CHAPTER THREE
old friends

HOME. The sentiment pounds into her ribs in tandem with her heartbeat as Violet tears down unfamiliar streets on her skateboard, popping up and down curbs to avoid the potholes and puddles. Home. Home. Home.

           Forks holds no novelty in her stone cold heart, and yet the vehemence of nostalgia cleaving through her body surprises her again and again with each stroke of her leg kicking off the tarmac. Never in a million years would she have ever thought she'd miss her old hometown, especially after all the nightmares that'd transpired. Nightmares that her father thought she'd leave behind. But the skeletons go wherever she goes, and she's accepted it. She holds onto them because the bones of her past sharpen the knives of anger twisting in her guts. Plus there are stranger things to miss. Like how the streets shine like silver after the rain, and how days never look like days but crepuscular twilight. Or how it's supposedly summer, but it feels more like the cusp of winter. Home. It still feels all sorts of wrong without Luka by her side, but at least she's not miles and miles away from everything she used to know.

              With the wind in her face, the buildings and houses and the infinite canopy blurring in periphery as she rockets forward, forward, forward, she is an unknowable comet shooting out on a warpath under the rainclouds looming overhead. People turn to stare as she flies by, wheels screaming against the tarmac. Shedding distance and gaining momentum. For once, the iron voice is the last thing she hears. For once, it is a muted buzz of undeniable impulses she is not enslaved to, not quite silent, but kept at bay. Cold air bites and scratches at her exposed skin, raising gooseflesh. A woman pushing a stroller cuts her an incendiary glower as she narrowly swerves to avoid hitting her fat toddler, who squeals in delight, blissfully ignorant to its near-death encounter.

           First stop: Tillicum skatepark.

           Violet skids to a halt before the old park and picks her skateboard up. Tapered off from the road, the sunken piece of concrete playground used to be a second home. Nothing's changed in four years. Except that it's a lot less populated than before. Before, when the entire place was a male dominated horror show, and Violet had been alone, with no friends to distract her from the shitty, judgemental stares drilling into her tiny body. A few weeks into coming here religiously, she'd met Sage, who'd introduced her to Kit, and they'd been an inseparable trio since, constantly improving, striving to outdo the boys on the ramps until they were good, until they were better, until they could be taken seriously enough to be considered menaces.

            Now, the park is empty, save for a handful of skater kids smoking pot in the back benches.

           Her phone chirps, a muffled sound in the pocket of her jeans. When she fishes it out and checks the caller ID, her shoulders pull back as her spine snaps ramrod straight.

           "Father," Violet drawls, lips twisting into an involuntary sneer as she turns away from the park, phone pressed to her ear.

           "Aaron called me earlier," her father says, tone dry with skepticism, "you left the house in a hurry?"

           You'd know if you were there, Violet thinks, bitterness biting at the back of her mind. No surprise here that Elijah Korchak wasn't calling in to check on her out of personal interest, but just to make sure his daughter wasn't getting into trouble. She bristles in irritation. Some part of her seared with the stabbing indignation of his accusation that she'd be stupid enough to throw away the last straw holding her to Forks. Did he seriously think her that foolish? She's right where she wants to be. All the staged rebellion had been left behind in California. Here in Forks, he had to know she could be trusted to be less volatile. If he couldn't, she'd just have to make him see that.

           "Yes," Violet practically snarls, affronted by the immense distrust radiating through the phone lines. "I'll be back by dinner."

            "Good. We've got some important arrangements to discuss."

            In layman's terms, he would be telling Violet everything that he's already arranged for her without drawing consensus, thus factoring out the 'discussion' aspect ('dictatorship' would be a more felicitous description), and she has to take his autocratic conditions without resistance or else he'll send her away again. There are, after all, some sacrifices she has to be prepared to make. When it comes down to it, Violet could anticipate every move her father would make. She's spent enough years watching him. Orienting her behaviour around his precision, his discipline, his brutality. Years and years. Enough to be able to detect where he'd move his pawns, when he'd cut his losses, every measure he'd take to secure his place on the board.

              "Sure." An uncomfortable compromise in Forks is better than nothing in another expensive private school elsewhere. No amount of prestige and glamor could disguise the stench of being micromanaged by her father. At least, here, she would have one hand on the steering wheel.

               "Where are you now?" Even through the phone, she could see his expression. See the cold, hard lines of his face twisting in mistrust.

          "I'm at the skate park," Violet says, words clipped.

          Annoyance prickling at her veins, she rakes a trembling hand through her hair, and winces when her fingers snag on the knots. Running her tongue over her cracked bottom lip, she turns back toward the park. Her venomous stare lands on the smokers—blissfully ignorant of the girl standing across the park from them, a hurricane lurking offshore—still lounging around the benches, where they blow rings of smoke into the cloudy sky. Her fingers twitch in agitation. Under her skin is the familiar fire, tempered by the iron paranoia clamped around her heart. One wrong move and she might be sent out of the country, for good, this time. Here in Forks, her father is in complete control. And yet, she still fights to hold onto the strings she'd pulled to get herself back home. Fights to unshackle herself from all fear in the face of her father. Fights for the knowledge that she has some power, too.

            "Alone?"

            "Meeting up with Sage and Kit," Violet lies. It slips off her tongue too smoothly. "Old friends," she reminds him. As though jogging his memory with names he never even bothered to know meant that he'd remember. As though he'd even care. She doesn't know why she bothers. "We might go around town, get reacquainted."

            A beat passes. A pocket of silent contemplation. She can tell he's turning her words over. Churning her story through the processor, poking for holes. She's kept it vague enough to pass for believable, as all good cover stories should. But she's lied enough to earn such suspicion.

            "Alright," he says, and her lungs go slack. "I have to get back to work. Be back by seven."

            "Fine."

             Violet hangs up first. When she slips phone into her backpack, she realises her hands are still shaking.

             "Fuck," she hisses, digging around in her backpack for her carton of cigarettes. Desperation rises within her, a crashing wave washing up against her veins as she roots around, searching frantically. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. No cigarettes. Nothing to numb the prickling of her blood, the endless firing of her nerves. "Aw, shit, shit, shit—"

           Just as she's three seconds away from chucking her backpack across the skatepark, a voice behinds her calls out.

            "Hey!"

            Startled, Violet whips around, heart stuttering in her chest. Her brows furrow and her eyes flash, body tensing. Ready to hurl daggers at the person who'd caught her in such a terrible time. Though, more annoyed at herself for getting caught off-guard and letting someone else see her in such a scattered state.

              But the girl standing before her—this timeless entity of bronzed, olivine skin marked with old scars from a different century, blue skateboard clutched to her chest; this lithe figure cloaked in oversized, knitted sweaters and black basketball shorts—is not just anyone.

             "Don't know if you're aware, but old friends call," Sage Harker says, tone blunted, and spins the wheel of her skateboard with more vehemence than required. Her gaze pierces through Violet's, unwavering and tormenting. Hard lines trace the slope of her otherworldly features, a dark sun come to scorch the earth, the kind of face that looked down upon mortal wars and scorned the clumsy battlefield. She'd obviously overheard Violet's conversation with her father.

             "Hey," Violet breathes, slightly nonplussed. Her voice comes out this feeble thing, but it doesn't matter. It's Sage. Sage, who has seen her at all points of her life, so the warlord front that her father's shaped her to become is automatically nugatory. Sage, who she's entrusted with all the deepest parts of her soul. Until Luka died. Until the monsters came. Until the monsters drove her into her own head and sank their teeth into her brain. Until she'd been spirited away to California to become someone else's problem.

            The last time Violet had seen Sage, they were thirteen, lying on their backs in Kit's backyard, staring up at the stars while Kit's brother, Paul, tried lighting a bonfire with his friends. That was the last time they'd spoken, too. After Luka died and Violet had been sent off to California, she'd cut off all ties to Forks. Including (and almost impossibly) Sage and Kit. By no means had she forgotten. She missed them every single day. Missed them so much it hurt, like she'd been punched through the gut and had to spend four years walking around with three vacuum holes—one for Luka, one for Sage, and one for Kit—in her chest sucking in all the world around her. Four years of radio silence. So she wouldn't blame either of them for being a little bitter, or even a little angry, or even a little resentful.

          Even some rampant animosity, Violet could accept.

          But what burned in Sage's eyes was none of those things.

           What burned in Sage's eyes—those wide and unsettling eyes that can either make you feel like the entire universe is judging you or anchor you down to the earth instead of letting you float away, depending on which side you got her on—was something far worse.

            With her guard up, eyes narrowed in dubiety, Sage looked at Violet like she was nothing.

            "Hey, yourself," Sage grunts, combing her slender fingers through her dark dreadlocks, tucking one behind her ear. "Thought you'd fucked off to some fancy prep school in California and left us all in the dust. You lose my number or something?"

             Violet shifted her weight around in discomfort. There was no good explanation she could give. Not a single story she could sell that would convince Sage she'd tried. Because she hadn't. Not once. She'd kept their numbers, but even looking at their old emails sparked a fresh bout of pain again and again. By then, by the first month out of Forks, she'd had enough of heartache. Enough pain. She'd turned to stone. Something horrible and dark and wicked.

           —JUST LIKE THE MONSTER YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE—

           Violet sucks in a sharp breath.

            Sage barks out a harsh laugh. "Save it. I get it. You left. You forgot about us. Doesn't matter anymore."

            "It does," Violet says, finally finding her voice again. There's the glint of a knife's edge in her tone. The kind buried under her clothes and tucked in their sheaths in her pockets. A voice honed and forged to cut down to the bone. The one she uses when she wants to be listened to. Not just heard. There's a difference. "It may have lost all value to you, but it still matters to me. You know what happened. I didn't leave because I had a choice. But now that I'm back here, I do. And I want to make things right."

              Sage tilts her head. Her eyes are still cold, still holding her at a distance that would never have been there four years ago, but Violet can see the cogs turning. The pensive silence ices her skin over.

           "You sound different," Sage remarks, musingly, raking her eyes over Violet in an assessing once-over.

             "I'm not thirteen anymore."

             "No, I don't mean pitch change," Sage says, shaking her head. "I mean, like, you never used to talk like that." She waves an emphatic hand at Violet's face. "Like you're organising a war, like you're a politician trying to stick your fingers and shit in our heads so we'd only listen to you. Like..."

           "Like?" Violet cocks a brow.

           "Like your dad," Sage concludes, pursing her lips. Disapproving. Stand-offish. Or maybe put-off would be the right word.

            All the wind knocks out of Violet's lungs then. Her knuckles blanch as the grip on her skateboard tightens. The worst feeling blossoms like dead flowers in her guts. Her insides wither.

          "What happened?"

           —YOU WENT INSANE SHE CANNOT KNOW YOU'RE NOT YOU—

           Luka. Livvy. California. Monsters in her head. Monsters back in the parking lot—the only ones that should've mattered, but nobody believed her when she'd told them about that night.

           —NO PART OF YOU BELONGS TO YOURSELF ANYMORE—

             "Too much," Violet says, swallowing down the lump clogging up her throat. Two words—a confession—that carries the impact of a thousand glass bottles flung against the wall, shattering to a million tiny pieces. Bits and pieces that can never be glued back together. Bits and pieces that will stay broken and stuck in the little crevices of the concrete, and will henceforth and forevermore stay parts and fragments of a whole, but will never become whole again.

             Sage must've noticed the strained agony in Violet's tone. Must've seen the shadows flickering in her eyes, the way they're always locked in combat—which monster gets to consume? It's the only reason why all the tension's gone out of her defensive stance. Why her face softens, why her shoulders relax, but not quite completely. There's no more edge, and it takes the world off Violet's shoulders. Just in time, too, before Violet gets pulverised under the weight. Before she crumbles in a cataclysmic breakdown. She was never meant to be Atlas. As much as she wants to be, she cannot be a solid force keeping the world steady. She'd left pieces behind in that parking lot four years ago. Pieces that died with Luka. Pieces that won't come back.

            The storm's broken from Sage's expression. Pursing her lips, she reaches for Violet's wrist and tugs her into a hug so tight Violet is half-certain it might just glue her back together again. "You don't have to tell me everything yet. Just know that I'm here whenever you need me. Even though you kinda dropped us cold turkey four years ago."

            Violet scoffs, but her heartbeat is strong in her ears. You are alive, you are alive, you are alive.

            Are you ready to start living?

            "Well, I'm here now," Violet says, nuzzling her face into the crook of Sage's neck as the scent of fresh linen sheets and mint soothes her nostrils. "I'll make it up to you. You and Kit. I'll tell you guys everything. You deserve that much."

            Sage laughs. "Conveniently enough for you, I'm just heading over to her place to hang out. Kit's mom is making spaghetti. You should come. Kit will be so happy to see you again. She keeps leaving you voicemails and then deleting them, it's bordering on neurotic. But, like, when is she not, y'know?"

            Brows furrowing, Violet frowns. "She did?"

           "Everyday for the last four years."

             —YOU LEFT THEM, YOU DON'T DESERVE THEM, YOU DON'T NEED THEM—

              Violet clenches her jaw and wills the iron voice in her head to shut up. The only good that does is chase it off towards the shadows, where the retreating darkness has eyes. Guilt ices her veins.

             "So?" Sage prompts, arching a brow. "If we skate fast to La Push, we might be able to make it just in time before the boys eat everything."

           "Boys?" Violet frowns, brain scrambling to put the pieces together.

            Realisation dawns on her as Sage shrugs. She'd almost forgotten Paul—Kit's nightmare of a twin brother—existed. Almost forgotten that Paul Lahote used to put earthworms in her shoes when they were children, almost forgotten that they'd become each others' sworn nemesis ever since the day she retaliated by tackling him to the ground and smearing the squashed earthworms all over his face. That day, Violet endeavoured she was a woman of immediate action, wasting no time in exacting justice. They'd exchanged nothing but nastiness since.

             At the memory, Violet's face instinctively reverts to its default scowl.

            "Oh, right," Sage scoffs, dropping her skateboard to the ground. "Paul's got new friends, by the way. They're all, like, super weird and they could literally eat you out of your own house, but Kit likes them, so I guess we'll just have to deal."

            Violet hums. Then another nagging thought hits her.

          "Hang on," Violet says, eyeing Sage incredulously. "You still live in La Push, don't you?"

            Sage and Kit both lived in La Push, making up the small minority of skaters within the peaceful community sequestrated from the rest of Forks, where everyone was ghastly pale and perpetually searching for an exit. They went to school on the Reservation, while Violet stayed in Forks. Somehow, back then, between school and extracurricular activities, they managed to make time to see each other everyday. It made more sense for Violet to be the one travelling the distance. The only time Sage and Kit ever came all the way down to Forks was for Tillicum skatepark, where they'd meet up with Violet, since La Push didn't have a skatepark.

          Since Sage mentioned that she was just heading down to Kit's and back to La Push, what was she doing here?

            A devious glint sparks in Sage's dark eyes. "Making a pit stop at Wynn's."

            "The convenience store?" Violet raises a brow. "That's still here?"

           Way back when, Violet had shoplifted from Wynn's at least a million times. On her first shoplifting experience, it'd been a complete accident. They'd been inside Wynn's to grab a few snacks from the candy aisle, and Violet had too many in her arms and she'd slipped a couple candy bars into the waistband of her jeans just to hold them there. By the time they'd paid and left, Violet had forgotten to take the candy bars out of her jeans and subsequently forgotten to pay for them as well. She'd only realised her mistake when they'd reached Tillicum skatepark. Realised how easy it would be to get away with these small, cheap thrills.

              Then it continued with small things for the adrenaline rush. Small tasks from Sage. A list of items to test how much she could get away with. A carton of cigarettes, packs of gum, small candy bars. Liquorice strips were near impossible because cellophane wrapping crackled too loud—Chernobyl even under layers and layers of clothing—but they were the pinnacle of all challenges. Violet had only gotten away once. And that was only because Kit was there, talking their ears off about constellations and a book she'd read over the holidays. Her rambling had been just enough to conceal the sound of the wrapper crinkling and squeaking plaintively as a kidnap victim under Violet's heavy sweater. It kept going on and on until Violet got so good, and she was never caught.

             Speaking of, if Kit were here, she'd have tried to stop Sage and Violet, but that was only if she ever caught Violet redhanded. Which was, admittedly, a rare occasion.

           "I'm in the mood for some Mars bars," Sage muses, growing a pair of phantom devil horns.

           Violet smirks. Easy game.

           So this is where they grind to a halt. After a five minute race from the skatepark, wind in their ears, swerving dumpsters and exchanging unpleasant road rage with drivers on the street that didn't stop in time, Wynn's was a welcome lacuna of deathly silence. The bell above the glass door chimed in alarm. Behind the counter, cherry-lipped Lillian with the pink hoops and chestnut bangs hanging in her face sipped loudly on her iced coffee, flicking through a Blender magazine sporting a familiar rock band on the cover and paid no mind to the two intruders. Sage gives Lillian an appreciative once-over.

            "Hold my stuff, I'm just popping in to get a drink," Violet says, as they pass the counter, shoving her skateboard and yellow backpack into Sage's arms. "You want anything?"

            "Just an orange soda," Sage says, purposefully loud enough to let Lillian hear.

           "Sweet, be right back."

            Going into these mini-heists, Violet always came with a fully-formulated plan. A kid with a big bag in the candy aisles was already a red flag. Good thing she always wore baggy clothing. All her pilfered spoils, she crammed underneath her shirts and inside the waistbands of her jeans. It made walking a little difficult, but a smooth exit came with practice.

           As Sage peruses the rack by the counter to shield Violet from view, the latter disappeared down the snack aisle, a direct path to the refrigerators in the back.

            Brushing up against the closest rack as inconspicuously as she could, Violet grabbed a handful of Mars bars and a couple packs of gum and shoved them under her shirt with a magician's ease, where her elbow could easily clamp over them in a firm grip to keep them from slipping out. She strode over to the drinks in the back. A blast of cold air hit her in the face when she yanked the door open and grabbed Sage's requested orange soda.

           Drink in hand, she saunters back to the counter, expression schooled into disappointment.

             "They didn't have grape," Violet says, sulking as she set Sage's orange soda on the counter and slaps just the right amount of money onto the counter as Lillian wordlessly scans the orange soda and keys something into the cash machine.

            "You girls need a bag?" Lillian drawls, eyeing them dispassionately.

          "Nah, we're good," Sage says, smiling brightly.

           They hustle out the door with their heartbeats in their ears and stolen goods under Violet's shirt. When they're a couple blocks clear of Wynn's Sage unzips Violet's backpack and lets Violet spill all the mars bars and packs of gum into the bag before handing Violet her stuff back. Sage slips the bottle of orange soda into her own bag.

            "Still got it, huh?" Sage snickers, unwrapping a Mars bar and cramming the entire thing in her mouth.

             "Never lost it," Violet says, flicking a lock of hair behind her ear. She wedges her skateboard under her foot. "First one to the Lahotes' gets all the gum?"

            Sage rolls her eyes, but drops her board onto the ground anyway. "You're so confident."

          "Damn right, I am. Ready?"

           Without warning, both girls explode off the mark, cackling with each roar of their boards against the asphalt, wheels screaming to the sky and the unspoken words hanging between them: everything will be okay.

☾

WITH A DISGRUNTLED GLOWER, Violet chucks both packs of gum at Sage's triumphant face as they stumble up the Lahotes' driveway. Sage catches them with a surreptitious smile.

              "Shut up," Violet grunts, shoving Sage's shoulder. Sage pushes back, and in their hazy little nebula of cheap thrills and blood pulsing under their skin with the mantra, you are alive, you are alive, you are alive, they are entirely oblivious to the four pairs of eyes gazing down at them from the window in the second floor, and all the sharpest ears of the world tuned to their harsh laughter and the easy digs they take at each other. Two indestructible gods hurling missiles at each other and revelling in the destruction that barely makes an indent in their titanium skin.

            Grinning impishly, every inch reminiscent of the devil, Sage flips a dreadlock over her shoulder, lording her victory over Violet. Violet mimes swinging at her with her skateboard, which Sage skirts away from in the nick of time.

            "Okay, just, like, a fair warning," Sage says, pausing by the front door with one hand hovering over the doorknob, pinning Violet with an indecipherable look. "Nothing much has changed. But, like, some things just don't look the same anymore. Don't be too freaked out by what you're about to see."

             A flummoxed frown tugs at Violet's lip. What does that even mean?

            Sage pushes the door open and strides in like she owns the place. "Honey, I'm home! And I brought a sacrificial offering!"

            Violet rolls her eyes and smacks Sage in the arm.

            In an instant, a stampede of footsteps thunder down the stairs. There's a flurry of bickering, deep, unfamiliar voices crosshatching with the occasional smack of a palm against what sounded suspiciously like flesh, and a catastrophic calamity of unfinished shouts interrupted by wounded yelps and devious cackling. It sounded very much like people fighting to be the first down the flight of stairs. Sage takes one look at Violet's baffled expression and snorts.

             "Embry, if you dare lick me again—"

          "What're you going to do, huh? What're you going to— Ow! Dammit, Paul!"

             "Y'all are a fucking mess."

           Four boys and a girl—all built like dark-haired copper-skinned Amazons, shaped with hard muscle sculpted by gods—tumble onto the landing in a competitive mess of artlessly flailing limbs and good-natured roughhousing. Vicious grins stretch their mouths, each and every one of them distinguishably beautiful in a breathtakingly impossible way. One boy trips over another's feet and almost face-plants on the hardwood floor, but the girl reaches out to tug him back onto his feet with a reproachful scowl. He gazes down at her with saccharine adoration.

           Mouth parted in bewilderment, Violet surveys the group, blinking fast in disorientation. The girl—filled out in her tank top and black shorts—gapes at Violet, soft brown eyes shimmering as she studies Violet in disbelief.

           "Vi?"

            When Violet last saw Kit Lahote, she'd been a scrawny little thing of thirteen, the smallest and youngest of their trio. Always a little fearful, always the more cautious of the three of them, with large, almond shaped eyes, awkward boy-feet and knobby knees, clumsy, gap-toothed smiles and hands that never quite knew where to be placed. But this girl is physically nowhere to be found.

            Now, the girl standing in a stupor before Violet easily clears almost five-foot-nine, with broad, athletic shoulders and long, toned legs. Still slightly smaller than the boys standing in a clump behind her, but significantly taller than both Violet and Sage, arms lined with wiry muscle and miscellaneous white scars marring her knees and elbows.

             Reaching a hand out, Kit steps forward with the grace of a predator—even a small movement like that, Violet could tell all the difference in the world—and pokes Violet in the shoulder apprehensively, as though convinced she were a mere apparition in a lucid dream, an optical illusion in the flesh that might dissolve with one touch. But Violet was real. When her fingers bump against corporeal skin, the incomprehension on Kit's features dissolves. Unadulterated, vibrantly blinding joy blossoms on her face in a smile that could cure wars.

           Without warning, she lunges forward, crushing Violet to her in a soul-pulverising hug that literally sweeps her off her feet and flattens her lungs against her ribcage. Four years ago, this would've been impossible. Even with Sage's help, Kit couldn't even pick Violet up without breaking her back before, and now, she spun Violet around like she weighed nothing. (Given Sage's growth spurt, too, Violet is currently in mourning for being the smallest of the trio now. Oh, how the tables have turned.)

           "Kit!" Violet chokes out, panic rushing to her head, frantically tapping on Kit's firm bicep, "I can't breathe!"

            "Oh, sorry!" Kit squeaks, and slackens her grip. Eyes shining with unshed tears, she pulls back, hands still planted on Violet's shoulders. "I just can't believe you're really here! I tried calling you everyday, but you never picked up and Sage tried to throw my phone into the ocean, so I started writing letters, but never sent them because I was so scared you wouldn't write back, but then I realised I also don't have your address, so I just wrote 'California' on the back of each envelope and hoped for the best, but then Paul said it was a stupid idea so..."

            Some things still hadn't changed, though, Violet supposes. Every word flying uncontrollably out of Kit's mouth still came out candid and delicate and small. Her shoulders were still sloped and caved in, as though she couldn't quite get used to her new body, still couldn't quite deal with attention so she folded into herself—small, smaller, smallest. Her silky, dark hair, always worn in braids and tucked under her green baseball cap, remained an object of envy. Innately, Kit was still the same girl. Ever-rambling, jittery nerves, anxious gestures. Dewy-eyed and soft-cheeked and silver-souled. Just running a lot warmer than she used to.

            "Dude," Violet breathes, pressing the back of her palm against Kit's freckle-splattered cheek. "Are you running a fever? And, my god, you're jacked. How high can you ollie now?"

            Kit giggles sheepishly. "I'm always like that. Comes with playing soccer all the time. It's normal, don't worry about it. And I don't know. Maybe only a little higher than before?"

           Violet pats Kit's elbow. "We'll test that later."

           "Sure." Kit shrugs. Then, the question that had been hanging onto the tip of her tongue this whole time: "You've been gone so long, why'd you come back?"

           "I wanted to," Violet says, finality stamped in her tone. "I'll tell you both everything later—"

              One of the boys clears his throat loudly. "Um, hello? What are we? Dust?"

             Over Kit's shoulder, Violet sweeps her cool gaze over their features. Only one of them, she recognises, but he was no longer the boy she used to resent with every fibre of her being. Besides the smouldering heat behind his eyes, the blistering heat of his glare burning into the unrelenting glaciers of her icy stare, and the nasty twist of his lips that never forgot every syllable of venom spat at each other—every inch of Paul Lahote is a stranger. It's been four years. That part, Violet understands. Things change. But there exists the issue of how much Paul Lahote's grown—from the scraggly little rat of gangly limbs and boyish charm to this six-foot Adonis of a boy with a jaw as sharp as the butterfly knife beneath her clothes. Gone is the boy who used to put earthworms in her shoes and roll around in the mud with her, fending off her calculated aggression with an unbridled rage of his own, snarling and snapping at each other, gnashing teeth and every parent's nightmare with the feral force of dirty playground fights.

            From Violet's five-foot-two standpoint, it just isn't fair. Appearances are often deceiving, and from the antipathy in his expression, she already knows that he still hasn't forgiven her for making him eat earthworms that one summer, so maybe there is a glimmer of the old Paul inside this new body. Just the same, Violet Korchak does not forgive or forget. Simultaneously, though, Violet knows that if she tackles him now, just as she had then, she'd more likely break her spine.

           Untangling herself from Kit, Violet scowls back.

           Amused, the other boys exchange knowing smirks. One of them snorts, as though he'd somehow been let in on the secret without anyone telling him anything.

               "Right," Kit says, quickly. "Violet, meet Quil—" she gestures to a boy with a buzzcut and an impish grin— "Embry—" the tallest boy of the bunch throws her a friendly wave— "and Jared."

             Jared—the one who'd tripped down the steps and Kit had saved from eating polished floorboards with her lightning quick reflexes—sends her a dimpled grin.

            "Hello," Violet says, a diplomatic smile pulling her lips taut. It comes too naturally. Greeting people like they were at a business meeting. Too much like her father. You sound like your dad. Sage's voice keeps replaying in her head, that same line, a mantra that feels too much like damnation. For someone who's been waiting years to hear those exact words, it should be a compliment. But coming from Sage's mouth, it sounded like scorn.

           Her gaze lands on Paul, whose eyes narrow in tangible aversion as he says, "you," voice low and laced with menace, as though he were coming face-to-face with an arch-nemesis. Dark fire clashing with unforgiving ice. Violet smirks.

            "Paul," Violet greets, and her voice drips of vitriol and poison.

            "Violent," Paul drawls tightly, mouth pressed into a thin line.

           The old nickname shakes loose an avalanche of convoluted nostalgia in her chest.

             "Well, you certainly grew up," Violet says, arching a brow, eyeing his unfathomably impressive biceps. "Are you on steroids or something?"

             For a horrifying moment, Violet thinks Paul might rush at her, just like old times, and she shifts her stance instinctively, bracing to spring a counter-attack. She eyes the solid planes of his chest, the chiselled muscle lining his stomach. But then the moment passes. A corner of Paul's mouth twitches upwards.

          A laugh explodes from his chest and he strides over to her.

           "Or something," Paul muses, eyes scanning over her figure critically, arms crossed over his chest. "You, on the other hand, what've you been doing that stunted your growth?"

            To her dismay, Violet makes this involuntary growling sound in the back of her throat, animalistic and threatening. Something about Paul just brings out the absolute worst in her. At least that hasn't changed in the past four years. "Watch it, Lahote," she snarls, eyes flashing. In the back of her mind, she wails, I used to be taller than you, goddammit, show some respect.

           Paul snorts and no permutation of letters in the alphabet can describe the resentment burning in her gut for the fact that she has to crane her neck to look him in the eye. Only when he brushes a lock of hair behind her ear, does she notice their close proximity and the heat radiating off his skin. All the aggression sharpening his features melts away.

            "Your hair's different," he says, cocking his head. "Also, bleach blonde? Really?"

          "Yes, really," Violet grits out, half-considering decking him with her skateboard, half-drowning in hatred at how defensive her tone comes out. She'd bleached her hair three years ago, tired of how her old hair looked too much like Luka's because they used to have the same honey blonde locks and every time she looked in the mirror the ache in her heart measured a solid ten on the Richter scale. Now, it was so blonde, it looked almost white. Someone once told her it made her look ice cold, heartless as her father, unapproachable as her mother. Later that night, in a moment of hysterical dissociation, she'd also cropped it to her shoulders, cut it in the bathroom sink and kept it that length since.

             Paul hums. "I like it."

              Behind Paul's back, Embry makes a gagging sound. At the same time, a disgruntled Quil slaps a twenty in Sage's awaiting palm.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
what we all can learn from this chapter: a) i love friendships so much and, b) i need to stop introducing characters together because handling dialogue of a group is a frustrating MESS and i keep imagining this as more of a movie than a book ugh