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The extra security wasn’t just to keep her dad from ransacking their rooms. If any of his druggie friends stayed over, she needed her siblings to feel safe, too. Daisy and she shared a room, and the Jack and Jill bathroom led into Casey’s. It had worked out well, especially on nights when her brother had been scared and crawled into bed with her anyway.
Three years ago, though, everything had changed. One night, her brother must have forgotten to lock his door, because she’d woken up to him crying. Daisy had been staying the night at a friend’s house, and Dad hadn’t been around when they’d gone to bed. She could still remember the panic that had gripped her when she’d heard the crashes and thumps coming from Casey’s room. When she’d burst into the room to find her father throwing things around and screaming about money as he loomed over Casey, fear had been replaced by white-hot rage.
“I know you have some, you little shit.”
One look at her brother’s terrified face had sent Violet running to her room to get her gun from the safe. Her hands had been shaking so badly, she’d only managed to get one bullet in the chamber before Casey screamed again. When she got back to the room, her father was on top of Casey with his hands around his throat. She’d raised the gun and unclicked the safety.
With a voice far steadier than the rest of her, she’d said, “Get off him before I blow your fucking head off.”
It was as if he hadn’t heard her. Her breathing grew labor
ed as tears pricked her eyes. This was her father. She was aiming a gun at her father’s head.
Casey released a choked cry, and Violet shut off every doubt and worry, adjusting the end of the barrel for her warning shot. Before she could stress over what would happen after she fired her one bullet, she pulled the trigger, the bullet whizzing just over her father’s head and imbedding in the wall, plaster exploding over Casey and her dad. She couldn’t think about the fact that the wild-eyed man who turned toward her was still her dad, that despite this moment and all of the other bad ones before it, there had to have been some good ones, too.
All she could think about was Casey. Getting him away from Dad, no matter what.
Her dad scrambled off him, falling to the other side of the bed. When he stood up and wiped at a cut on his cheek, she held her ground.
“Next time it won’t be a warning. You get out of this house and you don’t come back, or I’ll file assault charges.”
Her dad had shaken off the pieces of drywall that coated his head and sputtered, “You’re bluffing.”
Violet could still feel the sweat sliding down her spine and the pinch of sorrow in her heart as her eyes had blurred. She’d told herself she’d cry later, but in that moment, she’d had to be strong. Firm.
She’d had to protect Casey.
“Try me.”
Violet still couldn’t believe it had worked. Maybe he’d been too high to notice the slight quiver at the end of me. All she knew was that in the three years since, he’d never tried to come home or contact them. Part of her wondered if he was dead, and sometimes she hated herself for missing him. She didn’t miss the junkie who had made their lives miserable, but she did miss her dad, who he was in those rare moments when he wasn’t consumed by the need for one more fix.
After he left, it took a while, but things finally started to come together. Violet filed for guardianship over her siblings and had to prove that with her father’s addiction, she had been solely providing for them for years anyway. It had been a stressful time in their lives, but their judge had been sympathetic, and although a social worker was supposed to keep tabs on them, they hadn’t seen one in years. But that was fine, because things continued to get better. Above all, they were happy and safe for the first time in too long.
Well, they had been happy, but with Casey’s moodiness and acting out the past year, she wasn’t sure anymore.
“Hey, you okay? You kind of went away for a minute there,” Dean said.
Violet shook herself out of the past and back to the present. “Sorry, I was just thinking about my own sister. She can be a pain, I’ll admit it, but we ultimately have each other’s back.” Mortified that he might have taken her observation the wrong way, she quickly tried to apologize. “I didn’t mean to imply that you guys didn’t have a good relationship, I’m sorry—”
Dean held up his hand, and she stopped rambling. “I didn’t take it that way, and besides, it all worked out. Natalie got grounded for keeping the secret, and Dotty and her boyfriend had a simple wedding a month later before she blew up like an oil tanker.”
“Oh, my God, you’re horrible! I hope you didn’t say that to her face,” Violet cried.
“No, but I would have been within my rights. She called me Gonzo until high school because my nose was so big.”
Violet studied him. “I don’t think your nose is big. It’s a nice nose.”
“Thanks, but until my junior year I was pretty much a twig with a small head. I barely reached five feet five inches and was the kid who got his ass handed to him almost every day by guys who were bigger and meaner. Then, I grew six inches over the next year and started hitting the weight room every morning. By the time I enlisted, I wasn’t the favorite victim anymore by a long shot.”
“I definitely wouldn’t try to shove you in a locker now.” Violet grimaced at the lame joke, an attempt to fill in the conversation when all she really wanted to do was ask him more about his family. His life.
But that went against everything that he’d said all night. That this was casual, nothing serious. You didn’t ask people you weren’t interested in getting serious with about their childhood.
Yet several times tonight she’d bitten her tongue, tempted to do just that. First on the drive to his place and now. He was such an interesting enigma, but she didn’t have the right to uncover all his secrets.
Especially since there was no way she’d be baring any of hers.
“Considering I haven’t gone near a locker in almost twelve years, I think we’re both safe.”
