Just needing to reach the stairway before he did.
Because if she could get out of this damn barn, she might survive.
She was only halfway down the steps, her hands braced on both sides of the ladder, when she felt his hand reach down, his fingers bunching and tangling into her hair. He was bent over the opening, coming through it facedown. But he had enough leverage to stop her, jerking her and making her lose her footing altogether until she was dangling in midair. Her feet swung and she kicked wildly. She crashed against the ladder with enough force to knock the wind out of her.
“Nice try!” he snarled, hauling her up once more. He was stronger even than Violet had imagined, and she fumbled to get ahold of the wooden steps in a desperate effort to keep him from pulling her all the way back up to the loft.
After several failed attempts, she finally managed to slide one of her feet through the rungs and she hooked it there, locking herself in place. He jerked harder, and she shrieked in agony as she felt clumps of her hair ripping free.
“Why are you making this so hard?” he ground out, his large hands reaching down, trying to get a better grip on her.
But Violet refused to be a victim this time. She’d already been rescued by Jay, by her uncle, by Sara and Rafe. She hated that she hadn’t been able to save herself then.
This time, however . . . this time there was only her. And she refused to let Caine win.
She reached up, hitting and scratching him, trying anything she could to make him release her. But nothing worked. He was slowed by her efforts, but so was she. She kept her leg wrapped around the ladder, but each time he pulled her, she felt her grip falter.
Finally, she lifted both of her hands and wound them into his hair. She squeezed her fists as tightly as she could and she anchored her legs around the steps as firmly as possible. She jerked downward, pulling at him with every ounce of strength she could muster. Pulling him with everything she had.
Until he was falling . . . down . . .
. . . down.
She hadn’t realized how easily he would fall until she felt his leaden weight crash against her. He was like a stone, crushing her against the wooden ladder she clung to with only her legs. The splintering sound from the wood was bad, but Violet was much more concerned when she felt his hands grasping at her, clutching for the folds of her cotton nightgown. She realized he’d gotten a handful when she was wrenched downward. Yet even as she heard it tear, he kept tumbling, falling past her.
Her tenuous hold slipped, and then she was plunging too, her arms flailing wildly, a scream frozen in the base of her throat.
The only sound she actually heard was the sickening thud he made when he collided with the hollow wooden floor beneath them. And something else, something she had no time to process before she too landed . . . falling on her stomach, her arms and legs completely ineffective in breaking her fall as dust rose up, choking her and making it impossible to breathe at all.
Chapter 25
SUNLIGHT.
Violet blinked, wondering when was the last time she’d actually felt the silvered strands of daylight on her skin. It seemed like forever ago. Another lifetime.
She blinked again and tried to take a breath. She choked on a mouthful of something too thick to be considered air, and she rolled her face out of the dirt.
From nearby, she heard something. An endless, unabating sound.
She coughed again as she struggled to sit up, trying to figure out where she was.
And then her thoughts cleared.
Panic whipped through her and she gracelessly lurched to her feet, unsteady and light-headed.
The sound was still there as if carried on the rays of light that broke through the cracks in the ceiling and walls. Violet searched, knowing what—who—she was searching for, even before she found him.
Caine.
And he was there, just inches from her. She jumped back from his broken body, afraid that if she so much as breathed her toes might accidentally brush against him.
She stared down at his wide, unseeing eyes, remembering the sounds from his fall. The solid thud and the other, more grotesque sound . . .
She looked at him now, realizing what it had been. He’d landed on the pitchfork when he’d fallen.
Her hand flew to cover her mouth. Then she heard it.
The sound.
It was a metallic tinkling, like a music box. The kind little girls wind up, the kind with a twirling ballerina inside.
Violet turned in a circle, trying to figure out where the sound might be coming from, trying to pinpoint its location. It was soft and slow, melodic and eerie.
She stepped closer to Caine’s body, just needing one last look to convince herself he was actually dead. He’d created his last echo, hurt his last girl. She leaned close, her heart pounding as she gazed into his vacant eyes.
The music grew louder, humming just beneath the surface of her skin, tingling electrically.
And she knew. The echo was his.
She knew then that the music-box sound, the echo that clung to Caine’s lifeless form, also clung to her.
She had an imprint of her own now.
Violet had been walking for so long that her legs felt like rubber. In reality, it could have been mere minutes. She knew she was weak, that her stamina was next to nothing.
In the light of day, she’d found a small dirt road that led from the old barn. Like everything else, it had been overrun with weeds and fresh spring grass and clover, but she could still see the tracks that had once been made by tires. And she could still tell which way she had to go.
As she walked, she tried not to listen to the plinking sound of music that followed her, hovering around her. On her. But it was impossible, and soon she’d memorized the tune, and despite herself, found herself humming along to it.