When they chopped Margaret’s head off, I could only think of Father. I could only think of the pain Margaret must have been in. How she’d lain there and taken it. There was almost a peace in that, in her final, ragged breaths.
Blood coated the table, splattered over each of us, as Margaret’s mangled corpse pumped out the last of its blood. Her limbs were in Gabe’s arms, and he walked across the room and handed them to a different guard. The guard left the room, grimacing at his cargo.
“Well, that was fun,” Rafe said, breathing heavily, looking to each of us for a reaction. Amy still sobbed openly, Connor stared at him with hard, angry eyes, and yet, Violet just watched it all with an impassive gaze.
“What next?” Gabe asked, brushing himself down as if it would make any difference, like he, too, wasn’t covered in forever staining blood. It stained his clothes, his skin, his insides.
Rafael walked a circle around the table, swinging Margaret’s head in his hand, making more splatters of blood spray out. I forced myself to look, to live in that despair with her. It was the least I could do.
Rafael stopped beside Mother and handed her the head of her child, plonking it into her lap with an unceremonious throw. “She was just as pathetic as your other children,” he said, sighing before walking away, shaking his head, leaving a very pale mother staring at the dismembered head of her most loved daughter. Margaret’s eyes were open and watching, her mouth slack.
If there was ever a moment for Mother to do something to save us, it passed when her eyes rolled back and she slumped off her chair, fainting in a heap no one gave a shit about.
That’s all we needed to do to get a reaction out of her. Die brutally in front of her. I laughed a bitter thing and shook my head, for a split-second letting the frustration toward that woman overwhelm me. That fucking woman.
Two beats.
Two seconds of silence, when Rafe and Gabe chuckled at the scene before them. When Amaryllis sucked in a breath to wail some more. When Connor’s eyes shuttered for a moment. When my heart froze, real, true despair settled in my veins.
Two beats of a heart and then Violet screamed.
Thirty-One
Violet
Withthetasteofmy sister in my teeth, I sawed through the last thread of the rope around my wrist, making sure not to react, to keep that blank façade on my face so no one paid me any mind.
Horror flashed across my vision, the very worst things I had witnessed, but my expression stayed flat. I knew if I looked Theo in the eye, truly looked at him, I would shatter.
When Rafael made the mistake of undoing one of our hands, I’d started working on picking myself free.
Free.
What a joke.
Margaret’s life ripped from her in the same moment my fire roared back into my body. I wasn’t going out like her, no damn way. I’d come way too far to lie down and take it now. I was not going out without a fight. She’d damn near walked into it. And now she was digesting in the bellies of her family. Her head was on our mother’s uncaring lap.
That would not be my fate. No bloody way.
So I fought myself free, still and slow, focused on looking as dead inside as everyone thought I was, so they would ignore me. Even Theo. With everyone shouting and begging, as Rafael lost himself in the depravity of it like I’d seen him do many times, I worked.
I was so bloody happy to see Theo alive. He looked beaten up, tired and like he’d lost weight, but there he was, still raging, still fighting. Angry as he’d sat beside our now passed out mother, fighting along every step while I just stayed there and stared.
But I couldn’t anymore. I was free. He was next.
As our mother slipped into unconsciousness, I opened my mouth and screamed at the top of my lungs, burning through me as I leaped up, ready to destroy Rafael, Gabe, and anyone that got in my way.
It would kill me, I knew that; there was no path for me to make it out of here intact. Body and soul, I might never recover. But death would be freeing. I couldn’t leave this earth with them still walking it.
My plan was shit, my brain mush, but damn it all to hell, I was going out with a fight.
I’d been trapped in no more than a coffin with Les’s rotting corpse for two weeks, the only sustenance dusty water poured over my face once a day. Les stank as he rotted, turning to slime and goo all around me. There was nothing I could do to get away, no amount of fighting or moving that got me far enough away from his decay. I just had to sit in it. Live in it. Rot right there with him. Even as his skin slid from his flesh, when the maggots came to feast on him, even when I couldn’t smell him anymore, when every bit of me was just him, there was no changing, no escaping.
That was my future, and it was close, but maybe I could claim another victim before I went. Jack, Damon, Dad, Les. All men who’d hurt me, all men I’d ended. Two more. I only wanted two more. So I dove for them.
Gabe reached me almost the second I stood up, and we toppled toward the floor with a messy, shouting crash. If he thought he had the upper hand, he was wrong. He had a knife, a gun in his back pocket. I had my teeth. They’d come in such handy already. Theo’s shouting echoed around me as I fought, dogged, rabid.
And as Gabe and I landed, before we bounced on the floor for a second time, I sank my teeth into his cheek, ripping back as hard as possible, bringing away a chunk of flesh. He screamed out, cursed at me.
