With a dramatic sigh, she gestured for me to lead the way. What a bitch. Why Violet was so desperate to rescue her…
“Vi?” I said, my eyebrows dropping. Fuck. I hadn’t seen her, had I? Idiot. My flesh roiled with sudden panic. Needed to head back into the tree line to hunt that woman down. My gut lurched, reaching through my skin to find her, to get close to her and make sure each hair on her scalp was where it should be.
“Violet’s here?” Margaret asked, sneering in disgust before shaking her head. “No. No, I don’t want to go. I won’t go. Not with that traitor.”
Margaret turned and tried to get away from us, fighting and struggling as both Connor and I subdued her without hurting her, pinning her limbs while she kicked and squirmed. The urge to wallop her over the head was almost unbearable. It would make this so much easier…
She continued to fight as we lifted her from the ground and dragged her into the trees to our car. She struggled and shouted, so Connor put his hand over her mouth. Together, we both cursed the decision to save her. Ungrateful brat.
With each step I took towards the car, I expected Violet to appear. She’d gone back to the car; she must have. She wasn’t where I left her, watching from the safety of the trees. Of course she’d be in the car; she didn’t have a death wish. She wasn’t stupid.
It was only when the car came back empty that the panic in me grew to cloying at my throat. “Oh, shit.” Where was she? No, this was wrong. She should be right fucking here.
“Violet?” Connor called, his voice low but carrying. We had mere fucking minutes until we were out of time. We needed to get away. Now. But Violet wasn’t here. If she’d… fuck.
I told Connor to get Margaret into the car, give it a few minutes, then leave. Vi and I would walk through the woods and contact him when we could. I needed to find her. Releasing Margaret, I didn’t even turn back as I raced towards the road again, following the path of destruction to the first car. I had a feeling that’s where she’d have gone, just to see…
Bodies I didn’t recognize, of men who must belong to Rafael, lay bloody in the seats. And the rear passenger door was open, clear signs of something big dragged from it, wide tracks in the debris. We were banking on Rafael covering this mess up, intending to leave it for him to discover.
I let myself calm, think, track. The dragging marks were blood and glass and dirt, black dust from the car wheels underfoot.
Shit shit shit. Where was she? What had she done?
I heard a deep-rooted, anguished scream as I stepped into the woods to follow the tracks. A sobbing, shrieking sound full of terror and rage. Violet. I’d recognize her anywhere. Oh fuck.
My feet picked up, and I ran. For no more than a few minutes, I raced as fast as I could, my pulse pounding in my ears as I followed the dragging tracks and tried not to let panic overwhelm me. Then the trees cleared away. Sudden, shocking and making me stumble to a stop.
The scene before me in the small clearing, lit only with a smattering of starlight, made my heart skip a few beats.
Violet was straddling a body, screaming as she drove my knife into its stomach over and over. She was in a fugue state, panting and yelling as she shoved the blade in again and again. And the body, the body was covered in mud, mouth, ears, nose, all stuffed. Eyes looked weird.
Almost unrecognizable. Almost.
Father.
Oh, damn.
“Vi,” I muttered, stepping closer to her, trying to not look too close at the mangled form of our father. Trying and failing. “Violet, honey. He’s dead.”
He was clearly dead, glassy, open eyes and broken capillaries all over his muddy, purple face. Despite that, she kept stabbing.
“He can’t stay, Theo,” she cried. “He has to go. Theo, he… he started this… it washim… He needs to be dead. Dead dead dead.”
I took careful steps closer, my hands raised like I was coming to a wild animal that might spook any second and bite my face off.
“Vi, stop,” I told her again. “He is dead.”
“How can you be sure?” she asked, whipping her untamed gaze to me, the knife braced mid-air. “He’s in here. He started this.”
“Chop off his head,” I said, making her eyes widen. “Then you’ll know for sure. We can take it with us, throw it in a fucking river or feed it to some pigs. Then you’ll know.”
“I…” she said, turning back from me to our dead father lying prone on the floor, her thighs straddling his. He was a bloody mess, his stomach and genitals only gore. She’d stuffed mud into his mouth to suffocate on. It looked a disgusting, horrible death.
I only wished I’d witnessed it.
“Chop off his head,” I told her again, falling to my knees beside her. “Then you’ll understand.”
“Help me,” she whispered, questioning.
