“Theo,” Violet murmured, her voice low and reedy.
“What?” I asked. “What do you need?”
“Get her back. I’m not finished.”
My brow furrowed, confusion hitting me. She sure as fuck looked finished.
“Get her back,” she said again.
I shook my head. “No, love. You need to lie down. Let me fix you up.”
Growing more frantic, Violet repeated herself. “Get her back! Get her back.”
When I shook my head again, she wrestled herself free of me, storming from the bathroom in a trail of bloody footprints and wobbling rage. “Margaret!” she bellowed, screamed even, her voice breaking.
She stormed through every room upstairs, raging through the house until she found our sister, cowering in the corner of the space she was to share with Amy.
Violet marched up to her, grabbed our sister’s cheek with her bloody hand, and held the knife aloft above their heads. “You want me to carve it into you now? Save the future trauma?” Violet growled.
Margaret shook her head, pleading.
“Open your mouth,” Violet demanded, and when Mag didn’t, Violet squeezed her cheeks until her lips popped open. Violet rested the blade on Margaret’s tongue, wiping her blood along the squirming thing. “Taste it, Margaret. Taste every bit of pain that man brought onto my body and decide for yourself whether you want it. I won’t stop you if you do.”
Margaret shook with fear as their stares collided, but Violet waited, that blade pressed to Margaret’s tongue, not digging in, not threatening, just waiting.
“I have a lot more blood I could make you taste, make you witness,” Violet said, the two’s eyes locked and heated. “I won’t, though. That would betwisted.”
Margaret shuddered and tried to pull back. Violet hesitated for a second, but let her go.
“One time when he failed to get me pregnant, he put his entire fist inside me, shoved something inside me I think contained his sperm. He pushed it into me, right into my sore womb. And it still didn’t work.” Her eyes were cold; her jaw tense. “You want that?”
Fuck.
Selfishly, my mind went to what I’d done. The birth control I’d injected into her. It wasn’t Rafael’s fault; I’d injected her to stop it from ever being possible. No matter what he did. I’d ignored my actions until that moment, pushed them all away.
As Margaret whimpered and clambered up, racing to get as far away from her big sister as possible, guilt raced through me. Violet’s head dropped, the knife falling to the floor with a clank. My heart squeezed.
I had to tell her what I’d done. Maybe the reason why she’d been tortured to such extremes.
Twenty-Two
Violet
Theoturnedontheshower and stuck his hand under the water, looking at me while he waited for it to warm up. We were alone, both covered in blood again, and both trying to slow our breathing.
After Margaret fled, Connor and Amy followed her, and Theo carried me here, back into the bathroom, into the bath. It had been no more than five minutes since I snapped, and the adrenaline was sinking away drip by drip, leaving me jittery. I’d watched him scoop up the small gouges of flesh I’d dropped and put them in the waste with a frown. But he said nothing, no comment on my insanity.
Once Theo was satisfied with the temperature of the water, he took a few short steps across the room and cupped my cheeks. He still didn’t speak, only studied my face for a few moments, his eyes bright and full of concern as they trailed over me, like he was running a checklist. Eyes, whole. Mouth, fine. Nose, breathing. He let loose a slow breath and moved away. My atoms reached out for him.
Without saying a word, he peeled my clothes from my body and chucked them into the corner of the room, leaving them discarded on the floor as he shifted me to the shower cubicle. I moved with no resistance, enjoying every touch of his skin on mine. Coming down from whatever the hell had gotten into me before.
Margaret just needed tosee. Truly see. Everything Rafael was capable of, everything he’d done. Words hadn’t been enough, scars either. Only fresh wounds. Maybe this time it would take.
My thigh didn’t even hurt, and I was glad the word was gone from me. It wasn’t even the word itself that bothered me; it was the branding of it. I had other injuries, other marks, but the word? Having a word, each millisecond of its carving still playing loud in my mind? It was no longer there now. Only an E and an N remained, so the meaning was lost. It was another thing between Rafael and me that was gone forever. Cast into the memory graveyard of my mind.
Even as Theo sat on his haunches, turning me towards the wall so he had better access, and dabbed it with a cloth, I hummed and let him do it. He took care of me with such sweetness, muttering gentle appraisals to me, and words or noises of concern to himself. This was far from the first time he’d tended to my body, and he did so without complaint, without any admonishing words. He let me carve myself up, helped me traumatize Margaret, then wiped away the wounds with a tenderness unmatched.
“Thank you,” I told him, my head thumping onto the wall as he used something that made my injuries sting. The smell of antiseptic filled the room, the steam making my eyes water.
