My eyes fluttered as he withdrew, tugging my trousers and underwear off in one swift movement before he pushed two fingers inside me, falling back into the mattress, crowding over me. I cried out at the sudden, delicious intrusion. If he could live inside me, I’d let him. As he stretched me, I tried to fight off the disbelief that I’d run from him, tried to leave him. I couldn’t exist without him. Didn’t want to.
“We need to run,” I replied, my pulse picking up as I rode his fingers, my hips grinding against his as he worked my pussy, moving his fingers in and out, curving them to find my g-spot deep inside, making my body come out in shivers of pleasure. “Before Connor comes back.” I moaned. “If we’re going to do this… find them all… we need to run.”
Theo showed no urgency though, his fingers driving into me hard, building delicious, immediate, urgent pressure. I grasped at him, yanked at him to get him closer, mouth to mouth, body to body. Our skin slick in places, sticky in others, we clung to each other as he brought me to the edge of oblivion.
All I needed was him. Him, and revenge. Killing that man awoke the part of me I’d never allowed to wake up. And I was desperate for it. The blood, the guts, the screams from those violent men. It was coming for them.
We were coming for them.
Three
Theo
Despiteherbigwords,Violet fell asleep only a few moments later, declaring her path to revenge, then yawning, fighting her drooping eyelids, and conking out cold draped over me. For a long time, I stayed there, held her to me, and just enjoyed the quiet closeness.
When my bladder was shouting at me and my arm was going numb, I slipped away, tucking her in with a kiss on the forehead before climbing out of the bed. But it was hard to leave her, to move out of her space. There was an impossibility to it, after that look in her eye, pulling her out of that darkness, seeing her bloom all murderous and vengeful, I would never walk away from her again.
We needed to run. I was the only person she was safe to be around at the minute. Anyone else would misconstrue her, try to stop her. That was never fucking happening.
I had her. Safe. She was with me, only me, right there. I was able to touch her, to love on her as much as I wanted. She looked peaceful. Fuck, I would never let anything bad happen to her again.
I slipped out of the bedroom and shut the door with a soft snick, sinking to the floor on the other side rather than moving any further. I couldn’t bring myself to be that far away from her. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
She was lucky I didn’t try to live in her skin now. She was my air. Even with this door between us, my lungs ached, screamed for her. Every cell in my body told me to return to her, to climb into the bed and yank her onto me. To bury myself in her. Forever.
But I had to do this. And despite the shitshow of before, how I’d messed this up mere hours ago, I didn’t want her to hear. My head thunked back on the wood as the call rang out, the monotonous tone ominous, making me feel listless while I waited for his voice. I had to confront the fucker, otherwise it would hang heavy over me. Just lay out my intentions, sus out what he knows, what he thinks he knows–
“If you don’t fucking explain yourself right the fuck now, young man—” my father’s vicious tone growled down the speaker, and my shoulders slumped. I was just so damn exhausted already. He knew. Had learned I’d lied, that something had happened. What had they seen? Been told? Hours had passed since the incident at the train station, and Connor wasn’t back yet. Did he tell? He would have been seen with us, so he would either lie to save his skin or deny everything.
Which was it? Where was he? My father continued ranting at me, and I’d had enough.
“Just stop,” I said, my voice low so I didn’t wake up Vi. “Stop it.”
“You were spotted—” Father tried to start again, and I could hear him pacing, smacking his desk, kicking things over like a bloody toddler. He must have stepped away for some privacy. There was no way he’d act like this in front of anyone but me. Charlie back in the day, too. “You fucking prick, waste of blood and air, how dare you treat our family like this? How dare yo—”
“Shut up!” I shouted, then hushed myself back down, wincing. He didn’t get this from me anymore. “Listen to me, old man.” I took a deep breath. “I’m sick of it, all of it. Violet doesn’t, and didn’t, deserve a lick of what that prick was doing to her. I don’t care about your power, your desires in this fucking life. You’re a piece of shit who uses his children, and I won’t have her getting tangled up in that again.”
“I’ll use your other sisters,” Father threatened right back without a single pause. “I’ll allow him to rape and destroy them, fill their wombs with his spawn until they fucking bleed out and drop.”
I paused, though. Let those words, that vitriol, wash over me. “Why?” I asked at last. “Why?”
He laughed. “You’ve never asked me that before, you know that? You walked through your pathetic life with your head up your ass and your thumbs in your ears. Never questioned a thing. Charlie did. And it made him understand, made him believe.”
“Well, Charlie’s dead.”
“At your hands.”
I wasn’t surprised he knew. I didn’t even give him a response, not a cough or a breath.
“You killed your big brother, and I thought it meant you were ready to step up. Your cruelty, your anger, it was perfect, Theo. But I was wrong. You’re just as pathetic as your sisters, just as thankless and worthless, all any of you had to do was help your family, help us get—”
“Get what?” I asked, a thrill rushing through me to realize he was actually about to spill something, about to share. Because he was right, on some things anyway. I hadn’t cared, hadn’t paid attention. I’d let him tell me what to do, where to go and how to behave for my entire life. Even recently, when I decided to fight for Violet, I still didn’t push hard enough, try hard enough.
“Does it matter?” he asked, the tone of his voice changing, growing colder somehow. “You’re no better than us, than Rafael, than Charlie. I am sure you weren’t lying when you told me you’d fucked her. You’re foul, despicable. You stole your little sister away from her husband, so you might defile her?” He sucked in a breath, a beat of time for me to interrupt, but I listened, waited. “She was vulnerable, Theo, weak. You took her and violated her. You killed Charlie. YOU are the monster.”
I shook my head, though he couldn’t see. I wasn’t a monster. Not to Violet. I washermonster, her beast to control. I would never hurt her, and we both knew it. But this prick who’d lent us his spunk in creation? He knew nothing. He was so smug, but he was ignorant.
“Tell me what it is you are so desperate for Rafael to give you, father,” I said, ignoring everything he said. “Tell me why your children have to suffer so much for this gain. What is it? Power? Money? What? What does he have that you crave so damn much?”
