This is it.
The clock on the bedside table read a little after nine. When the hands reached half-past, my father and Lily would leave, escorted by Eaglen.
There is no going back.
It could be months before I saw Lily again. I hadn’t even seen my mother.
Tonight is the night.
I slipped my feet from beneath the sheets, cursing how cold the floor was as I pulled one of the sheets with me, to cover my nakedness. When it occurred to me that no would see, I dropped it, letting it pool at my feet as I picked my way through the sprawled clothes that lay on the floor.
So much for not being able to forget.
The mirrors in my wardrobe reflected every inch of my form: haggard, drawn, the cold making me rosy-cheeked – not for much longer. The skin was taut over my bottom rib – it never used to be. My hips jutted out more than I liked and my knees looked scrawny. I was thin: too thin for a body that had once been rounded and curvy. My skin was torn and bruised from weeks of torment and caress under Kaspar’s hand. My eyes were wide, always wide; always fearing what would come next.
‘Is this what you want, Violet?’ I whispered to my reflection, reaching out and touching my glass shoulder. ‘Truly?’
My reflection did not answer, but stared back, lips only parting as mine did to sigh.
Truthfully, want was never a luxury you were permitted to have, my voice said, so clear in my mind that it could have come from a real person beside me.
‘I know,’ I replied, turning away and pulling a clean shirt down from the railing. When I had dressed, I attempted to pull a brush through my damp, tangled hair, but it only left it frizzier, so I gave up.
The entrance hall was still quiet when I reached the bottom of the stairs. The butlers stirred from their stone-like stature when I passed, bowing. A maid replaced the black roses in the vases with fresh white lilies, pressing the petals of the withering flowers between the pages of a heavy book she had placed upon the table.
Nothing was out of the ordinary. Nothing had changed. Nothing would change, but me.
In the kitchen, Cain greeted me with a grin, laughing and joking from behind a tumbler of flowing red liquid, which swirled from side to side, staining the glass pink. His eyes twinkled as he asked after my sister; dulled when I replied that she was leaving shortly.
The apple I picked from the bowl was as red as the blood he drank. I sank my teeth into it, wondering if this was how it felt to sink fangs into flesh – but no, skin would be softer. I swallowed a chunk of the apple, moist and sweet, forgetting to chew most of it.
The digital clock on the wall read 9.26 a.m. I contemplated returning to the entrance hall. I should say goodbye. But how do I say goodbye when I only greeted them a day ago?
Lyla’s beaming face appeared in the doorway, chased by a cheering Fabian, who chuckled and grabbed her as they pulled closer and locked lips. I saw them only as figures against a bleary background. Felix and Charlie followed, not far behind, and bowed. It slowly percolated my skull that they lowered themselves for me. Declan, late; spread a newspaper across the counter, his fingers tracing the edge of each page, headlines and pictures and columns merging into one black-and-white whirl. I found myself walking away, reminded of my first morning at Varnley.
‘But you choose to kill people instead.’
The metallic smell filled the corridor, seeming to stick to the carpets of the living room like smoke. It filled my throat, drained my saliva and left me propped against the back of the sofa, clutching my throat and gagging.
A few hours and I will lust for the stuff.
When my breathing eventually slowed, I moved off in a daze, not convinced I was even awake. My hand rested on the door out of the living room and I froze, wanting to stay, to just let them go; forget goodbye, because goodbye was too hard and I knew that tonight, I would betray them, particularly my father, in the ultimate way.
But it wasn’t goodbye for good. It was goodbye to the Violet they knew, who ate and drank and got ill; the Violet who would die before she had seen a century pass; the Violet who they had loved and cared and fed and taught for the past eighteen years. That’s all.
I took a deep breath and twisted my wrist to turn the handle, allowing the door to swing inwards. I stepped through, seeing Eaglen first, then my father and the other two men from the government, arms grasped by the guards. Lily stood close by. She saw me first; her face a picture of sadness and disappointment, only outshone by my father’s face as he looked away and refused to meet my gaze.
‘Dad?’ I breathed. I felt tears prick the underside of my eyelids every time I blinked. He did not react. But Lily did. She broke away from the group, dodging one of the guards that moved forward to stop her.
‘I want to speak to you before we go,’ she said once she reached me. ‘In private,’ she added, glancing over her shoulder at Eaglen.
I nodded at him and the guards. ‘We’ll be two minutes.’
She led the way outside, ducking into the alcove I had sheltered under just the night before. With a slight blush, I realized my soaking shirt was still draped across the banisters, where Kaspar had left it the night before. I picked it up, squeezed out the water and laid it out flat in a patch of sun to dry.
‘That’s your shirt?’ Lily asked. I nodded. ‘How did it get there?’
I stared at the ground, refusing to say it in words.
‘I didn’t think you’d ever fall into bed with a murderer, but now I can see I was wrong.’
‘I guess this is goodbye then,’ I muttered to fill the silence.
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you for longer.’
‘Me too.’
‘But it’s not safe for you to come to Athenea. You and mum will be safe at home. You understand that, right?’
‘Yeah.’
Again we fell into silence. I wanted to stare at my feet, scuffing against the stone, but instead I watched my little sister, burning her image onto my memory, like I had the cold the night before. I wanted to remember the healthy glow in her cheeks that hadn’t been there for more than a year and the twinkle of her violet eyes and the way she didn’t seem so short anymore.
‘Violet?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Do you remember when you were doing your exams and you told me that you would read me some Shakespeare once you had finished studying?’
My lips twitched. I had promised her that whilst she was having one of her chemo sessions the previous May. ‘You mean that time I really annoyed you by talking in Shakespearean language the whole day?’