Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 128356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
My jaw hurts from how tightly I’m locking it, but I remain silent. I don’t think he wants to hear me talk.
His pain has transformed into hot rage, and all I can do is stand here as he burns me alive.
So what if I tell him my semi-dormant suicidal ideations have been a constant itch beneath my skin since that day?
Or that I freeze in times of danger, so if the man who stabbed Susie stabbed me, I’d still be frozen to the spot.
He wouldn’t believe my excuses.
I don’t think he even wants to hear them.
“But I won’t be your grim reaper.” Jude grabs my nape and my whole body stiffens. “At least, not yet. You see…”
He searches my eyes, peering down at me with an intensity that burns despite the chilly air.
“I would’ve killed the previous ones by now, after I hunted them down and made them lose all hope, but you…” He runs his harsh gaze over me. “Death doesn’t scare you, so you need appropriate torture. Hmm. What do you have to offer me, Violet?”
I swallow and hesitate, conscious that my lips could touch his full ones when I speak, then say, “I’m fine with whatever. Just don’t bring Dahlia into this.”
“You don’t get to dictate the rules.” He releases me with a shove, back to being disgusted with me. “Your role is to obey.”
“Obey what?”
“Me.” He slides his gaze from my shoes up my body, and it’s like I’m being stripped naked.
It’s that uncomfortable male gaze I’m used to, but this time, it’s more…malicious rather than sexual.
“From now on, your life is mine. You don’t get to die or hurt yourself as long as I don’t allow it.” His lips curl into a small smirk, something I’ve never seen on his face before. “I’ll see you around, Violet.”
7
VIOLET
Acrushing weight smothers me, pulling me down so viciously, I gasp, my eyes flying open.
At first, I think it’s sleep paralysis—that sickening awareness where my mind is awake but my body refuses to move.
But it’s worse than that.
A woman sits perched on my ribs like a demon, her seemingly skinny frame impossibly heavy, suffocating the breaths from my lungs.
Her once soft and beautiful face is now a grotesque mockery of what I remember. Sunken cheekbones, eyes stretched wide, pupils swallowing the amber, lips curled into something between a grin and a snarl. Our hair is the same color, but hers is longer, reaching her lower back in silky strands.
Mama.
“You bitch.” The bite in her cold, venomous voice slithers over my skin, seeping into me, crawling under my ribs and settling in my bones.
Like it belongs there.
Like it never left.
I try to move, to shift, but my limbs don’t obey me, remaining as rigid and motionless as cement.
Despite the numbness, I want to reach a hand out and touch her. Beg for her forgiveness.
Ask, Why can’t you love me, Mama?
That’s what other mothers did. They loved their kids and spoiled them. I was fine with not being spoiled, but I desperately tried to make her like me. Since we moved all the time, I had no friends, and she was my only source of affection.
Affection she never gave me.
Right now, her fingers dig into my shoulders, nails as sharp as claws. “Useless.”
She lifts her hand and slaps me, the sting reverberating in my cheek. “Your face is fucking disturbing! You’re the mistake of my life and the weight around my neck, Violet. A thing that shouldn’t have been born.”
I shake my head. A small, weak motion. The only rebellion I can manage—or could’ve ever managed. I want to speak, but my lips remain sealed shut as if stitched together with an invisible thread.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t fight.
I can only listen as she spits her rancid words into my ears, the stench of something decaying curling around my face.
“You killed me, you worthless piece of shit.”
Her hands tighten, her nails biting deeper, slicing through the fabric of reality, into my skin, cutting open the fragile pieces of myself that I try to keep together.
I didn’t, I want to say. I didn’t do it, Mama.
But there are no words in my throat, no sound except the way my pulse pounds and pounds and pounds against my skull.
She leans in, close enough that her lips brush my ear, her breath thick and rotting. “You’re a terminal disease who will kill anyone stupid enough to love you. Starting with Dahlia.”
The weight intensifies. My ribs groan under the pressure, my heart a frantic animal trapped in a cage that’s too small.
I scream.
And suddenly, I’m falling.
The world shatters.
And my shout reverberates in the small closet she shoves me into.
I jolt up, gasping, drenched in sweat, my pulse hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to escape me. Faint light greets me, and I release a breath.
It’s not the closet.