I grab his arm as he cracks the bedroom door open. ‘Don’t go out there.’ I dig my nails into his flesh, clutching onto him like a terrified child.
‘I need to go check and see if someone’s in the house.’ He slips his arm from mine and walks out of the room in his boxers with no weapon, nothing to protect him.
Panic flares through me like a wildfire and images of that night blaze through my mind.
Darkness.
The Voices.
The noises.
The singing.
The blood.
The fear.
Jumping from the bed, I grip onto the phone and rush after him into the hallway, not wanting to let him out of my sight. Letting him out of my sight means that I may never see him again.
‘Violet, get back in the room,’ Luke hisses, putting his arm out and shoving me back.
I shake my head, my entire body trembling as I hear voices and see lights flashing from outside. The night when my parents died there were fireworks being lit off and I thought the gunshots where firecrackers. It’s happening now.
It’s happening again.
‘Are those fireworks?’ My voice doesn’t even sound like my own, lost in a traumatizing memory I’ve been thrown back into.
Luke shakes his head. ‘No … it’s the police I think … Violet, go back to the room. Please,’ he begs.
I shake my head again, hugging the phone to my chest. Rattled, rattled, rattled – my insides are rattled and I can’t think straight. It’s so dark. It’s so loud. I’m so scared. ‘I can’t … I can’t leave you … I don’t want to be alone.’
I can’t see his face, but I feel his fingers lace through mine and hold on tight as he peeks around the corner into the living room. ‘I promise I’ll be right back,’ he says then his fingers slip away from mine.
I start to cry.
Bawl like a little baby as I collapse to the floor.
I’m not going to see him again.
It’s the most painful thought I’ve ever had, aching in my bones, muscles, veins, heart – everything. I never want this to happen – can’t live without him. The fear consumes me, feels like it’s burying me alive. I need to get it out of me. Need to go somewhere – do something. I’ve never felt this much pain before and I can’t even begin to think about what it means, because I know that going there will kill me right now.
No, God, no. This can’t be happening.
Moments later, the living room light flips on and I’m no longer in the dark. It makes it easier to breath, but my heart is still slamming violently against my chest until finally Luke returns to me.
He appears frazzled and unnerved. ‘I want you to stay inside.’
Hot tears stream down my eyes and all I want to do is grab him and hug him. ‘Where are you going?’
He pretends to be calm, but I can see right through him – he’s worried. ‘The sliding glass door was open and the police are outside with their siren on. Someone’s at the door. I need to step outside and talk with him.’ He crouches down eyelevel with me. ‘Violet, listen to me. I’m not going anywhere.’ He cups my cheek. ‘I promise.’
I nod my head up and down, stunned by what’s happening inside me. Something’s different, something’s changing and it both scares the living daylights out of me and excites me in the most fearful way ever.
I let Luke steer me back to the room and into bed. I sit on the edge as he pulls a shirt on then disappears out of the room again. I watch the clock tick. Listen to the wind outside. Watch the blue and red lights flash outside. It feels like an eternity passes by before finally Luke returns to our bedroom.
‘What was it?’ I ask, the phone still in my hand.
He takes the phone from me, sets it aside on the nightstand, then climbs in bed beside me. His arms encircle me then he pulls me close and lies us down on the mattress.
Safe.
I feel so safe.
‘Someone came into the house … the police saw him … turned on their lights.’ His muscles go taut, his embrace so tight I feel like I’m being pressed into him. ‘They think it scared whoever it was off. They’re searching around but can’t find them.’
I swallow the lump in my throat. ‘It was him.’ I’m afraid, yet I ‘m not. Because this time I’m not alone.
I’m not alone?
‘Violet, it wasn’t …’ He trails off because he knows I’m right. It was Preston. Preston was inside my house. And I don’t think it was the first time.
Chapter 15
Luke
Everything had been going so well. I’d gotten her to agree to go to the gym, get out of the house, hoping that maybe she could discover another way to release her pain and anger. But then a very terrified Violet wakes me from my sleep.
As soon as I saw that damn sliding door open, I knew someone had been in our apartment. We haven’t been that careful about locking it, since we’re on the second floor, but apparently we should have been. I’m getting a f**king alarm system – I can’t take it anymore. This helpless feeling that I’m going to wake up and find Violet hurt by that f**king piece of shit.
The fact that he scared the shit out of her was enough to make me want to beat the shit out of him. If he would have still been in the apartment when I walked out there, I’d have lost it. I could tell she was thinking of that night her parents were murdered, could see the fear in her green eyes. She thought something was going to happen to me and that she’d never see me again. It f**king hurts, seeing that in her eyes, makes me want to do anything to take the pain and fear away from her. But again, all I feel is helpless.
I watch her sleep for the rest of the night and finally fall asleep around five in the morning. About an hour later, I’m woke right back up by a knock on the door. The sun is starting to rise and the light is shining through the window, making it feel a little safer, but I still have a hard time leaving Violet in the bed alone, even if it’s just to answer the door.
It ends up being the cops, wanting to tell me that they didn’t find the person, but that they filled out a report.
‘A report.’ I lean against the doorframe and give them a cold, hard stare. ‘Yeah, that’s going to help a lot.’
‘It’s better than nothing,’ the taller of the two male police officers replies agitatedly while the other one jots something down on a clipboard.
‘No, it’d be better if you would have caught him before he came into the house.’ I clench my hands into fists, feeling that rage that lives inside me, the one that rises whenever I think of my mother. But this time it’s about Preston. I want to f**king beat the shit out of him so badly I can’t stand it.
‘Kid, lose the attitude,’ the shorter officer says as he scrawls something else on the paper. ‘We’re doing the best that we can.’
‘Clearly that’s not enough,’ I snap. ‘Since he made it into the f**king apartment before you realized something was up.’
They look just as annoyed as I felt, but continue on with their bullshit protocol. They show me this silver bracelet they found on the lawn, asking me if I can identify it. It’s Violet’s, the one that belonged to her parents and that she was confused about wearing or not. When I tell them that, they explain to me that they have to hang on to it for evidence, but will return it when they can. Then they give me a rundown of how they plan on upping security, but it’s all bullshit. This is the second, maybe third time Preston has been here and he’s getting braver. The annoying thing is, I’m not sure what he wants. To torture Violet? No, I think there’s more to it than that. The thing that really gets to me is I don’t think it’ll stop until the police catch him. I know how sick and twisted people work, having lived with it for years.
When I get back to the room, Violet is still sleep. She looks peaceful, always does when she sleeps, until she wakes up screaming. I wish I could see her like that when she was awake, wish I could find a way to just give her peace in her life for all the peace my mother took from her.
‘Who was that,’ she murmurs, half out of it as I climb back into bed.
‘Just the police,’ I whisper as I pull the blankets over us and scoot toward her. I think about informing her of the bracelet, but decide to wait until she’s fully awake.
‘Did they … find him …’ she asks, although clearly she’s out of it.
‘No, but you’re safe.’ I kiss her head, shut my eyes, and inhale her scent. ‘I promise I won’t let anything happened to you.’
‘I know you won’t,’ she murmurs, nuzzling against me. ‘But Luke …’
‘Yeah?’
‘I think Preston … I thought I heard him say he was there that day … that I almost … drowned … I think he really did put the bracelet on me which means he’s been in the apartment before.’
Every muscle in my body winds tight like a knotted rope. Not just because he was there the day she went into the water, but that he’s been in our apartment before. Fuck, I’m so angry and tense right now, I’m about to ram a my fist through the wall just to make myself feel better, but then Violet scoots closer to me and it reminds me that I’ve got to be more stable than that right now. I’ll try to let it out at the gym or something tomorrow, at least as much as I can.
‘Thank you.’ Violet says, pressing a kiss to my chest.
The fire in my chest simmers down. ‘For what?’
‘For …’ She yawns as she traces a circle on my chest, right over where my heart is beating. ‘For not leaving me.’
My heart clenches in my chest as I smooth her hair back and study her face, the way her eyelids keep fluttering, the way the sunlight hits the studded diamond in her nose, the way her lips are slightly parted. So f**king beautiful and so f**king tough, whether she realizes it or not. She’s a survivor of so much shit that a lot of people will never even begin to comprehend – the lucky ones.
Only when I know she’s fast asleep do I dare whisper the truth. ‘I would never leave you,’ I whisper. ‘Because I love you.’
Chapter 16
Violet
The next day I wake up from the strangest nightmare, if you can even call it that. I’m not even sure what the hell it is or means. In it was my mom. She was standing in front of her grave with her arm outstretched to me and I was frozen at the edge of the cemetery, unable to step foot on the grass and go to her.
‘I can’t,’ I’d cried. ‘I just can’t.’
She’d finally lowered her hand and smiled at me. ‘I’s okay, Violet my baby girl. You can do it. Just let me go.’
That’s when I’d awoken, gasping for air, not necessarily terrified but confused. A confusion that’s still whirling around inside me. And that confusion amplified when I remembered last night’s events.
I still agree to go to the gym the next day, even though Luke gives me an out, saying that either we can stay home if I want or that I don’t have to come after what happened last night. I can tell that he wants me to go with him, though, and honestly I don’t want to stay in the apartment after what happened. The worst part about this whole thing is I don’t even know why Preston is doing this or what he wants from me. In the past, I’d always know – deal drugs for him and sexual favors. But now it feels like he’s playing some sort of game with me where I’m left wondering what the hell will happen next. It’s been so quietly lately too that I’d started to let my guard down and almost forget he was still lurking around. I can’t do that, but I also don’t want to live my life in fear anymore.
I want to be fearless.
I want to be free.
I just want to be me.
Trying to shake thoughts of Preston the best that I can, I get dressed to go to the gym, putting on a pair of tight shorts and a tank top topped with a hoodie. Then pull my hair up, the entire time pretending everything’s okay, that I wasn’t shaken to the core last night.
I feel exhausted, but Luke looks even worse than I do. When I ask him if he slept at all, he says, ‘enough,’ but the dark circles under his eyes contradict his words.
We’re headed out the door when Greyson comes bouncing up to me from the kitchen with way too much energy for six thirty in the morning. ‘Happy Halloween!’ He offers me a cupcake in the shape of a pumpkin. He’s dressed in shorts, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes, ready to hit the gym. How the hell he manages to get ready and cook cupcakes already is beyond me.
‘Thanks.’ I take the cupcake with great appreciation, then lick a huge mouthful of orange frosting, savoring the sugar rush I get.
‘We’re heading out,’ Luke tells him, slinging his bag over his shoulder. ‘You and Seth coming?’
Greyson nods, returning to the kitchen and starts putting away the rest of the cupcakes he cooked. ‘I am for sure. We’ll see about sleeping beauty. He hates exercise.’
‘Sounds like a brilliant man to me.’ I bite the cupcake and nearly have a foodgasm, the buttery frosting and cake melting the moment if touches my tongue. ‘Jesus, this is good.’
Luke watches me with a lustful look as if watching me lick frosting is the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. ‘Yeah, I can see that.’ It takes him a moment, but he manages to blink his gaze off my mouth. ‘Just tell him he can hang with Violet,’ he says to Greyson. ‘She’s not too into it, just coming to keep me company.’
‘Okay, that might get him to be more agreeable.’ Greyson pops the lid on the case he put the cupcakes in then rounds the kitchen with another cupcake in his hand. ‘One for the road?’