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)
She was bleeding from her head, rivulets of red trickling down her neck, and from rips all over her hoodie and jeans.
Her hair was tangled with leaves and debris from when she hit the ground and her lips were blue.
But what made me crouch and touch her face were the two dried streaks of tears running down her freckled cheeks.
She was crying.
Violet cried before whatever the fuck happened.
At first, I thought she’d finally given in to her demons and committed suicide. It got to be too much with all her depressive thoughts, her inferiority complex, and her inability to rise above everything her bitch mother said to cut her self-esteem to pieces.
Worse, as I was holding her frail body in my arms while one of my guards was speeding to the hospital, I thought she’d thrown herself off the bridge to escape me.
And that…cut me fucking open.
It made me tighten my grip on her arms, holding her closer and breathing her in, and telling myself she wouldn’t do that.
Violet’s suicide method would be taking pills.
She hates anything gory, and even in death, she wouldn’t want to hurt others by having to see her blood or disfigured body.
But there was still a chance, right?
I hid my face with my hoodie as I dropped her off at the closest hospital, which happened to be the shithole in Stantonville, then disappeared before anyone could start asking questions.
After that, I made calls to the Callahan empire’s higher-ups and arranged for Violet to be taken to Graystone General Hospital’s trauma center since it’s better funded and has superior services to Stantonville.
But no genius medical crew or advanced equipment managed to fix her completely.
Her bruises are mild, but the head trauma sent her straight into a coma that the doctors aren’t sure she’ll be able to recover from.
And now I’m standing in the hospital room, staring at her.
I’ve never liked hospitals.
Despite the fact that my family owns them and profits from people’s lives and deaths, these establishments have always been a manifestation of Mom’s pain.
Her tears. Her screams. Her begging to ‘bring her baby’ back.
Within these white walls, my mother battled with miscarriages, depression, cancer.
Everything.
So being within their walls, inhaling the smell of antiseptic and clinical coldness that sticks to my skin and clogs my throat makes me tense.
On edge.
Every muscle in my body is wound up as if I’m about to fight.
The machines beep in slow, mechanical intervals, a hollow, unnatural rhythm that doesn’t belong to Violet. Just like it didn’t belong to Mom.
But my mother is gone, and Violet is here.
And she will always be right here.
She looks small in the hospital bed. Too still.
Too fucking quiet.
Violet is never still. Always moving and forcing smiles and being a busybody. Even in slumber, she shifts, curls in on herself, and exhales little breaths that catch on the edge of her nightmares. She thrashes and cries and even mumbles in her sleep.
But now, there’s nothing.
Her hair spills across the pillow, strands of copper and gold catching the light’s soft glow slipping through the hospital window. Normally, her hair is a bit messy, tangled from restless movement, from fingers raking through it absently. Now, it’s too smooth, too perfect, too untouched.
But what unsettles me the most is the absence of…her stare.
I reach out and pull her eyelid up, but distorted white greets me, her pupils unfocused, not really there.
There’s no blue.
There’s no hint of the quiet storm she directs at me when she’s pissed or the icy stares she gives when she’s guarded, or the deep ocean that’s there at night when she’s thinking too much.
I release her lid and her long lashes rest against her cheek.
I’ve watched her sleep more times than I’ll ever admit.
Back at the bar, when she’d finish a long shift and she’d sit in the back, massaging her shoulders with her fists, before her body would slump from exhaustion and her head would droop to the side. In that tiny living room, shaking, mumbling, her fingers twitching from nightmares she never spoke about.
But she’s not sleeping right now.
She’s not even here.
And I fucking hate it.
I hate how wrong it feels to see her lifeless, quiet, tethered.
I hate that I can’t reach into her head and rip her out of whatever abyss she’s stuck in.
But maybe she’s there on purpose, to avoid being trapped in those paralyzing nightmares.
At least now, the demons in her head aren’t eating her alive.
I step closer, my fingers itching to push her hair back, to prove to myself that she’s still warm, still real, still Violet.
But I don’t.
I just stand there, watching her, staring into something that’s starting to swallow me whole.
Starting? Is that really the correct word to describe these feelings I’ve had since Violet disappeared without my permission?
My fist clenches. “I told you that your life is mine. How fucking dare you be in a coma?”