“I’m aware.” Violet finally raises her eyes to look at me, and I could strangle her for how calm she’s acting.
She’s aware. She’s aware? “Do you understand what I’m saying? When I speak, is it English that’s coming out?”
Violet pulls her hand out of the blanket, tucks her fire-red hair behind her ear, then shrugs. “They’ve already hurt me and they’ve already hurt you. If we don’t stop them, they will continue to hurt us and they’ll move on to the people we love. We have the power to end this once and for all. Don’t you want to secure peace?”
Peace. I don’t even know what that is anymore. I run a hand over my face when I honestly feel like clawing my skin off. “What don’t you understand? I can’t let you do this. I won’t!”
A tick of her head. The first show of emotion and it’s her building temper. “Can’t, let and won’t. Three words not to use with me. I’m not asking your permission. I’m informing you of the decisions I’ve made. You don’t see me telling you that you can’t be part of the club or I’m going to let you be part of the club or that I won’t stand for you to be part of the club. You’re a big boy, Chevy. You can make your own big-boy decisions and I’m a big girl and you need to learn to accept my big-girl decisions. You want a dog to order around and be obedient, I bet you can adopt one at the pound.”
“Why does it always come back to the club?”
“Because that’s how they treat me, and whether you realize it or not, you do a modified version of trying to control me, too. To be honest, you want to be with me and be with the club? I could live with that, as long as you learn that I am not your property, I am not a dog, that I am your equal and I deserve the love and respect that comes with that because that’s what a real man does when he loves a woman.”
Violet shuts her eyes like she’s just poured out her soul and didn’t mean for it to happen and I’m having a hard time catching my breath. The fragile foundation of understanding I had crumbles and I take a step toward Violet onto solid ground. An equal. That’s all she wants and it feels sickening and strange that I never understood it until now. I thought loving her made us equal, but love doesn’t necessarily mean that I listened to her. I listened...to what I thought was best for her...to what was best for me.
But to wear a wire... My throat closes and an ache ripples through my chest. She ran for the gun, and when that shot reverberated around the room, my knees gave and the pain that consumed me nearly crushed me to the point of death.
“I love you,” I say. “And I don’t want to live without you.”
Violet pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “And I love you and I don’t want to live without you. Even if we can’t work things out between us, I will still love you and I still don’t want to live without you. If you go down roads I can’t travel, then I need to know you’re safe. I need to know Eli is safe, and Cyrus and Pigpen and Oz and Razor and my mom and my brother, and I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.
“I have the opportunity to end it all. The war between the Riot and the Terror finally over. Years of pain and hurt and blood will end. What Cyrus’s and Eli’s generations could never do, I can. I won’t lie, I’m terrified, but I will not let fear stop me. I will be the one to do what no one else has been able to do. I will bring peace.”
The fire illuminates her face and there’s an edge to her beauty I’ve never seen before. Violet’s never been a shrinking flower. She’s always been a ferocious storm, but her bursts of anger were like short downdrafts that could do damage but then quickly recede. She had the temper of a child, but now she shines with a light that only comes with maturity, with growing up, and before me is a gorgeous warrior holding her head high as she readies for battle.
“Then we do this, but I’m involved. We make up a story telling them I came to you upset with the Terror over my father and that you told me the plan to put Eli away. Yeah, you’ll have to meet with them again to make the switch from you being the lead to me, but you don’t have to wear a wire for that. We tell them I want to be the one to give them the account numbers because I want revenge. I’ll wear the wire.” I’ll take the risk of death. “The Riot have been playing me, too, with my dad being a traitor. Maybe they’ll be convinced I’m flipping on Eli.”
“Even you have to admit how ridiculous that sounds,” she says. “Cyrus and Eli are your family. You would never flip on them. The Riot know this and that’s why they picked me and not you.”
“I’m breaking a promise to the Terror right now.”
“True,” she says slowly. “But I’m not asking you to betray them.”
“Eli and Cyrus will see my not telling them about you and the Riot as a betrayal.”
“But it’s not. We’re trying to save them. If you honestly didn’t believe I was doing all this to save the people you love, regardless of your feelings for me, you would have already been down the road telling Eli. But you aren’t and you didn’t tell Eli last night about the Riot because deep down you know me and you trust me. You know I would never purposely hurt the people I love.”
“Yet the Riot chose you and they were wrong. I can convince them they were wrong about me.”
Violet looks away and that one cast of her gaze feels like being hit by a car at breakneck speed. She knows something I don’t. “Tell me.”
“You failed their test.”
“What test?”
“They told you your father was a traitor. You told the board, and you believed what they said enough to not go looking for answers on your own.”
“I don’t believe what the board said.”
She bobs her head in agreement. “I know, but deep down you trust the club enough not to have asked for the woman’s name who could in theory tell you the truth and you have yet to reach out to them for that information.”
I slam my hand to my chest. “You don’t think it’s a problem for me if my father was a traitor? You don’t think it’s eating me alive?”
“I know it is, but the point is you aren’t searching for answers. Your loyalty is still with the club. That’s how you failed with the Riot. They won’t believe anything you say otherwise.”
“Don’t you get it? The reason I haven’t asked is because I haven’t wanted to know the answers. I’m James’s legacy! Who I am with the club—it’s all built upon who he was, and if he was a traitor, what does that make me?”
Violet’s head slowly tilts to the side as she assesses me. “Chevy...” She closes her mouth, opens it again, and a small sound comes from her throat. “Chevy, if the Riot told me my father was a traitor, I’d be devastated. But...” She scratches the back of her head as if she’s struggling to get her thoughts out. “I’m not my dad and neither are you. I’ll be the first to admit that Eli and Cyrus can be dense, but they aren’t going to change how they feel about you if they find out James made mistakes.”
My head falls forward because that’s exactly what I think. “Mom told me things about Dad. She said he knew she was pregnant, but he didn’t want the club to know. She said he told her he was done with the club, that he wanted something different out of life. He was going to take responsibility for me and Mom, but without club involvement.”
“Wanting a different life doesn’t mean he was a traitor.”
“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t, but I’ll tell you what it does mean. If my father did want a different path and it wasn’t the Riot, then what the hell happened? James left town, he went to Louisville, and Eli and Cyrus won’t admit it, but they broke ties with each other. Family means everything to them. If James wanted something different from the club—did the Terror shut him out? I turn eighteen next week and thanks to the wild-card slot there’s still a shot that my team can make it to the play-offs and state. Becoming a prospect will be the final nail in my coffin for playing. If I choose to play football over
becoming a prospect, are they going to shut me out? Am I going to lose my family because I’m not exactly like them? Because you’ve said it yourself—they don’t forgive betrayal and will they see my choices as unforgivable?”
She blinks several times and the dawning of understanding on her face guts me open.
“You would prefer to think your father was a traitor and that Cyrus knew and has been lying to you over it rather than to find out that Cyrus cut your father off because he chose not to be part of the club, wouldn’t you?”
My eyes burn and I pivot away from Violet into the dark night, but only a few steps into the woods and I turn back. I can’t walk away from her anymore. I can’t keep running from the truth. I blink away the blurry vision. “Yes.”
Violet places her hand over her heart, then sheds the blanket as she stands. “They love you. I promise, they love you.”
“And they loved James, yet I’m standing here wondering why the hell things fell apart.”
Violet stumbles toward me, and when she falls into my chest, it’s not me catching her, it’s her holding me up. I fold her into me and hang on.
She comforts me. Her hands in my hair, fingertips up and down my back, kisses along my shoulder, along my neck, and whispers of love, as if she comprehends the only thing keeping me sane is her touch.
“I’ve refused choosing because I don’t want to lose anyone I love,” I whisper into her hair. “I don’t want to lose them, I don’t want to lose Mom and I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t.” Violet squeezes me tight. “You have me. We’ll figure it out. I promise you we’ll figure it out.”
Violet in my arms is right. Violet holding me is peace. I love her, she loves me, and for the first time, she’s fighting for me...for us. The urge is to keep her close, ignore the rest of the world and stay here forever.
But we can’t. We have to move forward. We have to face the Riot, the Terror and our unsteady future. Violet’s always found a way to plow forward and it’s time for me to learn, like her, how to forge my own path.
“I don’t want you to do the wire,” I whisper into her hair.
“I know,” she says. “But this is how it has to be.”
I’m learning from her and I pray she’s also learned from me. “But not alone. Promise me you’ll keep me in this. Promise me you won’t face any of this alone.”
Violet pulls back and I take her face in my hand, brushing my thumb against her rose-petal skin. The sad softness in her blue eyes almost undoes me completely. “Promise me.”
“I promise I won’t do this alone.”
The pulse thrumming through my veins is full of fear. I lost her once to her grief, came close to losing her again due to the Riot, lost her again last night because of my issues and now I feel like my chances are up. She’s about to walk into the flames of hell. I’ve never felt so helpless.
Either we’ll both walk out of hell still alive or we’re both going down in flames. Either way, we’re doing it together.
“What can I do to help you?” she asks.
There’s nothing she can do. “I want the truth about James and Cyrus and there’s no way to get it.”
Her throat moves as she glances up at me. “Maybe there is a way. You said the Riot mentioned there was a woman...”
I pull Violet back into me, shaken that I had forgotten about the name the detective gave me. There might be a way and I’ll need Violet’s help to see it through. With the gentle way she leans into me, I know when I ask, she’ll say yes.
Violet
THE WAITRESSING STAFF at the only diner in Snowflake doesn’t bother giving Eli a menu or asking for his order. It’s the same, day in and day out: scrambled eggs and bacon. They only ask if he wants coffee or orange juice because they know him so well. Today he wants coffee. I order the blueberry pancakes with two side orders of bacon because odds are I’m going to die when I meet up with the Riot, so I might as well revel in the goodness of bacon and clog up some arteries.
I tap my fingers against the sticky table and stare out the window with my head propped in my hand. Last night, I promised Chevy I wouldn’t handle the Riot on my own and I have every intention of keeping that promise. Detective Barlow is on my side and I’ll let Chevy in on every meeting I have with him, but when push comes to shove, I’m the only one who can meet with the Riot, the only one who can wear a wire.
The only one...
Nausea swirls around in my stomach. Maybe I should have ordered oatmeal again. No, I’m having pancakes because my days may be numbered. I agree with Chevy: if the Riot discover the wire, they will kill me, but at least then the police will have a legit murder charge they can convict them on. I’m bringing down the Riot even if it means doing so with my life.
What no man in the Reign of Terror has had the balls to do, I will. Sometimes it takes a woman to do a job men can’t accomplish.
“Razor gets to see Breanna today. We worked it out with her family.”
I draw my head in Eli’s direction in such a slow way that the world tunnels out before focusing again. “What?”
“Razor gets to see Breanna today. He doesn’t know, so I’d appreciate it if you kept this a secret.” Eli sits across from me in the booth and like always he wears his black leather Reign of Terror vest over a black T-shirt. His jacket hangs on the edge of the booth.
Both of us fit in this ragtag town and diner. Orange plastic seating with tears in the cushions and a menu on the wall that still requires little black magnetic letters to complete. Half the prices are missing numbers. I understand not being complete and so does Eli.
I blink several times as I finally understand his words. Giddiness for my best friend races through me. Then I sit back in awe. The club actually pulled this off for him. “Her family is cool with the club now?”
“I’d say they’re more interested in still having control over their daughter’s life and we’re offering to watch the relationship for them if they agree to let Razor and Breanna see each other again.”
“That sucks.”
Eli flicks a wadded-up paper from a straw across the table. “Is what it is, but at least he gets to see her. What’re your plans for today?”
Speaking of things that need to be done, Chevy and I need to go to Louisville today and we need to make sure the journey is Terror-free. “Chevy said something about hanging at his place and catching up on homework.”
“That’s it?” he fishes.
“Being bored sounds good to me.” Actually, being bored sounds amazing, but I promised Chevy I’d go with him to try to find out the truth about James. Makes me a little nervous to head into Louisville, since that’s the Riot’s territory, but he and I need to do this...especially before I wear a wire.
Ugh, now I have nausea with flashes of heat.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah.” Nope. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You look pale, plus you’re quiet.”
“Pretty sure I’ve been talking, because when I talk, you talk back.”
“I don’t mean like the hospital quiet and also not a pissed-off quiet. You’re acting like...”
He has my full attention now, and I wait patiently for him to continue, but instead he thanks the waitress for the cup of coffee she hands him and goes to work mixing in cream.
“I’m acting like what?” I prompt.
“You look like you did the first few weeks after your dad died.”
The bottomless pit that formed in my stomach after Dad died opens a little wider. “Oh.”
Eli glances up from his coffee and hits me square in the eye with that patented dark McKinley gaze. “What’s wrong?”
So much, Eli. So much. It would be easier to recount the things going right.
“I promise I’m listenin
g this time,” he says. “I’ve thought about it, and I think some of what you said about me, you might have been right.”
Stunned. This odd, disorienting, foggy feeling is stunned. “Might have been right?”
He smirks. “Don’t press your luck, kid.”
The right side of my mouth edges up, and Eli tips his coffee cup in my direction before drinking. “That right there. That’s what I’ve been dying to see for over a year. Talk to me, Vi. Talk to me like you used to. Talk to me like you used to with your dad.”
“But you’re not my dad.” I breathe through the wave of pain.
“I know, but you’ve got to open up to somebody, why not me?” Eli sets the mug on the table and rubs his thumb up and down the handle. “You’ve become friends with Emily, right?”
I nod. Emily is his daughter and Skull’s granddaughter. She’s also one of the reasons why the Riot hate Eli and the Terror so much. To protect Emily, her mother took her away from Kentucky when she was a toddler. The Riot blame Eli for their daughter and granddaughter leaving, but they fail to understand that Emily’s mother left Eli, too.
Now that Emily is older, she and Eli are making a try at their relationship again.
“I love Emily. I always have. From the moment Emily’s mom told me she was pregnant, I loved Emily. I remember how Emily used to hold her pink elephant in a stranglehold when she was scared by the loud sound of a motorcycle engine and I loved how she would hold on to me after waking from a nap and her skin was hot and sticky from sweat, but she didn’t care. She’d hold on to me as tight as she could until she realized she was awake and not dreaming.”
I smile slightly, wondering if my father had memories like that of me.
Eli frowns then and all the happiness in the room seems to be sucked out with the motion. “But I can’t tell you who she had her first crush on in school. I can’t tell you the first time she went on stage and why. I don’t know what makes her cry and half the time I’m still trying to figure out what makes her laugh. Emily and I, we’re figuring each other out and I’m grateful for the opportunity, but I don’t know Emily and she doesn’t know me, but I do know you.”