TRIGGER WARNING: self harm. like, not explicitly, but just very heavy content within this chapter so... proceed with caution yeah?

CHAPTER FIVE
pray for the wicked

SOME TIME DURING THE night she begins to dream.

           In her dreams, she is hazy and the shapes are all wrong, stretched too thin, stretched too wide, and nothing is consistent. But the scene is always the same. There is a parking lot and it is night time, the full moon less like a godless entity and more like a boil that ought to be lanced—the limp heart of her most vicious nightmares. There is Luka, laughing at a thirteen year old Violet, words that don't quite reach her ears, words that don't make sense until she realises that she's watching the entire thing unfold from an omnipresent perspective. Present trapped in a past, watching the destruction of her future through the cracks in time.

           Tonight, she dreams she is back in that parking lot, back four years ago, back when Luka was alive and they were standing in the garish fluorescent light, standing and waiting and waiting and waiting. It always begins the way she remembers it. Smiles on their faces, unaware of what's to come, they're talking but the words don't sound like words. They're not watching the darkness beyond the edge of the parking lot where the light doesn't reach and the moonlight fades into shadows. Something in the air shifts. Something lurks at the edge of the darkness, watching, picking their movements apart, waiting for the right moment to strike. They should've been watching the darkness.

            And then she sees it. The first flicker of movement in periphery.

            In her dream, Violet screams, "look out!"

            But neither Luka nor thirteen-year-old Violet hears. They continue playing, continue making a ruckus with their skateboards.

             She tries to run to them, but her feet are stuck in the tar, lead blocks unable to move forward or back and she can do nothing but watch in horror as Luka falls, and the skin of his elbow tears open. Blood, red and pulsing, spills onto the tarmac. It spreads and spreads, pooling like a lake, and running like a river towards the darkness. And then, all too suddenly, a shape made of silhouettes springs from the dark and slams into Luka and sends thirteen-year-old Violet skidding to the ground. Both Violets scream, this horrible, throat-ripping, chest-quaking sound that tears the night apart. But no one else hears a thing.

              The monster is a woman. A flurry of wild red curls and skin as white as pearls and clawed hands that clamp down hard on Luka's shoulders, pinning him to the ground, and teeth that sink into flesh. Luka shouts: RUN, VIOLET, RUN! But his voice is cut off by the woman who throws her fist into his throat and he chokes on his own blood. So much blood. A river that churns into the raging ocean. What sixteen-year-old boy bleeds this much?

             When the woman rises, she leaves Luka, broken and bleeding and convulsing on the ground, drowning in a sea of red. Red that stains Violet's hands, that blinds her vision, that clings to her clothes and seeps into her mouth. The woman turns to Violet—not the thirteen year old self, but her present dream self, the one that can't run away, can't will her feet to move fast enough.

              As always, in dream and in memory, the woman smiles, and her teeth are stained with blood—Luka's blood—that gleams like rubies in the light. She looms over Violet, a monster too evangelically beautiful to be of this world, but a monster all the same. She knows that look on the woman's face all too well. It is a face that comes to her in every dream, in every moment that she lets her eyelids fall, in the darkness that grows teeth. A face made of raw hunger, of sadistic viciousness, a predator's smile that turns her to stone and freezes her blood to slush. Luka is still screaming but Violet can't move, can't make a sound, can't breathe. Fear swallows her whole and her body disappears into the void of numbness. Red eyes pin her body in place. She doesn't move and Luka is choking on his own blood, body contorting at violent angles.

             "Hello, little one," the woman says, in too many voices from one mouth. The sound to which Violet's entire universe crumbles. To which the monsters begin to prowl into her head, sink their claws into the grey matter of her brain and infect her blood with visions of red-eyed fiends and teeth and teeth and teeth.

             But before the woman can do anything, an enormous shape explodes out of the darkness. Another monster made almost entirely of shadows and fur and gleaming incisors knocks the woman out of the way. A growl shudders through the air and there is a fury of teeth and claws and snarling and blood. It takes a monster to destroy a monster. But she is collateral and she's in the way.

             As the two hellish forces struggle and slash at each other, Violet comes unstuck and sprints over to Luka's body.

             But Luka's body is gone. And so is all of the blood. Where is it? Where did it go? Where there was an ocean of the stuff before, there should've been a stain, but there is nothing. How? Where did it go?

             Panic lashing at her lungs, she spins around on her heel. But the two monsters are missing.

            The parking lot is empty. The darkness closes in. Creeping along the floor, suffocating the light, extinguishing all life into the void. Swallowing ground in nothing, nothing, nothing.

            Until all the world drops dead.

* * *

LIGHTNING SHOCKS down her spine, jerking her awake. Her eyes snap open to pitch darkness. Heart bucking wildly, pulse thundering in every corner of her body, her fingers tighten around the unopened switchblade under her pillow as she combs the darkness for demons. For lambent red eyes and flaming red hair and teeth seeking flesh.

           In the darkness, her almost barren room is all sloping shapes and shadows. She barely makes out the outline of her desk, the thin veils of moonlight slanting in through her window, through the fluttering curtains, illuminating corners and casting silhouettes that flicker and dart in periphery. Monsters, monsters, everywhere. Red eyes and red hair and blood red as wine staining like a river down pale skin and Luka writhing on the ground consumed by fire and blood and blinding agony. RUN, he'd screamed. RUN, VIOLET. But how could she? How could she abandon him when he'd stuck by her every day of her life? What kind of sister left her brother—her best friend who'd given her everything, who'd taught her everything she knew now—to die? What kind of monster would she be then?

            —YOU ARE THE PREY YOU WILL NEVER BE ANYTHING BUT—

            Thumb poised over the trigger that'd release the blade if she so much as jerked it a millimetre, Violet sucks in slow breaths to calm her pounding heart, a captive bird beating its frantic wings against the cage of her ribs. A cold shard of horror pierces her heaving chest when a shadow splits off from the darkness. All of a sudden red eyes and blood gleaming off perfect teeth and marble white skin flashes in her vision and her body kicks into overdrive.

           One moment she's in bed, the next she's standing in her bathroom and the lights are on, backing the shadows into a corner.

            Losing touch with reality. She doesn't know how she got there. Doesn't remember casting off the covers and untangling herself from the sheets, doesn't remember getting up and walking over to the bathroom, or even the simple act of turning on the light. How she got there is a blank in her mind. Must've blacked out or something, Violet thinks, confusion clinging to her fogged-up head, haunted by personal ghosts and skeletons buried in her closet. Did she close the door? No, the door's still open.

            Raking a hand through her bleach-roughened hair, she surveys the bathroom. Everything from her luggage has been stowed away accordingly, all her clothes have been returned to her closet and her bath essentials have been lined up neatly on the little shelves in the shower. Even her prescribed medication and her little blue retainer box—she checks, just something to avoid looking at her reflection a second longer—are in the cabinet behind the mirror. But she shuts the door and once again, she's greeted by vacant ice-blue eyes and dark circles and a face devoid of emotion and gaunt skin that sags with the lines of exhaustion. This is the face of a dead girl. Or one who should be dead.

                —YOU CLAIM YOU ARE THE PROTECTOR AND YET YOU CAN'T EVEN PROTECT YOURSELF YOU ARE WEAK YOU WILL FOREVER BE THAT LITTLE GIRL COWERING IN THE PARKING LOT WHILE HER BROTHER WAS DEVOURED AND THEN DEAD—

             Shut up, shut up, shut up.

            Jaw clenched, Violet runs her hands under the sink and splashes water over her face with jerky, motorised movements. But the water doesn't wash away four years' worth of emptiness. Of a soul so tired it wants nothing more than to make a bed in the dirt and a nail in the coffin and nothing, nothing, nothing.

            —DO NOT FORGET WHAT YOU CAME BACK FOR—

             Why had she come back? Why couldn't she stay in California, doped up on all the fancy medication, taking pills and being the good little girl her father wanted her to be? Why?

              The answer is this: in California, she is too far away from Forks. Staying in California means running away from demons that'd chased her off her sanity so she's clinging to the cliff's edge only by her fingertips, prone to slip and break her skull open on the rocks in the crashing waves bellow. California means cowardice. Violet Korchak is not a coward. Cowards are people who wouldn't believe when she'd told them her side of the story. Cowards are policemen who told her that what she saw wasn't real, that there's no such thing as vampires who took her brother or wolves as tall as horses who saved her from the same fate. Cowards are people who pointed and told the journalists that Violet Korchak has always been a child of violent imagination, of little cruelties that'd manifested in her fabricated story. Cowards are her father and her mother who chose to send her away instead of listen, hand her off to psychotherapy and a million different psychiatrists who understood but called her mad and gave her all these little white pills to be complacent on.

             Coming back home to Forks meant facing her monsters head-on. Let them come. She's ready. For the truth and for justice to be served and for the closure she's been dreaming of. Forks might mean danger and monsters and madness, but she's had enough of too many loose ends and too many questions with no answer. What happened four years ago shouldn't have ben possible, but it is, and it's a mystery she's going to solve no matter the cost. She's was going to avenge Luka's death. She's going to uproot everything this town is hiding, and she's going to avenge herself and all those years lost because nobody believed her when she told them the truth. That there are such things as monsters and they exist, right here, in Forks. The world is not a pretty place. It has its ugly secrets. It has its buried truths. People choose to believe in the illusion that all is fair in the world, that monsters belong in bedtime stories, not in closets or under beds or in the woods, because complacency is easier. But those glowing eyes and moving shapes and all the things that go bump in the night are not fiction.

              Humanity is not the apex predator, they are the prey.

              And she has proof of that. Proof in hundreds of little lines on both her forearms, tiny enough to hide but deep enough to scar. A hundred little tally marks scored into her flesh for remembrance and for forgetting. Punishment for living. In her pajama shirt—a loose Aerosmith shirt that clings to her narrow shoulders two sizes too large—she sees them. They're on full display, protruding from her pale skin, bumpy and ugly and disgusting, pink with the subconscious scratching as her itching skin buzzes for the sharp bite of metal to skin, buzzes with memory of making those little cuts like a surgeon with no license trying to excise the evil numbing her veins.

            (They're in the cabinet, Violet.)

             For once, the iron voice is quiet. She doesn't know why she hears that voice, or when it's going to pop into her head to read truths and tell her everything she is and will never be. Only that it began when she'd lost Luka. But each time she's close to moments like these, it disappears. When she hurts herself, her mind is static and the white noise and it goes quiet. So quiet it's almost as if it's gone. Cut out. Drowned in the sting of harsh metal shattering porcelain skin, the familiar siren song she's caught up in now; one last time. just one cut before you explode. one last ode to your old friend, the x-acto blade—how far can you go? you deserve this. one last time and all of this will stop. cut it out. drown it in the numbing pain. drown it all in blood.

               The retainer box sits in the cabinet behind the mirror, siren song of metal and blood singing her name, trapping her in its dark enchantment. Her mind goes fuzzy, then blanks out, all white noise and static. Where are her thoughts? Where do they begin? When do they end?

              Caught in the lull of voices, she opens the retainer box. She wasn't even aware she'd even reached for it. Somehow, it'd ended up in her hands, open. Three x-acto razor blades wink back at her, their sharp edges catching the light.

              The siren song persists, a symphony of insanity stoppering all pathways of thought in her head, a poignant, drawn-out wail of a violin that vibrates in her bones, music that drums into her skull with an arcing tempo and a ruthless timbre, a horrible, dark note. Without hesitating, she takes one blade, sure in all her actions, letting the dark symphony guide her hand.

                And even though it's not like anyone is awake at the moment or ready to burst into her room and stop her, she shuts the door. Turns the lock.

            And the world falls silent.

* * *

WEDNESDAY MORNING, Aaron's car pulls into the densely populated parking lot of Forks High School bright and early, with no intentions to declare war against the other students desperately searching for parking spaces, but to drop Violet off.

              It's the middle of her first semester of junior year, and Violet knows that nothing happens in Forks because a new kid like her already has the attention of almost everybody who's spotted the flashy black sedan and put the pieces of the puzzle together. From the moment she steps out of the car with her skateboard in hand and her backpack slung over her shoulder, they begin to stare, watch her walk straight into the double doors, picking apart her every movement for vulnerabilities like predators in the prairie. Or so they think. She has three knives buried under her clothes and she can make them appear in her hands at any moment. In the last four years, she's taken enough self-defence classes to know how to throw people into the ER. Plus, she's got her menace of a track record to deal with. Even if teenagers are a special breed of monster, preying weakness and weaponising judgement, she knows she'll always be the most dangerous one.

               Additionally, Violet is her father's daughter. First days at school are where everyone gathers their first impressions of her as a reference to calculate how they'd interact with her in the future. Violet intends to make her first day at school an impressionable one. One that will get people to steer clear of her and know their place.

             As she strides down the hallway towards the main office, the eyes follow her, lips move behind cupped hands, and furious whispers spark wildfires of rumours in the hallways. On every side, the swarm of students part and ebb, rushed forth and drew back, a tide undecided of direction, but most avoided stepping on her toes. With her shoulders rolled back and a lackadaisical smirk on her lips and ice in her eyes, she is a force that commands terror, that speaks down to people who are lesser and will always be lesser. She is not the mad little girl these kids had seen four years ago, and they know it. If they don't already, they will later. From one girl standing by the lockers stealing wide-eyed glances at her and hissing to her friend, Violet knows that they know "that's Violet Korchak, like, the girl who went kinda crazy and got sent out of Forks four years ago? That one? The girl with the dead brother!"

               And with her ears peeled open, snapped to attention, she catches bits and pieces. Tail ends of conversations filter through as she passes. Piecing together the enigma of Violet Korchak, the crazy girl whose brother died in that parking lot and she was there, watching it all.

              "Holy shit, is that Violet?"

              "Why'd she come back?"

              "I heard she killed her brother."

              "I heard she ran away to California because she thinks there are vampires in Forks."

              "My friend went to school with her—says she stabbed someone. Fucking psycho."

               Even after she got her schedule from the receptionist, who'd very kindly given her directions to her first class of the day, the whispers don't stop. She's got to break them early. Got to make them see that she's come back a different person. She's not crazy, but she will hurt and continue being a menace until they learn.

                And as though some higher power answered her internal endeavour to establish dominion over this crude little microcosm of life, an opportunity to make that first impression presents itself the moment she walks into her first class of the day.

              Physics. It's a class she takes because it doesn't require much effort from her end. She's always been a mathematical person. Calculations and logic come naturally to her.

            —JUST LIKE YOUR FATHER—

             "My cousin went to the last school she got expelled from," a girl with auburn hair and pink hoops says to her friend, loud enough for Violet to hear. "Verity Prep, I think." And as Violet's confident stride doesn't break, the girl holds Violet's cool gaze, gloss-painted lips curling into a snake-like smirk. Until Violet drops into the seat directly behind hers and props her skateboard between her legs and sets her bag on the ground by her chair. As Violet folds her arms on the edge of her desk, the girl cocks her head, ponytail swaying elegantly. "Yeah, he says she's a total fucking psycho. Always getting into trouble for something fucked up like pulling a knife on some poor kid, or punching them hard enough to get them chucked into the ER. My cousin says she always cuts class 'cause she's either smoking with the potheads or skating in the parking lot or something stupid like that. Total basketcase shit."

              "Holly." Alarm blanches her friend's vulpine features. She tugs sharply at the girl's wrist in warning, eyes darting furtively at Violet, whose attention had been directed to the both of them, a predator's smile etched across her lips. "Holly, shut up."

            Yes, Holly, Violet thinks, laying her pens out neatly on her desk. Shut up.

            But either Holly doesn't know how to gauge her inside voice, or she wants to set something treacherous into motion, because she only reclines in her seat, and turns to her friend once more. "I heard she went crazy and burnt down a whole frat house and put those innocent guys in the hospital for no reason. What a freak—like, what kind of fucked up issues does she have that lets her get away with this sort of stuff? No wonder her dad sent her away. Heard he wouldn't let her come home even during the summer breaks."

              Something dark flexes its claws within her. A monster of its own making.

              —YOU'D LET SOMEONE SPEAK ABOUT YOU LIKE THAT? DO NOT LET HER GO—

              I am not insane. I am not crazy. I am the furthest thing from a coward. What would sheltered, small-minded townsfolk like Holly know about insanity? Girls like Holly only ever see the smaller picture. They think they have right to the apex of the hierarchy, and they'll make their ascent by planting little bombs around imminent threats. But girls like Violet Korchak know that to be at the top, you'd have to tear down the whole structure and rebuild a new one in your own name. But that's not what Violet wants to do. She has no time for something as trivial as high school, especially since she's in her penultimate year, and she's got more pressing issues to mind. Teaching Holly to learn her place, however, takes priority at the moment.

               Throughout class, Violet stays put, digging her nails savagely into the old scars under the sleeves of her black sweater, careful to avoid last night's self-administered stitches on the fresh wounds. Eight new tally marks. Forty little lines scored close to her elbow, gathering up by the joint. But all the blood in the sink's been washed away. All her mortal afflictions have been buried under long sleeves and a cocky smirk. To her eminent relief, Ms Evanston doesn't make her introduce herself, and, instead, merely makes a welcoming remark to the other students that Violet is new to the school, and that she should find herself right at home. To her eminent disappointment, Holly makes no further comment on Violet's state of disorder. Nor does she try to meet her eyes. But Violet sits still as a lioness in the prairie, waiting for the right moment. With her head held high and her back straight, she sits and she waits and she stares ahead, straight at the board, but absorbs and hears none of the lesson.

               —YOU ARE ARMED TO THE TEETH, DON'T FORGET THAT, MAKE THEM KNOW IT—

              When the bell rings to signify the end of class, Violet rises from her chair, taking her time in packing away her worksheets and pens. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Holly. Watches as the other girl slings her bag over her shoulder and heads out. Without hesitation, Violet follows her out the door, down the hallway where Holly splits from her friend, and makes a detour into the girl's bathroom.

               Violet tails her, shuts the door behind them, and throws the bolt. Whatever class she had next mattered much less than this.

            Holly stands by the sink, leaning close to the cracked mirror, retouching her lipgloss. She's pretty in such a conventional way and she knows it. The kind of girl who weaponises her cruelties by preying on the fact that people know that about her too. That part, Violet can respect about her, but it's overshadowed by the way Holly doesn't know where to put her mouth and learn what's her business, and what's not. Shame. Dropping her skateboard on the ground, Violet comes to stand by the sink beside Holly's and flicks the faucet on, washing away the ink staining her palm where her hand rested on the paper as she wrote. Insignificant con of being left-handed. When Holly meets Violet's icy gaze in the mirror, she starts slightly at the lung-crushing smirk on Violet's lips, but still makes the futile attempt to put on the air of indifference.

               "Can I help you?" Holly asks, disdain tainting her voice.

                At the same time, they cut off the water gushing from the faucet.

              "You can start by telling me your name."

               "Um," Holly says, nose wrinkling at the odd request. "Holly. Holly Muldani."

             "Holly," Violet cocks her head. "You've got quite a mouth on you."

             "Excuse me?" Blinking in shock, Holly frowns, brows furrowing, evidently freaked out by the strange comment. "What the fuck's that supposed to mean?" Lip curling in disdain, Holly turned to the door, muttering snidely to herself, "Christ, we've actually got a psychopath on our hands here."

              She'd only taken her eyes off Violet for a second, but it was long enough for Violet to lunge.

              In a flash, Violet seized Holly by the shirt and threw her up against the wall. Before Holly could scream, Violet had her fingers wrapped around her throat, digging into her soft flesh in warning, hard enough to hurt, but not enough to leave bruises. Keeping her eyes trained on Holly's eyes, wide and wild with shock, Violet draws one of her switchblades out from under her clothes. So far, nobody's figured out how she's kept knives on her, or how many she had stashed on her person. Then, she presses the tip to a pulse point at the base of Holly's throat, where her heartbeat pounds out an adrenaline-fuelled metronome. One wrong move and Violet might skewer her through the gullet.

             —DO IT—

           "Oh my God, what are you doing?" Holly gasps, lifting her chin, turning her head this way and that, trembling under Violet's unrelenting hold, hands pressed flat against the wall as though by some miracle she could phase through it. Chest heaving, like a frightened animal caught in a trap, Holly squirms and winces, breath hissing out in pants through gritted teeth. "Principal Greene will—"

               "Our principal will hear nothing of this," Violet says, bringing her face close to Holly's. Close enough to make the latter shudder in discomfort. For a brief moment, she thinks about hurting Holly. Really hurting her. There is a knife in her hand and all the power in her blood. She could do it. But her father's threat still lurks in the back of her mind. So she restrains the urge. "Because you will not tell him, or anyone of this. Because your friends may protect you in class and in school, but what happens after, when they're not there? You know what I've done. You know what I'm capable of. You know what my family can do to yours."

             A muffled cry sticks in her throat. Trembling, Holly shuts her eyes, tears dripping down her cheeks.

             "Shh, Holly, shh," Violet says, as though soothing a troubled toddler, tapping the tip of her switchblade to Holly's throat, revelling in the fresh wave of fear rolling through Holly's alarmed expression, in the quaking of her shoulders. When Violet speaks, her voice is low. An effective leader does not need to shout. So Violet does not raise her voice above a menacing muse. She presses the blade deeper into Holly's skin, but not enough to draw blood. "It's okay. Why so quiet all of a sudden? You had a lot to say in class. Now we're alone, you can let it all out. Here's your chance. No? Alright, then. Sucks to be you."

            Holly chokes on a sob.

            Violet's mouth stretches into a shark-like grin, vacant of cheer and flashing with promise of excruciating violence. "I want you to remember something, Holly Muldani." Violet lifts the switchblade and taps the glinting tip against Holly's chin. A frightened sound startles from the back of Holly's throat as she sucks in a sharp breath. Lightly, Violet traces the edge of Holly's dainty jaw with the blade. "If you have something to say about me, you say it to my face, do you understand?"

            More tears roll down Holly's cheek, slipping down her neck and past the collar of her shirt. She nods jerkily—survival instincts clashing with her bruised pride.

             The sound of the bell ringing after the five minute transition period between classes cuts through the jarring silence. Holly jumps, barely stifling her hysterics.

             Violet pulls back, sneering. "I've seen jellyfish with more spine than you." In a practice manoeuvre, the switchblade vanishes under her clothes. As though her legs have been rendered useless, Holly crumples to the ground, quaking, sobs racking her fragile body.

              Then, leaving Holly cowering pathetically against the wall without a glance over her shoulder, Violet picks up her skateboard and exits the bathroom, satisfied with the impression that she's left behind.

* * *

AFTER SCHOOL,Violet leaves a message for Aaron and her father.

                "I'm going to Kit's house. Don't bother picking me up. I'll get home on my own by eight," she says to the answering machine as she's striding out through the double doors, smirking when people wheel out of her way automatically. Nobody's tried to approach her, let alone strike up a conversation with her so far, which is the exact effect she wanted to have. That, and the fact that Holly hadn't tattled on her to anyone.

                But all that's stuffed to the back burner. Right now, all she can think about is that she's got free reign over her lift until curfew. Skating all the way to La Push seems like a better idea than heading back to an empty house with nothing to entertain besides the shark infested waters of her mind. So that's exactly what she does.

               When Violet grinds to a halt at Kit's house and kicks her skateboard up into her hand, the door swings open before she can even raise her hand to knock. But when she sees the person standing before her, cutting a tall, hulking figure of tan skin and sloping muscles and grey sweatpants clinging low to his hips in the doorway, her anticipation dissolves into a deep scowl.

               "Kit's not home," Paul says, a humourless smile on his lips. "She's at soccer practice."

              "Oh," Violet says stiffly, tapping her nails against the wheel of her skateboard. Does he really have to be shirtless every time she sees him? "That's fine. When will she get back?"

              Cocking his head, Paul hums in thought, scratching his right bicep. Frustration rips through her as she finds that she has to force herself to keep her eyes on his face to avoid staring. "Two hours, maybe three, depending on how murderous her coach feels." Paul shrugs. "I have no clue."

              Violet purses her lips. In retrospect, she should've called ahead. A couple days ago, Sage had made it clear Wednesdays were for tending to her weed plantation, which required all her attention and energy. Hence, Violet couldn't make a surprise appearance at her house. She was already on probation for ditching them without an explanation, she didn't want to step on more toes than she could afford. But there were a few coffee joints she could hang around, maybe get some work done before the deadline.

               "You can hang out with me until she gets back, if you want."

                "Huh, what?" Violet blinks, snapping her eyes to his. In the moment that she'd been lost in thought, her gaze had drifted down to the wiry muscle cording his vein-roped forearms. Dammit, stop doing that. You are smart. You will execute world domination someday. You can exercise some self-control for more than three minutes.

               Amusement flashes in Paul's dark eyes. An infuriating smirk tugs at his lips. "I said, I was just watching a movie. Final Destination 2, if you're interested. Feel free to join me until Kit gets home." He pushes the door open and lets her brush by him with her shoulder colliding purposefully with his surprisingly rock-hard chest, lets her into the living room where there's a movie paused on the TV. "Or, y'know, you could just keep staring at me. Either way works."

               "Depends." Despite the flush of red heating her neck, Violet slants Paul an accusatory look when he skirts around her and flops onto the couch. She sets her skateboard down by the end of the too-familiar upholstered couch, draped with a cloth pattered with brown and red tribal markings and stacked unkemptly with blue throw pillows, and settles down on the opposite end. "Are you going to put earthworms in my shoes again?"

                Cradling a pillow to his chest and propping his long legs on the coffee table, which is covered in books and sheets of paper with scribbled-out writing on them, Paul grimaces. He reaches for the remote control and unpauses the movie. "Dude, we were kids. Let it go."

              Violet flings a pillow at him. Irritation prickles at her veins when he catches it just before it pegs him in the face. "I mean, you ruined perfectly good shoes and gave me a new phobia, so excuse me if I'm not exactly being forgiving."

              "Yeah, yeah, fine, I admit. I deserve that." Paul rolls his eyes. (Again, she has to force her eyes to stick to the movie flashing over the TV screen.) (But, really, is it her fault that he's no longer the scrawny little asshole who'd been the object of her aggression four years ago, and is, instead, now built like a Greek god?) "But, also, I'm a changed guy. I don't put earthworms in girls' shoes anymore, alright?"

              Violet snorts. "Why'd you do that, anyway?"

              It's Paul's turn to flush an alarming shade of red from the neck-up. "Seriously, just forget it. It's over."

             What is Paul Lahote hiding?

             Intrigued, Violet raises a brow, pulling her knees to her chest, turning to face Paul. "No, tell me. I'm curious."

              Paul barks out a harsh laugh, tapping her leg with a pillow. "Nope. Not a story for today, babe. We're watching Final Destination 2 and forgetting that I've got Physics homework."

             Glancing at the sheets of paper and books spread out over the coffee table, Violet says, "is that what this mess is?"

               "I hate it so much," Paul laments, groaning, attention solely fixated on the movie. "I just don't understand all the numbers and equations and the different laws and shit. It's so pointless and stupid."

                 It's quiet for awhile. A comfortable kind of quiet permeated by screaming and explosions and something breaking coming from the movie. How odd, the voice is quiet when it should be preying on her most. How odd, that it's in this moment of true peace of mind that she shares with the one boy she'd once considered her sworn nemesis.

                "You know," Violet begins, the cogs in her brain turning. "If you want, I can tutor you. Your school syllabus can't be that much different from mine. Plus, there's no way they'll be teaching you different stuff apart from what's gonna be on the SAT."

           Paul pulls a face meant to convey disgust. "Don't even talk to me about the SAT."

             "Yeah, whatever," Violet says, rolling her eyes. "But this is a one time offer. I don't do this very often, so think very carefully. You want my help or not?"

            Eyes narrowed, Paul pins her with a dubious stare. In it, she sees the million and one reasons flitting through his head that she could possibly be fucking with him just to sabotage his grades. Even in his voice, he sounds hesitant about her offer. "You'd really do that?"

            "Scout's honour."

             Her logic is this: if she tells her father she's scored a tutoring gig with Paul Lahote (someone he's familiar with, at least, so he knows she's not completely lying), she might be able to gain a few more hours past curfew to hang out with Kit and Sage. Of course, the tutoring gig is real, but on days when Paul doesn't need her and she just wants a few more hours of freedom, she could always use it as a cover story. But it has to be said that she's serious about it.

              After a moment's contemplation, Paul relents. "Thanks. but can we start next week? I'm not really in the mood for work." With that said, he turns off the TV, the movie unfinished, but his attention already fixated on something else. "Wanna take a walk with me? Kit's gonna be gone for some time. Might as well do something fun. No earthworms, I promise."

             Violet pins him with an incredulous look. "What've you got in mind?"

             A grin blossoms on Paul's lips. "Have you gone down to the beach yet?"

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
ahhh yes we're getting more chapters with paul and violet soon.