Chapter Twenty-Seven Violet
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Violet
The operator’s voice bled through the static in my head. Words I couldn’t catch. I clutched the phone tighter, pressing it against my ear until the plastic bit into my skin.
“Ma’am? Are you there? Stay on the line. Units are already en route. Stay inside.”
My throat worked. My lips opened and closed. But nothing came out. I stared toward the kitchen, where the Polaroid still lay on the counter. I could picture the glossy square glinting under the morning sun like it was mocking me. My hand shook so hard I nearly dropped the knife.
Images of the police cruiser filled my head. From my angle I couldn’t see inside the car, but the open doors and the way the officers slumped motionless told me everything—blood slicking the seats, the windows, the ground beneath.
I squeezed my eyes shut, muttering to the operator that I was still on the line.
All I could see behind my closed eyelids was blood.
So much of it. The red, gory substance slicked the interior of the car and covered the two bodies.
Two officers gutted like they were less than nothing, and these people wanted me to believe staying put meant safety?
“No,” I rasped, the word catching in my throat. “They’ll come back.”
The operator kept talking, her tone calm but clinical. But the voice in my head was louder, drowning out everything else. You’re prey. You’re trapped. You’ll never make it out alive.
I pulled the phone away and stared down at the screen.
And then I hung up. Silence folded in around me, punctured only by the faint hum of the fridge and the rasp of my breathing.
My eyes flicked toward the blinds. Cars had stopped, people were on their cells, and the chaos grew as people saw the massacre.
Even the screams of the people outside were drowned out by my raving heart and the waves rushing in my head.
My home—what had been my refuge—now reeked with all kinds of . . . wrong. Every corner, every shadow, seemed swollen with it.
I punched in Grayson’s number with desperate fingers.
The line rang once. Twice. Straight to voicemail.
Again. Same thing. “Pick up,” I whispered as I dialed him a third time, the plea scraping out of me.
“Please.” No answer. I hit speaker and waited for the beep.
“Grayson, it’s me. They killed the officers outside my house.
They broke in . . . left a photo. I’m scared. Please call me back.”
Something inside me split wide open. If Grayson—solid, steady, unshakable Grayson—wasn’t here, then I really was alone.
This is what you get for relying on anyone but yourself, for breaking your own rules and trusting other people.
And the truth hit me like a cold slap. I didn’t trust the police.
I didn’t trust Agent Matt’s fury, or Agent Landry’s soft but probing questions.
God . . . I didn’t even trust my body anymore, because every instinct seemed split in two.
One part screamed, Get help, call someone, trust the system.
The other hissed, Tell no one—trust no one.
I didn’t know who was on my side anymore.
Fear and panic suffocated me. I knew I couldn’t sit here and wait for answers.
The dispatcher had said units were en route, but I’d seen how fast the cult could strike.
Two armed officers had been butchered in broad daylight.
If they could take down cops sitting ten feet from me, what chance did I have waiting alone in my house?
Every second I stayed here felt like begging to be next. Running was the only choice left.
I shoved my phone in my pocket, knife still in my hand, and made for the bedroom. I grabbed my prepacked go bag—one I kept at the ready for when I had to run, since I knew the time would eventually come. I wasn’t running tonight. Not yet. But I needed to move.
I needed . . . Harper. Even thinking her name felt like touching something clean. She was blunt and nosy and sometimes too much, but she was real. Normal. And right now I needed that.
I slipped out the back, careful to keep low as I skirted along the fence.
My legs were lead, my chest a live wire of nerves.
The cruiser still sat out front, doors ajar, sunlight glinting off dark stains that looked too much like blood.
There were so many people standing around, so many raised voices and terror filling the air.
I cut down the alley, clutching my bag tight against my side. Half the town felt like it pressed against my back as I walked, then jogged, then finally sprinted all the way to Harper’s place. My lungs burned, my legs ached, and every sound slammed into me painfully.
By the time I reached her stoop, I was panting and sweaty. I knocked once. Twice. But all I met with was silence.
“Harper?” My voice shook. “It’s me. You there?” I tried calling her, but it went to voicemail.
I tried again, harder this time, fists pounding against the wood. She wasn’t home. I closed my eyes. Of course she wasn’t—she’d said she was going into the station after her shift. I should have left. I should have turned around and hidden myself anywhere but here.
For a moment I closed my eyes and let myself pretend I was safe. But safety didn’t exist anymore. When I found my center—or a semblance of it—I tried her door again, this time by the handle.
The knob turned under my palm too easily, and the door creaked as I pushed it open. It was unlocked—she must have forgotten.
I looked over my shoulder, expecting someone to stop a random stranger from entering their neighbor’s house, but the few people outside weren’t paying attention to me.
I crossed the threshold and shut the front door behind me, every muscle locked tight. I should have walked away. But I didn’t.
“Harper?” I called out, knowing she wasn’t home, but feeling better about myself for double-checking.
Harper’s home was small, cluttered, warm in a way mine had never been.
A jacket was slung over the back of her love seat; she had mail scattered across the two-seater kitchen table and a few dirty dishes in the sink.
Normal. Completely normal. I stood there and looked around, feeling gross that I was invading her space, like I was the one doing the violating now. But I was terrified and had nowhere else to go.
The hairs on my arms rose, and I set my purse down on the counter and scanned the room, my eyes catching on something that had my brows pulling low.
Sitting on her table, scattered among her mail, was a small white box that was open.
Inside the box was a half-eaten pastry. Crumpled brown wrapping paper had been tossed aside, but it was the piece of twine next to it that had me hyperventilating.
It was just a piece of twine, something used by plenty of businesses to secure their packages. Coincidence, I told myself. That’s all it is.
God, I had to be insane to even think that this wasn’t random. It was my own paranoia that made me look at that twine and see it was too deliberate, too placed. Like the Polaroid on my counter.
“I’m going crazy.” I felt like crying.
A sound cut through the silence—muffled, low, from the other side of the house. A shuffle. A creak. A slow, deep breath. Someone was here. But how? My stomach dropped. I moved back, my hand fumbling for the doorknob.
“Vienna.”
My entire body froze, my heart stopped, and I sucked in a breath, holding it. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating, until the sound of my pulse was all I could hear. I kept my focus on where I heard the voice.
I wasn’t sure what terrified me more—that someone was inside Harper’s home with me, or that I couldn’t get ahold of anyone. What was real? What were figments of my imagination?
The syllables of my old name clung to the air, sticky and foul. I forced myself to breathe through my nose. Slow. Quiet. The way Grayson had taught me once, back when he was just a steady presence at my coffee counter, asking questions that seemed harmless.
I closed my eyes, hearing my name being whispered from all corners of the house now.
“Vienna,” the voice called again, softer this time, coaxing. “You’ve always belonged to us.”
The whispers threaded through the walls, low and slithering, but when I strained to hear them clearly, all I caught was the pop and groan of Harper’s old radiators.
“Vienna,” the voice breathed again, though now I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t the sound of pipes shifting, water running somewhere above me.
My chest seized. I took a step forward and spun in a slow circle, eyes darting across Harper’s cozy, cluttered living room. Everything looked normal. Messy, but exactly where it was all supposed to be.
The air in here was too thick. I couldn’t tell if the sound I heard was real or if my mind was cracking under the pressure.
Either way, I wasn’t staying here. I couldn’t.
I turned and opened the door. The sun hit me like a slap, blinding in its brightness.
I sucked in air like I’d been drowning, and only then realized my cheeks were wet with tears.
I couldn’t see as I took a step forward and collided with someone coming up the steps.
“Jesus, Violet.” Harper’s voice was sharp with shock, one hand flying to steady me.
She had her work tote slung over her shoulder, her hair pulled up into a messy bun.
“What the hell . . . What’s wrong? Are .
. . are you crying?” She looked over my shoulder at her front door that I’d left open. “Were you inside?”
I stared at her, words clotting in my throat. My lungs heaved. My whole body shook.
“They’re dead,” I finally rasped, not answering any of her solid questions. “The cops outside my house. T-they killed them. There were men—they were in my house, Harper. They left a picture. They were inside.”
Her brows furrowed in confusion, and then she looked around before glancing back at me. “Wait,” she said and closed her eyes, shaking her head. “There are dead cops at your place?”
I nodded and wiped my tears away. “Yeah,” I whispered.
“Holy fuck.” She grabbed my arm hard enough to ground me. “Okay, well, then what the hell are you doing here?” She waved off her question. “Doesn’t matter. We need to go back. You can’t just run from a crime scene, Violet.”
“I can’t—” My voice creaked. “I can’t go back in there. What if the men who killed those cops are waiting for me?”
“You have to.” She squeezed tighter, her tone blunt.
“I’m not crazy, I swear.”
Her expression got stern and intense. “I don’t think you are. But if what you’re saying is true, you have to be there. You can’t just disappear, Violet. It’ll look worse.”
The world tilted around me, but Harper’s grip anchored me. I wanted to run, but she was right. I’d made things worse by leaving.
And so, with my insides shredded and my head still full of confusion, I let her turn me back toward the street. Back to my house, where I knew the police would already be, to where there’d be a crowd of spectators. Back toward the very place I wanted to escape.
And for the first time, I wasn’t sure if the trap was outside me . . . or inside my mind.