Page 57 of Burn Me Down

“Vi,” Beck said and glared at her friend. “It’s not your decision to make.”

“We did promise to hear him out,” Asher added, which was brave considering Violet was holding a potential weapon.

“You’re right. I did promise that. Fine. Derek, tell me this…I want to know why you hate Asher and me so much. I didn’t even know you until you killed my parents, and Asher never intentionally hurt you, and yet you did what you did. Then you fuck with your brother’s head further by pretending to die in the fire. He couldn’t eat or sleep and beat himself up every day because of that stunt.” Asher laid his hand on Violet’s, but she was on a roll. “Why?” She slammed her fist down on the table, and all the cutlery jumped.

“You feel that anger? Now try feeling like that every single day of your life and see how sweet and righteous you are, Violet.”

I finished off the last of my salad and pushed the plate away. “Your mistake is thinking that I was in any state of mind to make logical decisions. Not when I was seventeen and not when I broke out of the hospital.” I leaned my elbows on the table. “When Asher turned me in, right or wrong didn’t matter. He broke the last part of me that held any hope or love in my heart. My mind crumbled in on itself, and instead of helping me, the system failed me. I was left in the hands of a man who was far more sadistic than my father ever could be. I’d like to see what you’d be like after being locked up for nine years, tortured almost every day while they pumped drugs into you and taunted you at every turn. I was broken, Violet. I was broken before I went in, and I hardened into a depraved version of who I’d been when Asher and I were kids.”

Her eyes softened as she looked down at her food. I met Asher’s steady gaze. He was no longer the little boy who needed protection, and yet, as I stared into his eyes, I could still see that old innocence under the man he’d become.

“When I freed myself, and I saw you in the news as a hero, the Captain of a firehouse and putting out the fires I was setting….” I chuckled. “Part of me was so proud of you, of what you’d become, and part of me hated you. It felt like you were trying to destroy me all over again. All the great that I was doing, you were undoing.”

“I didn’t know it was you, and to me, it’s just a job. I love my job, but it wasn’t like I was trying to attack you,” Asher said, and I nodded.

“I know…I know, but it’s how it felt. All I could hear was Dad’s mocking voice in my mind, taunting me and telling me that you had grown up exactly how he thought you would, and I was still the disappointment. The thing he never wanted.” I tapped my head. “It fucked with me, I couldn’t see past my anger and hurt. Going after you gave me a purpose and made it feel like I was settling a score. It also let me be near you. I figured if you saw a glimpse of me you’d turn me in like you had before.”

I turned my attention back to Violet. “Then you saved the woman I was trying to kill on my mission and started dating Asher, and the two of you looked so happy. It was a powder keg waiting for a light. I couldn’t take it. At every turn, you had a perfect life. A family that had taken you in and loved you, and I had nothing but old memories of pain and screams while I hid in the shadows.”

“I can’t picture sadness and jealousy causing all of this,” Violet said, but her voice wasn’t as resentful as before. I laughed.

“Really? Says the woman who lost her parents to a fire and became a fire inspector so you could hunt me down. All this time, you’ve been looking for me, dreaming of ways to enact your revenge. Tell me, Violet, did it not take over your every waking thought and haunt your dreams at night? Did your desire to find out who had taken your parents from you not put you in a pit of sadness that you couldn’t find a way out of?” She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms but didn’t say anything. “I wasn’t born wanting to hurt you or your family, Violet. Choices and circumstances put us on this path, and yes, I am sorry that I hurt you and that I killed your parents, but I can’t go back in time. The pain that had a hold on me is like nothing I could ever explain to you, but it ate me alive from the inside.”

“My parents didn’t deserve to die,” she said.

“Did you look into their files like I suggested?”

She looked away, and I knew that she had, but she didn’t want to believe what I’d said or what she had read for herself.

“They still didn’t deserve to die,” she said again.

“Maybe, maybe not, but we’re not here to debate that. Even if you could prove me wrong, I can’t take back what I did.” Her eyes filled up with tears, but she blinked them away as she pressed her lips together. “Let me ask you this. Which angers you more? The fact that I killed your parents or the fact that you treated them like shit and didn’t get a chance to make it right before they died? Is your mission to track me down and not forgive me now only to wipe away your guilt?”

“How dare you,” she snarled, and Asher put his hand on her shoulder.

“It’s a simple question and one I don’t think you want to answer because you don’t like to admit the truth out loud.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Fine, keep denying your true feelings, but I bet no one could tell you what to do back then. You rebelled and thought you hated them for cramping your style.” Her jaw twitched, and I knew that I’d hit the nerve that she didn’t like to expose. I crossed my arms over my chest. “I did have a reason, or it was reason enough in my abused teenage mind. I’d been beaten my whole life and watched your mother come and go and never help. I lived with the man that did this to me.” I pointed to the side of my face. “And you think I should’ve been rational in the head,” I growled. “You have no idea, none, and yet you’re happy to sit on your glass pedestal and throw stones at me.”

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do. I can see it in your eyes. You look at me like I’m last week’s garbage, just like my father did. I’m used to that look.” Her eyes went wide. “But, you have no idea what it’s like to wake up every morning and wonder if today is the day your father will finally kill you.”

Her eyes softened as she looked at Asher, who’d been surprisingly quiet. “If it weren’t for me, there is a good chance that Asher would’ve died. I could’ve taken off and left him behind, but what do you think would’ve become of him? I couldn’t do that. I loved him, and I wouldn’t leave him there alone to take the abuse that I did.” I pointed at Asher. “You have him now because of me. Whether you want to see that or not, it’s the truth.”

“So, this is why you wanted to see us? You wanted a chance to explain why it’s okay for you to kill hundreds of people and why we should be alright with it. Should I be thanking you?”

“Violet,” Beck said and tossed her napkin down on the table as she stood. “I love you, but you’re being a bitch.” The shock in Violet’s eyes told me just how rare it was for Beck to get angry with her. “The man you love and plan to marry wouldn’t be sitting beside you right now if it wasn’t for Derek. Be sad all you want, and don’t forgive him for your parents if you don’t want to, but no one at this table is perfect or innocent or hasn’t done things they regret. If you can’t find it in your heart to at least step out of the way so that Asher and Derek can repair their relationship or let me be happy, then I don’t know if we can be friends anymore.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Beck crossed her arms. “I have supported you and every decision you’ve ever made, even when I didn’t agree with you. I have for our whole friendship. All I’m asking is for you to show me the same respect.”

Violet pointed at me. “He murdered hundreds of people, Beck. It’s not like he accidentally ran over a cat with his car. He methodically hunted and killed people in a horrific way. I watched my father scream my name from his bedroom window before he died. You don’t sweep that under the rug,” Violet said, and I had to look away from her.

I didn’t see that part. I was long gone and hunting down my parents by then, but I never meant for her to see that.