Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Theo
“What do you think they’re doing up there?
” Connor asked idly, frowning up towards the stairs.
This place was larger than Christian’s cabin, but with a similar layout, so sound traveled.
We could hear the muffle of voices as we stood in the kitchen, but nothing else.
I’d stepped out of the shower and come back down after hovering outside the door for a minute, trying to snoop, but failing.
They all needed this. I was their big brother, but I understood the need for sisterhood.
This world was worse for them. I hoped Violet could get through.
My skin itched to get to her, especially knowing she still needed a proper wash, some real food, a nap in a comfy bed wrapped up in my arms…
My Violet was on her last legs, exhausted both in her mind and body, and I wouldn’t feel settled until I had her sorted. Fed, washed, curled up under a blanket and fast asleep with her head on my chest.
I’d urged Margaret to listen to Violet before they disappeared into the room, to please pay attention and understand the many fucking voices yelling at her. They’d brainwashed her. She needed to sit the fuck down and let us undo it. The look in her eyes told me she never would.
But perhaps Violet would be different to me. More patient. Kinder with it. I could only hope.
Connor pushed a tumbler of vodka across the kitchen counter and nodded for me to take it.
I downed it in one, letting the burn slide down my throat to steady my nerves.
The things Violet and I had done together, the thing I’d stumbled across in the forest…
she was changing, developing into this vengeful spirit, one I didn’t think could be held back.
Maybe she wouldn’t be kinder. Maybe she would pull out a knife and stab out their eyes.
It scared me as much as it excited me. She wasn’t the meek Violet who’d asked me to hold on to her virginity for her.
She wasn’t the soft younger sister I’d send stupid little text messages to because she was lonely and sad, cheering up with images of wildlife or the food I was eating.
The woman who’d walked out of the flames of her marriage was black-souled, embers smoldering, ready to set alight any second.
I saw her. Alive and thriving as she dismembered our father’s body.
The one she’d just killed in cold blood.
And together we bathed in that death. I was just as fucked as her.
Because I’d relished in it too, as the knife sawed through his neck, tendons, bone, muscle, I drowned in the pleasure of it.
He’d always made me kill, maim, scare, and though I hadn’t claimed his life, I’d claimed the last of his dignity.
Connor looked at me like he saw everything in my head, then slid another vodka my way.
There was a permanent tension between us, growing deeper since he saw me and Violet together.
I didn’t give a fuck. He could have all the opinions he wanted; it wouldn’t change a thing.
Once this was all over, if it could be over, Violet and I would be long gone.
Dad was dead. Charlie first, now Dad too.
That left me at the head of the family I wanted nothing to do with.
Connor was never supposed to have this role, neither was I.
I needed to take care of them. I opened my mouth to tell Connor as such, that we’d killed his big brother mere hours ago, that his life had ended at the hands of his daughter.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to share what seemed so personal to Vi.
Connor already looked at me like I was depraved, and while I didn’t care, I didn’t want to add to it. We had enough fucking drama going on. We needed to talk about our next move.
“We should get some food started,” I said instead, breaking the tension between us with the thought of filling our bellies. Food or tea. Always the way. Voices were rising upstairs, but it wasn’t my business until I heard aggression. “What have you got here?”
Connor shrugged and turned to a cupboard, frowning in surprise when he found it full. “Shitloads, apparently. I haven’t been here.”
“Amy has?” I asked, rummaging in the fridge, pulling out a packet of chicken.
“Yeah,” Connor said with a thick voice, almost sad, wistful or lost in some thought.
“I couldn’t… didn’t. She’s been here alone.
With guards,” he tacked on when I bristled.
A heaviness grew between us, like there was something he wanted to say, wanted to ask.
The sadness rippled off him, making my stomach ache. What the fuck was that about?
I opened my mouth to demand he spill the beans when the door upstairs flew open, slamming into the wall, shouting and stamping feet suddenly filling the air. I dropped the knife and rushed to the bottom of the stairs, finding Violet storming down them, a raging expression on her reddened face.
“What happened?” I asked, incredulous, as my other two sisters moved into the hall as well. Amy began down the stairs, but Margaret stood at the top, looking like she was contemplating leaping from the banister.
“Maggie there thinks I deserved it all,” Violet spat, as I resisted the urge to pull her to me.
“I didn’t say deserved!” Margaret shouted from the top of the stairs. “You didn’t give him the heir he needs, so why wouldn’t he punish your body?”
“Oh, I’ll give you a punishment if you say that again,” Violet whirled around, anger pouring off her in waves. Her fists clenched, and I put my hand on her shoulder to stop her lunging for our stupid idiot sister, who was walking down the stairs, her nose in the air, closer to the danger.
Margaret, who had no idea who she was dealing with now, only shrugged when she reached the bottom.
“I’ll take it. If it means I can get back to the church, that I can become the heir-giver, I’ll take it.
” She gestured to Violet’s body, and I noted Connor moving up behind her, towards Amy, who was watching the argument with a distraught look across her face.
He led her away, his hand around her shoulder and their heads tipped together.
“I can’t wait to have the honor. I’ll prove I’m not barren like you. ”
I gaped at her, and at the same moment, Violet shrieked and huffed, gesturing wildly, though making no move to jump Margaret.
“What I’d like to damn well know is why he needs an heir so desperately, anyway?
” she bellowed, slipping from my grasp and turning away, marching through the house.
“He’s definitely the fucking problem at this point.
” I followed her into the kitchen, finding Connor and Amy there huddled in the corner, looking concerned, turned in to each other.
Connor moved to block her. It looked like Amy had just been whispering something to him, but I didn’t have time to worry about whatever they might be plotting.
Violet grabbed a knife and turned back the way she had come.
“I think he never bothered getting us tested before he married us because he knew we’d be fine. If they knew we were fine, we’d know he was the fucking barren one.”
“Violet, what are you doing?” I asked in a panic as she brandished the knife back toward the foyer. Margaret wasn’t there anymore.
“Margaret!” Violet yelled, taking a moment before pounding up the stairs. I watched her go, her bare feet slamming on each step, rage making her entire body tense, muscles rippling beneath her soft flesh.
I heard a shout. “Shit,” I muttered to myself as I snapped into action and raced up the stairs, following her. God knows what I’d find. Would we need to run again?
They were in the bathroom, Violet climbing into the bathtub and yanking down her trousers, the knife precarious in one hand, a fistful of Margaret’s hair in the other. What the—? I skidded to a stop in the doorway, paralyzed.
“Vi…” I said at the same time Margaret yelled and broke free of her hold, shrieking and fighting with all the grit of a haughty upper-class lady from the seventeen hundreds.
“Grab her!” Violet demanded as Margaret tried to run, so of course I obliged, my hands wrapping around the top of Margaret’s arms when she attempted to dart past me, just a fraction too firm. She whimpered, but didn’t fight me, didn’t even look at me. “Make her watch.”
I forced Margaret’s back to me, so she could see Violet, whatever she was about to do.
Violet turned, still standing in the tub, and lifted her leg up so we could all see the word on her thigh. There were lines through it now, carved in by me, but the word ‘barren’ was still written on her flesh, plain as day, dragged and sliced through her skin, a brand, an insult.
“I’m not barren,” she said, looking over her shoulder at us.
“I’m not a farm animal to declare unbreedable.
” The knife glinted as the tip reached her thigh.
“Rafael put this on my body when he failed, once again, to impregnate me. When another month went by with my period arriving.” The knife drove into her skin, carving around the first letter.
She hissed, but didn’t stop. “He never once thought he might be the problem, only punished me.” She curled the knife around the entire B and sliced through, so the skin separated from her body and fell into the tub with a thump.
She started working on the A, even as blood streamed down her leg, even as Margaret whimpered and begged her to stop.
I didn’t move a muscle. I was Violet’s willing witness to every drop of madness she shared.
Violet was so beautiful, so powerful and brave. Only wincing a little as she carved herself up to prove a point.
“You want him to do this to you when you fail too? You want this monster for yourself?” Vi asked, removing the A and both the Rs before she showed any sign of being in true pain.
She gasped and shuddered, the knife wobbling, almost dropping.
She was woozy. Probably from damned blood loss or an adrenaline crash, but I wanted to shove Margaret out the way and go to her.
Instead, I held Margaret to watch it all.
Violet looked beautiful in her rage, but I needed to put a stop to this before she hurt herself too much. The moment I relented and loosened my grip on Margaret, after Violet wobbled again, Margaret shrieked and ran, whimpering and crying, her feet slapping on the wood fading.
Vi blinked as I darted to her. “Enough, beautiful. You got your point across,” I muttered to her, cupping her face and forcing her gaze to mine.
She looked fucking high, her eyes rolling around, pupils blown.
The letters he’d carved weren’t huge, the slices of her skin not massive by any means, but she was feeling it.
The wounds were catching up to her. Our busy fucking day sending her energy through the floor.
“Theo,” Violet murmured, her voice low and reedy.
“What?” I asked. “What do you need?”
“Get her back. I’m not finished.”
My brow furrowed, confusion hitting me. She sure as fuck looked finished.
“Get her back,” she said again.
I shook my head. “No, love. You need to lie down. Let me fix you up.”
Growing more frantic, Violet repeated herself. “Get her back! Get her back.”
When I shook my head again, she wrestled herself free of me, storming from the bathroom in a trail of bloody footprints and wobbling rage. “Margaret!” she bellowed, screamed even, her voice breaking.
She stormed through every room upstairs, raging through the house until she found our sister, cowering in the corner of the space she was to share with Amy.
Violet marched up to her, grabbed our sister’s cheek with her bloody hand, and held the knife aloft above their heads. “You want me to carve it into you now? Save the future trauma?” Violet growled.
Margaret shook her head, pleading.
“Open your mouth,” Violet demanded, and when Mag didn’t, Violet squeezed her cheeks until her lips popped open.
Violet rested the blade on Margaret’s tongue, wiping her blood along the squirming thing.
“Taste it, Margaret. Taste every bit of pain that man brought onto my body and decide for yourself whether you want it. I won’t stop you if you do. ”
Margaret shook with fear as their stares collided, but Violet waited, that blade pressed to Margaret’s tongue, not digging in, not threatening, just waiting.
“I have a lot more blood I could make you taste, make you witness,” Violet said, the two’s eyes locked and heated. “I won’t, though. That would be twisted.”
Margaret shuddered and tried to pull back. Violet hesitated for a second, but let her go.
“One time when he failed to get me pregnant, he put his entire fist inside me, shoved something inside me I think contained his sperm. He pushed it into me, right into my sore womb. And it still didn’t work.” Her eyes were cold; her jaw tense. “You want that?”
Fuck.
Selfishly, my mind went to what I’d done. The birth control I’d injected into her. It wasn’t Rafael’s fault; I’d injected her to stop it from ever being possible. No matter what he did. I’d ignored my actions until that moment, pushed them all away.
As Margaret whimpered and clambered up, racing to get as far away from her big sister as possible, guilt raced through me. Violet’s head dropped, the knife falling to the floor with a clank. My heart squeezed.
I had to tell her what I’d done. Maybe the reason why she’d been tortured to such extremes.