And I did it. Without flinching, I wrapped my hand around hers and moved the blade from his stomach to his neck. The first slice was easy, skin and fat giving way to muscle and cartilage.
It was the last cuts, sawing through the bone with an unserrated knife, the squeaking, the way it caught in the white, snagged and fought with us, but we pushed and sawed, letting his blood wash over our hands and ooze onto the mud.
Me and the devil, we were together. Violet and I, with our shared demon destroyed. Father’s head pulled free with a sickening wet tug, and I grabbed it, yanking it from his body with my fingers in his hair. I stood before Violet, and she looked up at me, still on her knees, like in worship. Gaze heavy, chest heaving.
“What do you want to do with it?” I asked, and her eyes fell to the gormless head of our father. He was dead. She could see that now. A man couldn’t survive without a head.
A smile spread across her face, her chest rising and falling fast, her body covered in blood and mud and scratches. Again, that rage in her slipped away, a soft state, a satisfaction overcoming her.
“What do you need?” I asked, a little worried she was just going to curl up and fall asleep. There was space for that later, not now.
But without a word, her hands came to my belt. She lowered my zipper and pulled my cock out like it belonged to her. Which, of course, it fucking did. It was half-hard from watching her and continued to thicken as she brought it to her mouth. Shock didn’t win out over lust, and I didn’t stop her.
She sucked on me while I held the decapitated head of our father, while she used him as a seat to brace herself. Her moans were vibrant, her body almost writhing with the pleasure release of it, the tension she was letting go. There was little to no chance she wasn’t going to conk out here and now once this was done.
I came down her throat fast and sudden, dropping Father’s head into the mud so I could grasp hers as zaps of electricity shot up my spine and I poured hot cum into her belly.
“Violet,” I said with a breathy moan as my orgasm receded and my vision cleared. That was probably the most fucked up thing we’d ever done.
She said my name back, and I helped her climb off his dead body, her legs like Bambi as she straightened up. I expected a kiss, for her to push for more contact, for me to make her come as hard as she’d made me.
But she sank her head onto my chest, and the dam holding off her tears burst.
Nineteen
Violet
Afterscoopingmeintohis arms, cradling me to his chest and letting me soak in his warmth, Theo carried me through the trees, strong and careful, never wavering. He seemed to know where to go even though we’d never been in these woods before, quietly telling me they had Margaret, that things on their end had gone to plan.
I laughed into his shoulder when he explained how pissed off Margaret was by the whole thing, but that brief glimmer shot down fast when Father’s face flashed back through my mind a second later. Things had gone well for them, I needed to focus on that. Not on what it had done to me.
Patricide. Vicious and gory. His blood and innards covered my body, my skin and clothes. I relaxed deeper into Theo, trusting him to keep me safe, clinging to him to shove those images away. He gripped me tighter.
When we reached a river, Theo washed us, setting my feet down on the marshy ground and guiding me into the cold, slow running water. He wiped over my skin with such tenderness, chasing away the dried drops of blood splattered all over me with his fingers and palms, scooping and wiping, his gaze focused.
He stripped us both naked, bared to the moon and stars, and we pressed together, quiet and pensive as he worked and I watched.
His thumb swiped over my cheek, dipping into the cool water again, then back to wipe my chin, before rubbing behind my ear. I knew I’d… gone crazy in that clearing. Lost my sanity. Myself, in killing our father. But now I was renewing, slow and steady, with Theo’s reverence.
He knew me. He understood. My insanity wouldn’t break until he proved our father was dead.
Not for a second did he judge me or try to stop what I was doing. He just finished the job, brought me back. And how he was cleaning me up.
I huffed a shivering laugh when my skin pebbled, my nipples tightening to the point of pain, and my fingertips and toes beginning to numb.
“I’m not sure how much longer we can stay here,” I muttered, my teeth chattering as I caught his eye again. Out here, it was like we were the only people alive. Only us and the owls hooting, the bushes rustling, the fish I was terrified would brush up against my ankles. His gaze softened as he took me in once more.
Theo frowned and ran his thumb along my bottom lip, tugging it down for a moment before letting it pop back shut. “I can’t tell if your lips are going blue or it’s from the moonlight.”
“I’m definitely bordering on too cold.”
Theo kissed my head. “Then let’s get you dry and dressed.”
I cried out, then caught myself and quietened down, when he scooped me up by my thighs, making me wrap my legs around his waist, before carrying me up the shallow bank to our clothes. God, I was bone-tired, each step a mountain to climb.
As Theo patted me dry with his jacket, he looked over my shoulder. “What do you want to do with him?” he asked, nodding toward where we’d abandoned Father’s head with a scowl. We’d turned it away because I couldn’t bear to see his open eyes anymore, leaving him shoved half in a bush, only a little of his hair visible if you knew where to look. In case we had to run. Or whatever. We’d brought it along with us, but neither of us spoke about it. We just did it. Left his mangled body. Brought his mangled head.
What I’d done to him… it didn’t haunt me, didn’t feel wrong, but I felt detached from it now it had happened. Like it was another version of me. This… monster that prowled around underneath my skin, always a few scant moments from bursting out and attacking, had grown quiet for now. The violence I’d been able to do, the things I’d inflicted on the bodies of three men now, was something I’d only ever dreamed of. Snippets of visions of brutality. Daydreams of shoving someone down the stairs or jumping off the top of a church spire. She’d become reality.
