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But I wasn’t broken.
I refused to let Connor break me, no matter how long he left me in this musty room, even if I stayed there so long I began to rot. My brain had already started--my body would be next--if it hadn’t started yet.
I wondered what death would actually be like. Would I see the bright light and all of the people I loved, or would my sins make the flames slowly crawl along my skin until the fires of hell consumed me? I was pretty sure it was the latter that I deserved.
It was hard to remember the proud, naive, spoiled little girl that used to call herself Violet Cabot. I didn’t deserve that name anymore. My fall from grace was by design, and I could very well die before I knew who was responsible. Devlin? The boy I loved, the man I gave myself to--the devil himself. Or was it Connor? My sister’s psychopathic husband who simply took what he was denied. Was he the real devil?
My thoughts were unable to process everything. I was getting so weak and weary that abstract chaos was the only thing left in my head. I began to see shapes and images in the darkness of my blindfold. Everything that had happened from the moment my father was arrested until Connor’s fist crashed into my skull played like a movie in front of me. Nothing made sense. All of the shapes and images faded together until I was staring at something else--a funeral.
“D-daddy?” I don’t know if I actually said the words, or if it was just an audible hallucination, but I just knew he was gone.
Suddenly, I was no longer bound by the ropes. I was standing in the room--family and friends were all around me.
“Help!” I ran to Rhys, my brother, and grabbed his arm.
“Violet!” He turned to me and smiled. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“It’s…” I looked towards the casket. “I have to be here. I loved…”
“Yourself?” Rhys laughed. “Of course you would show up to your own funeral.”
“What?” I took a step back, and every face in the room was staring at me--they started laughing--loud, maniacal laughter like they were savages savoring my demise.
I pushed my way through the laughing crowd. There were two people standing in front of the casket. My father--and Devlin. I ran to them and saw tears in their eyes. They were the only ones that weren’t laughing. The horrific echo behind me sounded like madness, but they looked to be in actual mourning.
“I really did love her, you know.” Devlin looked at my father.
“I know.” My father nodded. “We all did.”
“She was such a good fuck.” Devlin’s lips spread into a cartoonish grin and my father’s did the same--then they started laughing like all of the others.
I grabbed my ears to try and silence the madness. The people in the room walked closer--like they were trying to cocoon me in their devastation. I looked up into the eyes of my father, but I didn’t see the kind stare of Hugo Cabot. I saw bright red coals where his eyes should have been. His face began to decay. I screamed, jerked, thrashed, and then the images began to fade.
I thrashed and screamed until all I saw was darkness. I was never at my funeral. I was still in the musty room where I had been since I first woke up in Connor’s version of hell. It was just a hallucination, or a nightmare--I wasn’t even sure which one it was.
A noise snapped me back as close to reality as I could get. The door was opening. Light appeared at the edge of my blindfold and then heavy footsteps echoed in my ears. I knew it was Connor. Nobody else had any idea I was there. He was the one who decided if I lived or died--my path to freedom was clear, but I had already chosen eternal damnation. My mind had obviously accepted that. It gave me a glimpse that would soon be all too real.
“I have a present for you, dear Violet.” Connor touched my lips and I felt him smearing something on them. “Have a taste…”
I hesitated, but I was so hungry--so thirsty--I forced my dry tongue across my cracked lips and tasted something that was both sweet and metallic. Even in my current state, I was able to ascertain that it was blood.
“What the hell?” I sputtered to try and force it out of my mouth, but I didn’t have enough saliva. It lingered on my tongue.
“That’s Devlin’s blood, dear Violet. Since you refuse to sign your name on my contract, I thought you would like to be closer to the man who still owns you.” A laugh echoed, almost as sinister as the ones from my nightmare.
“Did you…” I struggled with my words. “Kill him?”
