Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Violet
With the taste of my sister in my teeth, I sawed through the last thread of the rope around my wrist, making sure not to react, to keep that blank facade on my face so no one paid me any mind.
Horror flashed across my vision, the very worst things I had witnessed, but my expression stayed flat. I knew if I looked Theo in the eye, truly looked at him, I would shatter.
When Rafael made the mistake of undoing one of our hands, I’d started working on picking myself free.
Free.
What a joke.
Margaret’s life ripped from her in the same moment my fire roared back into my body.
I wasn’t going out like her, no damn way.
I’d come way too far to lie down and take it now.
I was not going out without a fight. She’d damn near walked into it.
And now she was digesting in the bellies of her family.
Her head was on our mother’s uncaring lap.
That would not be my fate. No bloody way.
So I fought myself free, still and slow, focused on looking as dead inside as everyone thought I was, so they would ignore me. Even Theo. With everyone shouting and begging, as Rafael lost himself in the depravity of it like I’d seen him do many times, I worked.
I was so bloody happy to see Theo alive. He looked beaten up, tired and like he’d lost weight, but there he was, still raging, still fighting. Angry as he’d sat beside our now passed out mother, fighting along every step while I just stayed there and stared.
But I couldn’t anymore. I was free. He was next.
As our mother slipped into unconsciousness, I opened my mouth and screamed at the top of my lungs, burning through me as I leaped up, ready to destroy Rafael, Gabe, and anyone that got in my way.
It would kill me, I knew that; there was no path for me to make it out of here intact. Body and soul, I might never recover. But death would be freeing. I couldn’t leave this earth with them still walking it.
My plan was shit, my brain mush, but damn it all to hell, I was going out with a fight.
I’d been trapped in no more than a coffin with Les’s rotting corpse for two weeks, the only sustenance dusty water poured over my face once a day.
Les stank as he rotted, turning to slime and goo all around me.
There was nothing I could do to get away, no amount of fighting or moving that got me far enough away from his decay.
I just had to sit in it. Live in it. Rot right there with him.
Even as his skin slid from his flesh, when the maggots came to feast on him, even when I couldn’t smell him anymore, when every bit of me was just him, there was no changing, no escaping.
That was my future, and it was close, but maybe I could claim another victim before I went. Jack, Damon, Dad, Les. All men who’d hurt me, all men I’d ended. Two more. I only wanted two more. So I dove for them.
Gabe reached me almost the second I stood up, and we toppled toward the floor with a messy, shouting crash.
If he thought he had the upper hand, he was wrong.
He had a knife, a gun in his back pocket.
I had my teeth. They’d come in such handy already.
Theo’s shouting echoed around me as I fought, dogged, rabid.
And as Gabe and I landed, before we bounced on the floor for a second time, I sank my teeth into his cheek, ripping back as hard as possible, bringing away a chunk of flesh. He screamed out, cursed at me.
I chewed.
Gabe bellowed and slammed his fist across my cheekbone, and we grappled. He punched me again, this time in the side of my head, and I saw stars. I wasn’t letting go, wasn’t letting up.
“You said what you did to Margaret was for me?” I growled out, spitting his minced flesh back at his face. Most of it fell right back onto me as he crowded over me, swiping at his injuries. “You did that because I hurt Les? There you go.”
More shouting sounded, but no one else was coming to us.
I was aware of a commotion across the table, but Gabe was too strong, and I couldn’t get up from the floor with his heavy weight on me.
Still, I fought. Even when he had his knife out, even when it pressed to my chin.
I pushed down, so it dug in, breaking the skin and bursting blood.
I was already coated in the stuff, so what was a little more? He needed to know I wasn’t afraid.
I felt sick.
I didn’t give a damn anymore. My own terms. This is what I sensed before, when I was stuck with them for so long.
My own terms were better than theirs. Look at Margaret.
Was there a more brutal way to go? I couldn’t live another second under their thumb, not knowing what pain I might suffer tomorrow.
I didn’t want any tomorrows if they looked like that.
Released from the coffin, this was me, free to leave.
“Violet!” Theo bellowed, his voice the only thing breaking through to me, and I was desperate for just another moment with him. Another few seconds to breathe him in before I went wherever it is we go next. “Vi!” he shouted again. “Hang on!”
The sound of fighting rang through my ears, and not only from Gabe on top of me, battling my wild, unaimed punches and kicks. Blood poured from his cheek and into my mouth, choking me when it hit the back of my throat.
I didn’t want to eat flesh, of course not, but they’d shown me more than once how afraid they were of my teeth. And unless they knocked them all out, it was an easy weapon.
“You fucking bitch!” Gabe growled at me, his large hands on my face crushing and squeezing. “Such a waste of fucking time you have been.”
With my face to the side, his weight on me as he tried to crush my head, I scratched at him, kicked at him. Fought with everything I had.
“Get off!” I screamed, needing Theo one more time before I let go.
Then lightness as Gabe ripped off me. His knife clattered as his body disappeared, letting air return to my lungs with a rush.
Theo stood above him, and as my eyes came into focus, I realized he was kicking the man in the stomach, Rafe on the other side of him, beginning to stand back up.
Theo had got himself free too. Of course, he had.
For the first time, the tiniest glimmer of hope hit me. My clever, brave, amazing brother.
I felt nothing but pride for my brother in that moment, but didn’t let it last as I struggled to rise. There was too much left to do. I’d show him my love for him later. If we had a later.
I was bloody weak as I stood and straightened up, my head woozy and my limbs tired. The only food in my belly the flesh of my dead sister. My stomach roiled, but I held it in. Now wasn’t the time. I refused to even look at the table until this was done.
I dove for Gabe, his knife brandished in my hand, so Theo could stop Rafael. Two on two, we had this. We had to have this.
Together, we worked, keeping both men at bay. When Theo jumped onto Rafael, I sat on Gabe, grinning at the sight of him, a little out of it, weaker, woozy. I stabbed him in the gut.
I stabbed once, twice, three times, enjoying every bit of resistance I felt as his body tried not to welcome in his own blade.
My attention never left him as he groaned and spluttered, as his eyes rolled back, as blood dribbled from his mouth.
“I hit something vital,” I mused, whispering to him, holding the knife to his throat in case he attempted to lunge. I wished he could have a slower death, but I didn’t have time for that. To drag it out. It was now or never for this man.
So I watched every second of it as Theo fought Rafael, slamming into walls, into the table, landing punches and kicks while Connor shouted and begged to be let free too.
They grappled until Rafael got hold of his gun and pointed it at Amy. She and Connor were still tied to the table, but while she was resigned, watching the commotion with fear, Connor was a ball of fury, trying to get free with a fierce desperation. So much chaos.
“Fuck all of you!” Rafael bellowed, looking disheveled for once. His hair wasn’t neat; he had red splashes on his clothes, and he was favoring his right side. He stepped behind Amy, the gun pressed against the back of her head.
I dragged my eyes down to make sure Gabe was dead, my fingers drifting to his neck to count heartbeats. None. No beats. I breathed for him, to spite him.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Connor screamed with his entire being, crashing my attention back to the room, his voice breaking, his chair creaking as he fought against his tie. He was almost up, like he was ready to tear clean through the rope to reach Amy.
He was red and purple, seconds away from shredding his body, like he’d lose his hands for her, his feet. All of it.
Rafe looked at him and smirked, shaking his head. “Looks like it runs in the fucking family.” He readied the gun.
“No!” I screamed only a split-second before Rafe let loose the bullet.
At least Amy’s death was easy, half a gasp from her bruised lips.
A single bullet at the back of her skull and she was gone.
Sounds wrenched from all of us who loved her.
Guttural, painful and awful. Connor turned into a monster, rabid as he howled and cried and tried to get free with even more desperation.
He was more animal than human now. Feral. Gone.
“You fucking evil monster!” I screamed at Rafe, abandoning dead Gabe, his knife still in hand, to reach my husband. Theo and I turned all our attention to the man, but he had a gun. He aimed it at Theo, making me halt. Then at me, making Theo pause and release an anguished cry.
This wasn’t good enough. This wasn’t okay. My messed up brain whirred to come up with a plan, a way to stop this. A knife was no use; we were tired; Rafael was angry, manic. His eyes dropped to Gabe’s dead body, and for the first time I saw pain there.
I needed to use that.
Slowly, I lowered the knife down to my belly, pointing the tip against my belly button. It was a suspicion, only a suspicion, but it was our last shot. I took a deep breath.
“You kill me, you kill our baby,” I said. “You kill him—” I nodded my head toward Theo. “—I do.”
Rafe’s eyes flickered, dropping to my stomach, then back up to my face, trying to determine the lie. It was enough, though, that doubt, and I knew I had him. All his attention.
“You’re a fucking liar,” he said, though he didn’t believe his own words. I could see it. He was too proud, too big-headed to not trust his virile seed had finally found some poor soul’s egg to fertilize. There was a reverence behind his eyes already as he looked at my stomach. Pathetic.
Then his expression narrowed, finding my gaze. I met him, hiding the fear. “Come with me, and no one else has to suffer. Come with me, and the rest of your family can walk free.”
“No!” Theo yelled. “Don’t fucking do it, Violet! Whatever is happening, we can deal with it. Not him. Don’t go with him.”
“He’ll kill you if I don’t,” I responded, not looking at him, still holding the blade against my belly. “He’ll kill you, Theo, and I can’t have that on my conscience when I have a way to stop it.”
Theo huffed. “Remember when I told you I won’t be on this earth without you? That I’d die before I let you return to him? Well, that’s still fucking true. Either way, it’s a fucking death sentence.”
I shook my head. “No.” My heart screamed at me, my lungs compressed, and my throat ached with emotion. All I wanted was him. After all this, it was only him. From the very moment he’d agreed to give me something that made him sick, to hold me safe, it could only ever be him.
“You die, I die,” he said, his voice thick, face twisted with pain.
“I’ll come,” I told Rafe, turning back to him as he strode towards the door, his gun still pointed at Theo. The sight of that alone made me willing to do anything. He would live. After all this, he would live at least.
Theo yelled at me no, bellowed about how I was never going to leave him again. His words were a jumble in my head, swirling and bashing at me as I took my steady steps away. “Don’t fucking do it!” he repeated over and over. Every time he tried to move, Rafe’s gun moved to me.
“I’m coming,” I said, walking towards Rafe with the knife still at my stomach, my other hand poised with my palm open, in case Rafe spooked and shot Theo.
I was terrified for my brother, for myself, if I had to lose him.
Despite all the death I’d already witnessed, both my sisters gone, I knew Theo would tip me over any edge that lingered.
So, I walked willingly to my tormentor. And when he smirked and lowered his gun, I kneed him in the balls.