She knew that if anyone had been listening, they’d think she’d lost her mind.
Maybe she had. She’d killed a man, after all. How many people could say that? How many normal people had committed murder, even in self-defense?
She looked at her own hands and felt dirty in a way that had nothing to do with the muck and filth that coated them. This was something that went deeper. Something much, much darker.
After what felt like hours, after humming endless loops of the nameless song that only she could hear, exhaustion finally got the best of Violet. She didn’t think she could take another step, and eventually she stopped trying, deciding it was best if she just sat for a while in the middle of nowhere and waited.
Violet could hear the cars coming down the tracked road even above the incessant music that shadowed her. She knew they were driving too fast and she jumped up, getting out of their way as she lifted her hand against the sun, shielding her eyes. When the cars were close enough, Violet fell to her knees, sobbing with relief, as everything slipped into slow motion.
She saw her uncle Stephen first, swinging open the passenger-side door of the first car before it had even come to a complete stop. He was running toward her, yelling something to her and shouting orders behind him. Violet heard nothing but the ceaseless tinkling of the imprint she now carried.
The men in the car with him were out now too, weapons drawn as they searched the woods around them . . . alert and ready.
Violet wanted to tell them it was okay, that Caine was dead, but all she could manage were tears of relief. She was safe.
She smiled up at her uncle as he reached her, scooping her up from the ground.
“Violet! Violet! Violet!” Even her name seemed to be set to the music in her head.
She let him fold her in his arms. Let him squeeze her until she felt alive again. Until she could breathe at last.
“Three days,” he whispered in her ear. “Do you know the odds? Do you know how afraid we were?” And then, when he finally released her and his eyes met hers, “Is he nearby? Do you know where to find him?”
She nodded. She knew where he was, but she was still too afraid to say the words.
He wrapped her in his arms, leading her to the car. “Your parents are waiting at the local sheriff’s office. Just tell me where he is and I’ll meet you there.”
Violet stopped, and her uncle did too. The music, however, would never stop. “He’s dead,” she stated quietly. Flatly. “I killed him.”
Chapter 26
VIOLET’S PARENTS SHOVED THROUGH THE DOOR of the small sheriff’s office as the patrol car parked in front. Violet doubted that the deputy driving could have stopped her mom from opening the car door if he’d tried . . . not even the threat of gunpoint would’ve slowed her down. Once she was surrounded by them, in their arms, Violet found herself crying again, sobbing as first her mom, and then her dad, engulfed her.
Violet clung to them, trying to ignore the wordless tune that cleaved to her as she concentrated on the fact that she’d survived.
“We’re so sorry, Vi. We never would’ve left you alone if we’d known . . .” Her mother ran a hand through Violet’s hair, then rested her palm against her daughter’s cheek.
“Uncle Stephen called before you got here. He told us what happened. I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” her dad explained sadly. “I’m so sorry you had to do that.”
Violet closed her eyes. She didn’t want to feel bad about what she’d done. She didn’t feel bad, she told herself. “It’s okay,” she said, and meant it. “I had to.”
Her mom nodded, lifting her other hand to cradle Violet’s face. “It doesn’t mean you’re okay, baby.”
Violet squeezed her eyes shut, wishing the tinkling noise would just vanish. Disappear. “I know, Mom. Believe me,” she snapped. And then, because it wasn’t their fault, “It’ll just take some time for me to . . . get used to it.”
Her father’s gaze was thoughtful. “Is it . . . ? Do you . . . ?”
Violet nodded. She knew what he was asking.
“Is it terrible?” her mom asked. “What is it?”
Violet opened her mouth to complain, to tell her parents about the continuous noise she’d have to live with forever. And then she realized where she was. That she was standing outside . . . with her parents . . . alive.
“It’s fine,” she said at last. “It’s like one of those windup jewelry boxes with the little ballerina inside. It’s like listening to a music box.”
Her mother hugged her again, crushing her in that way of hers that Violet had worried she’d never feel again. Violet glanced up in time to see tears glistening in her dad’s eyes.
They didn’t get home until early the next morning. Violet had been taken to a clinic in the isolated lakeside community, so she could be given fluids and checked out. That’s where Caine had been holding her, in a lake house his family had used as vacation property years earlier. The place hadn’t been used in over a decade, not since Caine’s father had died when Caine was just a boy.
According to the local sheriff, Caine’s father had fallen in a ravine one day while he and Caine had been hiking, and he’d sent his young son in search of help. Caine had wandered in the woods for two days—and two long nights—all by himself before he finally found someone. By the time the rescuers found the ravine Caine described, his father was already dead . . . and, according to the sheriff, his mother blamed the little boy for not trying hard enough. For not saving her husband.