I grew up with Violet. Played in the mud with her, caught fireflies with her, even got into a few shouting matches over bad calls at kickball. But I’ll never forget the first time Violet stole my breath.
Razor, Oz and I sat on this porch, holding welcome-home signs Olivia forced us to make, when Violet’s mom pulled up in the minivan. We were about to start high school and Violet had spent the summer at the shore with her mom and brother. The back door to the van slid open and I felt like I had been born.
Until that moment, the world had been black-and-white and I had never known color. And then a vibrant explosion. Her hair was longer, a deeper red than I had remembered, and the ends were curled. Her blue eyes were bright, like a calm sea, and when she saw me, Violet smiled.
Smiled.
The type of smile that men drive all night in a blinding rainstorm on their bike to see. The type of smile that keep men fighting brutal wars for years in the vain hope of seeing it again. The type of smile that made me come to my feet, because if I didn’t, I’d fall to my knees.
She smiled.
Not much I wouldn’t give to see her smile at me like that again. Hell, doesn’t have to be at me. Just for her to genuinely smile.
The firelight dances across Violet’s face and highlights her hair. She’s still the most beautiful girl on the planet with those long lashes and perfect red lips. Just right for kissing.
My blood runs warm with the thoughts of all those nights we had kissed. Some nights were sweet. Some nights we could lie in bed holding each other forever. Then there was the night after our big homecoming game last year. In the backseat of the Chevelle, rain pattered onto the hood, her body was nestled under mine and we both moved, kissed and gasped to the point every window fogged.
Since the night the hospital staff forced Violet back into her own room, I’ve felt lost, and with each step toward her, it’s like returning home.
Violet glances up at me, then at the open spot next to her. I ease down beside her, and the moment my shoulder brushes against hers, I close my eyes and take a deep breath as if I’ve been underwater for hours.
I extend my arm, hand up, and she laces her fingers with mine. Our thighs are locked tight and I lower our hands so that they rest on both my leg and hers. Peace. This is the closest I’ve felt to peace in months.
Are we together? I don’t know. I’d bet Violet doesn’t know either. Her father’s still dead. I’m still on track to join the club. All the problems we had before the kidnapping still exist.
“How’s your mom?” she asks.
The back of my head hits the wood of the house. “Fine.”
“Really?”
Violet was the one person I didn’t have to lie to. Even when telling the truth broke us up. She’s the type of person who demands bullshit be checked at the door. “No. She’s pissed.”
“Want to trade moms?”
A smile spreads across my face. This conversation is familiar and familiar feels good.
“They’re waiting on you,” she says. “Lots of guys ready to buy you beer. Pat you on the back. Tell you how wonderful you are.”
“They are.”
“You should go to them.”
“I will.” But not now. Especially since Violet hasn’t let go.
The bonfire crackles, and with a pop, burning embers dance into the sky. Violet flinches and I rub my finger along hers.
“We’re not safe here,” she says. “We’re never going to be safe anywhere ever again.”
I should tell her she’s wrong. That she’s safe here, surrounded by the club, but after sitting in that black, cold basement with her in my arms, wondering what the hell the sick bastards upstairs were going to do when they decided to return, I can’t promise her a thing.
The night’s too dark, the woods surrounding us too daunting, the knowledge I can’t do a damn thing about what actions other people take a kick in the gut. Can’t promise her the Riot won’t make another grab, can’t promise her some psychopath won’t make a Crock-Pot full of nails and take her out during a football game, can’t promise some nut job isn’t going to take a gun to school and shoot people in the cafeteria.
I can’t promise her any of that, but I can hold her hand. I can sit beside her now. I can be here, I can be with her, I can, just for a few minutes, just be.
Violet moves, a readjustment, and I expect her to pull away. But instead, she leans further into me, her head on my shoulder, and her sweet scent becomes a warm blanket.
No other place I’d rather be in the world right now. No place at all.
Violet
“VIOLET.” CHEVY’S DEEP voice vibrates against my temple and his fingertips graze along my arm. Warmth and fantastic goose bumps. His caress calls for me to cuddle closer to him and not to participate in any activity that would lead me away.
It’s not the first time he’s woken me up this way. Sometimes, I’d fake sleep just so he would brush his lips on my skin, mumble my name and send pleasing shock waves through my body. I’ve missed his voice. Missed his touch. Missed him.
“Violet, do you want me to carry you inside?”
My mind’s a fog and I’m slow as I lift my head from Chevy’s shoulder. The muscles in my neck are tight, and as I move, the rest of my body protests. Tingles in my arm, and my braced knee has become stiff and pulses with a dull ache. The cheek that was exposed to the air is now frozen and the other side of my face is hot and creased with the imprint of the folds in Chevy’s shirt.
I stretch my arms and his leather jacket slips from my body and onto my lap. My eyebrow rises and Chevy sheepishly shrugs. “Air temperature dropped.”
It has, but that hasn’t stopped the party raging in the yard. In the clubhouse, a group of men roar with laughter and then a woman’s cackle comes thirty seconds behind. That hyena giggle was too late and awkward and probably because she didn’t get the joke the first time. “What time is it?”
“After midnight. Mom texted. Bar shut down early. Busted water pipe in the bathroom.”
Which means he needs to pick her up.
“Want me to help you back inside?”
I run a hand through my thick mane of hair and use my fingers to comb out the tangles near the ends. The slight prick of pain from the pull helps wake me. Do I want to go back to sleep? If it means his warm body beside me in bed, then yes, but I’m not sure I’m ready for the fallout that admission would create. “Can I come with you?”
Chevy blinks. “To pick Mom up?”
“Yeah, I’ve gone with you before.” Multiple times. I had a strict curfew with my own mom, ten o’clock, but I had a fantastic loophole—Olivia. I’d tell Mom I was staying the night with her and Olivia never cared how long I stayed out or who I was with.
You’re a big girl and can take care of yourself, she’d tell me. Your momma would let a boy run around with no curfew, I can guarantee that. No reason for breasts to be seen as a limitation, because they aren’t.
Wonder if Olivia would feel the same way now.
“I’d like that.” He stands, and I grab my crutches before he has the chance to ask if I want to be carried to the truck.
I’m over being carried and wheeled around. Feels like a confirmation that Mom’s been right about girls being weak. I may not feel safe anywhere ever again, but I still don’t feel particularly like a damsel in distress. Girls locked in towers waiting for the knight to slay the dragon at the entrance wouldn’t have survived that basement.
Halfway across the porch, I wince. Sore armpits.
“This guy on the team, after he broke his leg, taped small pillows to his crutches,” Chevy says. “Tomorrow, I’ll try to find something that will work.”
Because that’s the Chevy I fell for—the sweet guy who thinks of crutches and pillows. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
Chevy takes my crutches as I begin to hop down the stairs and the two prospects who had been frozen like gargoyles at the bottom of the steps spring to life. The taller one speaks. “Eli said the party’s gotten rowdy. He saw you asleep, Violet, and didn’t think you’d be coming down.”
“We’re not going to the party,” Chevy answers. “Violet’s heading with me to pick up Mom. I already texted Pigpen and Dust and they’re heading with us.”
“She’s doing what?” Eli emerges from the darkness as if he were a mirage that took physical form and his expression proves he has a direct linkup to the demons that prance inside him.
“It’s not a big deal,” I say. “I’d like to go for a ride. Clear my head.” Not be around so many guys from the Terror.
“You should ask your mom and she’s inside asleep. So’s your brother.”
From this distance, I bet I could use the crutch to knock the hell out of his balls.
“Jesus, you’re a wet blanket.” Pigpen walks up from behind Eli and grins like he just escaped from prison. “Why are you giving the girl hell for wanting to go to an army bar at midnight? It’s not like she told you she was going to kick puppies.”
Pigpen winks at me. “You ready to roll? Or should I say hop?”
My glare informs him where he can shove hop. He waggles his eyebrows in response.
“It’s just to pick up Mom,” Chevy says. “I’ll take her home, then I’ll bring Violet back. I’ve done it a hundred times.”
My chest aches. Normal. He’s describing normal. A normal from before Dad died, but a normal nonetheless. It’s what everyone wants, but I’m not sure if I’ll feel normal again. At least not where it counts—deep on the inside where I can’t even fake it or lie to myself.
“I don’t know,” Eli says.
“It’s a good way to figure out if they’re still after or tracking them,” Pigpen says in a low voice. In a way that indicates he didn’t want me to hear, but I’m too close to the situation for him to excuse himself. “Not many cars on the road. Won’t take much to know if we see the same car repeatedly.”
Eli shakes his head. “Violet stays here.”
“For how long?” I snap. “A week? A month? Until I graduate? Or maybe you’re going to homeschool me now. Will you let me go if I marry a club guy or will I be here until I die?”
The blank look Eli gives me tells me he doesn’t know.
“Chevy was kidnapped, too, yet you’re letting him leave.”
“That’s different—”
“How? Because he’s a guy? Because he’s strong and I’m weak?”
“I’m trying to protect you!” Eli roars.
“It doesn’t matter!” I yell back. “I was still kidnapped. They still hurt me, and if they want to hurt me again, there is not a damn thing you can do about it! Nothing is stopping them from coming here. Nothing is standing between me and the Riot. Nothing! They’ve already proved that once, and if they want me, they’ll take me again!”
This is it. This is my life. A constant watching over my shoulder for the bad guys. Eli wants me to tuck my tail between my legs, hobble back up the steps and stay safely inside the bubble he’s trying to create, but he’s not offering a solution to my problem. Just an illusion.
Eli leans toward me and smacks a hand to his chest. “I’m between you and them now.”
Without breaking eye contact, I sarcastically shrug one shoulder up and then down. “You would have said you were between me and them before.”
Pure anger pours from his eyes as he points at the cabin. “Inside the house. Now.”
I could hop over to the truck, climb in, and Chevy won’t take me because he’s a club boy. And even if by some miracle he did start the truck, Pigpen and Dust would stand around it like human cement pillars. The good god almighty Eli has spoken. So let it be written. So let it be done.
Blood rushes to my cheeks as what’s left of my pride is in shambles, yet I lift my chin in a silent “Fuck you.” I hold out my open fingers and Chevy silently hands me my crutches.
“Do not fool yourself into thinking you’re better than the Riot,” I say. “I might not be shivering in a basement and I might not be bleeding where you can see it, but I’m still a prisoner.”
I need to get home, find those account numbers, protect my family and then get the hell out of this town.
I turn, and because I can’t catch a break, I hop up the stairs with absolutely no grace. Thanks to the Riot and the Terror, I can’t even make a proper dramatic exit. I hobble into the cabin and slam the door behind me.
CHEVY
Violet: I can’t sleep.
Me: You were asleep.
Violet: I know, but the buzzing is back.
Me: Did it go away?
A long pause.
Violet: Yes. But now it’s back.
MY HEART STOPS in my chest. Yeah. The buzzing went away for me, too, when I held her on the porch. Me: I’ll be there soon.
She doesn’t respond and I don’t need her to. Violet told me all I need to know.
It’s three in the morning. I stayed at the bar to help Brandy and Mom clean up the water. Pigpen and Dust lent a hand. Now we’re back and the party’s over. Music quit playing over the loudspeakers. Only smoke and charred remains are left of the bonfires.
People still mill about. Some will head home later. Some will stay the night. I’m supposed to be staying in one of the nicer rooms on the second floor of the clubhouse, but I’m not feeling like following orders.
I trudge up the stairs and only lift my head long enough to acknowledge the new set of prospects guarding the cabin. Part of me understands what Eli’s doing—protecting Violet until he knows she’s safe—but I also understand Violet. She and I are beyond feeling safe.
The dark living room is only maneuverable thanks to memory and the light shining from the kitchen. Cyrus is in there, standing against the frame of the back door, searching the night and nursing a cup of coffee. No doubt he hears my combat boots thudding across the wooden floor, but he doesn’t look up. He knows it’s me and he knows who I’m here to see.
To the right is a room and the door is cracked open. Violet’s mother is wrapped in blankets on the queen bed. Stone’s arm is hanging off the twin. Across from that room is a closed door and I knock as I turn the knob.
Light’s off, but Violet’s face is illuminated by the flashing of color from the TV. She’s under a pile of blankets, her head is propped up by her hand and a part of me warms at how her expression softens as I walk in.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.” It’s a groggy voice, a sensual one. I recall her talking to me late at night on the phone using that same beautiful tone.
Since I’ve been home, I doze, sleep while part of my mind stays awake, but I slept deep with her in the hospital. Slept. I’m betting Violet’s the solution to many of my problems. Feels like I’m the solution to some of her problems, as well.
I enter, close the door behind me and sit at the foot of the bed. She watches me. I watch her. Urge is to climb up that bed and pull her tight, but I don’t know if I have that right. In theory, Violet and I are still broken up, yet it feels like the rules have changed.
Violet throws the covers back, revealing pj’s that consist of a T-shirt and cotton pants. She tilts her head to the empty spot beside her. “I want the buzzing to stop.”
I immediately undo my boot laces as she doesn’t have to ask me twice. “I’ll set my alarm and be gone before your mom wakes.”
“I don’t care what she or anyone else thinks.”
She never has. One of the things I love about her.
Violet’s watching one of those twenty-four-hour news channels where eight million things are being scrolled at the bottom. Half of
the screen shows an anchor. The other half aerial shots of what looks like a school.
I take off my boots, slip off my jacket and place it on the post at the end of the bed. Violet leans forward and I climb up and lie beside her, pulling the blankets up to cover us. Violet scoots into me, and when I hook an arm around her waist, her back becomes flush with my chest.
Her sweet scent envelops me and I breathe in deeply, wishing every moment could be like this. Mirroring her, I prop up my head using my hand and watch the TV. “What’s going on?”
“Another school shooting.”
Damn. “How bad?”
“It happened. That’s bad enough, isn’t it?”
True. “I’m sorry about Eli.”
“I’m sorry for the people who died. Sorry for their families. Sorry for the ones who survived. They said that the school should open again late next week. Everyone can head back to school and be normal. Just like that. Normal by next week.”
Just like we’ll need to start living life again.
We’re silent. Listening to eyewitnesses, watching the same footage being played over and over again. It’s one of those things that once you see it you wish you never saw, one of those things that can never be undone in your mind, yet looking away never feels like an option.
“Did you hear that when Eli called the police an Amber Alert was created for us?” Violet says. “Everyone in the county knows we were kidnapped. Everyone at school will know, too.”
Great. Coach ought to love this. He was already giving me shit for my loyalties being torn between the team and the Terror. This won’t help.
“How do you think they handle it?” Violet keeps her eyes glued on the screen. “The people who’ve been through shootings before. Do you think they go back to school and everything’s normal because that’s how other people think it should be, or do you think they just show up and fake it, hoping one day the faking becomes real?”
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