadow. He looked behind me as he rested his chin on my head, like the enemy might leap free any second. His muscles were so hard, his entire body like a stretched elastic band.
“I felt too alone,” I muttered into his chest. “I want to be here with you.”
Theo opened his mouth to argue, his hand playing with my hair as he no doubt thought of some words to tell me off with or a way to get me back in the car, when his radio crackled.
They had radios, which had made me laugh when Connor pulled them from his pocket.
It all seemed so farcical. Who were these men?
What was this life? I still struggled to place us within it.
When I saw them move through it with such ease, it felt fake. A joke.
But Theo didn’t let me go, held me to him just as close, so I heard Connor’s voice come through the little speaker when it crackled to life. It was cold, switched off, mechanical.
“Coming round the corner now,” Connor said, and Theo swore, stepping out of my warmth and looking over his shoulder at the road. I could just make out the tarmac, shinier than the woodland ground. I’d been close, in the right direction. Go me.
“Fuck, Vi, stay back. Please wait here. I don’t want you to… see this.”
For a moment, my resolve wavered again. I just wanted to have some bloody conviction for once, to believe in myself or in our actions. Theo seemed genuine in his remorse for what was about to happen. What was he doing? What had I missed? What were he and Connor going to do—? Did I care?
We stepped closer to the road, me following Theo, who kept trying to shove me back.
A car barreled around a narrow corner, flying straight past us before the loudest, most ear-piercing screech filled the air.
Metal and tarmac and rocks ground and smashed together, screamingly loud, crashing and banging.
Theo turned his front toward the commotion, his shoulders raised, braced, not reacting to the noise while I brought my hands up to cover my ears, wincing. The clamor overwhelmed me.
The car skidded and spun, its tires blowing out as the entire thing careened towards the trees on the other side of the road.
I watched in horror as it smashed through the tree line and wrapped itself around a massive trunk, smoke pouring from it in an instant.
No people. At least the evil still remembered their seatbelts.
“Oh, my god!” I shrieked. “Was Margaret in there!?” I charged into Theo, grabbing at him. “Theo! You’ve killed her!”
What was the point of this? Killing her, not saving her. They weren’t, this wasn’t… I made to run to the car, but Theo grabbed me, yanking me back, wrestling with me to stop my feet ever touching the tarmac, to stop my body ever moving beyond the tree line.