Chapter Text
It had been a few days since that night with Marion.
The others were biding their time, trying to fully go out into society once more, and for the first time.
Some were recuperating more well than others.
Trager and Walker were growing hair, and looked healthier, putting on more weight.
Walker looked better with hair on his head, now growing out with blonde hair, grey speckled in it. Probably from the stress.
Violet couldn’t help but look at him, thinking back to his picture. He looked normal, an upstanding citizen. She couldn’t help but think about all the years he missed out on, her growing up without him. And now he was here, but she couldn’t bring herself to even tell him.
It was his reaction, mostly.
Would he be angry? Confused? Or outright deny it?
Besides that, the others were recuperating well. She had to teach the twins how to write, having them practice sentences and certain phrases, and even cursive from her own schoolbooks. Trager, meanwhile, was intent on exposing the truth. He read up all he could on any potential leads to Murkoff, and news reports, leaks, outlets, blogs–anything he could get his hands on in order to expose the truth about Murkoff.
Almost obsessed.
Violet had to snatch her laptop away at some point so she could use it, and told him he needed to pick up on a different hobby…at least.
She didn’t blame him, but she wanted to forget her experience from that place, not remember it.
She finally showed them the camcorder footage, and some of the incriminating evidence against the company. Her mother disapproved, but she couldn’t do much about it, now that the time had passed, and it was late September now.
She just had to get through the school day, that was it.
It was already the last period, and she was finishing up work before she felt something hit her head. There were a few snickers, a balled up piece of paper fell in front of her.
She brushed it off onto the floor, continuing to do her work. Another ball of paper was directed at her head, a few more snickers amongst the students in the back.
She continued to do her work, scribbling in the last of the answers.
“Violet…”
“Oh no,” she thought, closing her eyes.
She turned her paper in at the front desk, the teacher only glancing up for a moment, and then back to her paper grading. She grabbed her sketchbook out of her backpack, starting to draw.
“...Violet…” The voice drawled, almost in a sing-song tone.
She ignored it, drawing in her sketchbook.
“Look…outside…”
She momentarily stopped her pencil, glancing up to the window beside her left.
Her breath hitched, and she stared back at a figure, cloaked in shadow and a hood, pushing a grocery cart in front of the parking lot outside.
He stopped pushing the cart, lifting his shrouded head to look up, and stared straight back at her.
She couldn’t have held eye contact for more than a few seconds, going back to drawing in her sketchbook.
She scribbled quickly, glancing up at the clock for the time to pass.
2:55 p.m.
She scribbled, trying to get an exact replica of the figure outside.
2:57 p.m.
She looked back at the parking lot, seeing the figure gone now.
She set her face straight, looking down at her drawing.
An almost exact replica, pushing the shopping cart and everything.
The bell rang, giving her a dismissal from class. Walking through the halls, past other kids and people, looking down at their heads as they passed by.
Being tall has its perks. But it also made you a target.
She walked off the school grounds, looking over her shoulder as she walked down the sidewalk, towards her house a few blocks down. Past a wooded area and to the dirt driveway. She had to tell Marion what she saw, what she knew, to see if he could figure it out.
“Hey fatass!” She was roughly shoved from the back.
She turned to see who it was, a group of teenage girls her age.
“What do you want?” Violet said, an edge to her voice.
“Didn’t you read my little notes I sent you in class? They were so sweet,” the main girl of the group said, teasing her. “I bet your daddy would’ve loved to read them.”
Violet backed away, rolling her eyes as she turned to continue walking.
“Hey, fatass, I’m talking to you!”
Her hair was pulled from the back, moving back and slipping on the ground.
The other girls laughed, taunting her, as they circled around her.
She looked up at the main girl.
“Your mom’s not around to save you now; off school property.”
One of them kicked her in the stomach, losing her breath as she held her stomach. Another kicked her in the face, hearing her nose crunch from the blow. She screwed her eyes shut, feeling her head pound, smelling blood as it leaked out of her nose and onto the pavement. Hands on her knees, she just breathed, looking down as the blood hit the ground.
“Look at her, I think she’s about to cry.”
Violet looked up at them, her eye twitched as she heard the voices once more.
“Kill them.”
“No…not here.”
She shut her eyes, making the voices stop.
She got up, quickly grabbing the main girl by her hair as she shrieked. In one fell swoop, she punched her in the face.
She recoiled back, holding her now bleeding nose.
“Oh my god, you broke my nose!”
Violet then kicked her in the stomach, watching her topple to the ground.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” The girl asked.
Violet gestured with her arms.
“Like you said, off school grounds.”
The girl scowled, holding her broken nose.
Brow furrowed, she turned back to the other girls that were with her.
“You want what she's having?” She yelled at them, pointing a finger.
They quickly shook their heads.
“Then fuck off! Get the fuck out of here!” She yelled, running up to them.
They quickly murmured to each other, grabbing their main mean girl and walking away in the other direction.
Violet huffed, wiping her nose. She turned back, grabbing her backpack as she headed home.
~
Walker sighed, having cleaned up the dishes, his back hurting from hunching over. He stretched his back in the kitchen table seat, across from the twins. The twins had already done their chores, now trying to learn how to spell and write.
“You look tired.”
“And restless.”
They both picked up on how Walker was acting, especially around Amber and Violet.
Violet especially.
“Just thinking…” he muttered.
He needed to talk to Amber, ask her what she knew of him. Ever since that day, she was acting strange around him. At first he thought it was because of his intimidating size.
But now? It felt different. Her touch was more lingering, her gaze held too long before she would glance away, and she doted more and more on Violet more than usual.
And Violet.
She was traumatized, that was for certain. Loud noises would scare her, the others would scare her on accident, her shrieking as she held her hands up in defense. And she would fidget and tick, swatting at nothing around her ears and head. And murmured to herself, even when she thought no one was looking or listening.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he’d pass by her bedroom, listening to her mutter or talk in her sleep.
He found her a couple of more times in the living room, staring into a TV of static, standing still.
It was like the Walrider had done something to her. It was no surprise to even see her this way, after facing the horrors of the asylum.
The more he looked at her, the more he noticed her features. Her height. Weight, broad nose on her face. Green eyes even. It was unnerving.
Chris was broken out of his thoughts when he heard the click of the door open.
He turned to see Violet enter through the door, shutting it behind her. She threw her backpack down, looking at the other’s shocked faces. Her face was bloody, and there was a bruise forming on her cheek.
“What?” She said, her voice sounded gritty.
“What the hell happened to you?” Chris asked.
“Fight,” she merely said and grabbed a paper towel from the counter.
“A fight?” Chris perked, getting up from the couch.
She shrugged. She grabbed the home phone, going up to her room.
“Hey, wait a second,” Chris called, going after her.
Both of the twins smirked slightly, glancing at each other.
Chris followed Violet to her room, seeing her dial a number from a scrawled piece of card.
“What the hell do you think you're doing?” He said, before snatching the phone and paper from her.
He looked at the card, flipping it over.
Paul Marion
He looked at her, brow furrowed.
“What the hell is this?” He whispered, holding up the card.
She was silent, glancing between him and the card.
“Do you have any idea who this is? This is Murkoff , do you have any idea what these people put me through?”
“I…I know.”
“You know? Then why do you have his number? Why are you trying to contact him?”
“He said he could help! He told me to contact him if anything were to happen!” She reared back in his face.
There was that look. He recognized it.
He stood back fully up, looking down at the card. He contemplated as he looked down at the number. He looked back at Violet, handing her the card.
“Okay,” he whispered. “What are you going to say?”
“Talk about the homeless man I saw staring at me while I was at school. Maybe he’s connected somehow.”
He needed to talk to Amber.
“Okay, fine. Just…don’t lean your head back if your nose keeps bleeding.”
A few hours went by, Violet resting on the couch with an ice pack to her face. Rick had come out of the guest room, wondering himself what was happening.
“What happened to you?” He asked her.
“Fight,” she said. She tried to pull a smile. “I won.”
Rick scoffed, shaking his head.
She grimaced from her smile, holding the ice pack more firmly on her face.
Chris contemplated. He wondered, even.
Was it fate? Was it destiny? Or was it sheer luck that he was rescued and helped by the hopes of some fourteen-year-old girl?
A fourteen-year-old girl that looked just like him. Acted like him. But still had her mother’s qualities. Selfless, caring, hopeful .
Violet got up from the couch, and went upstairs to her room.
She sighed.
She couldn’t reach Marion, his phone going off but never picking up. He had to know. Or at least tell him what had happened. She wiped her face with her hands as she sighed, trying to think of what to do.
A knock came at her door.
It was her mother.
“Hey,” Violet breathed.
Amber screwed her face.
“My god, are you okay? What happened?”
“No, not really. I, uh, got into a fight after school, and a homeless man was staring at me in the parking lot. So that was nice,” she replied sarcastically.
Her mother exhaled through her nose, looking at Violet.
“I know, I know! Look, I already talked to Chris about it–”
“Oh so Chris knows, but I don’t?”
“You were asleep!”
Amber closed her eyes, turning her back to her.
“How am I supposed to tell you anything if you’re asleep or gone all the time?” Violet questioned.
Amber looked at her with a warning on her face.
“The first time was when you brought the others into my house, and then it was the asylum, and then the camera footage. So what else do you have that you’re hiding from me?”
Violet pursed her lip.
“Marion? Paul Marion–he’s working with us now.”
“Oh my god, Violet–”
“Look, I know. I know . Everything that I did was dumb, and stupid, and you grounded me for a month from my computer after that,” she interjected, holding her arms in self-defense.
“Dumb? You could’ve gotten hurt in that place, and I don’t want to think about what could’ve happened to you had it not been for the twins.”
“I did get hurt, but I’m fine now. Look at me!”
“And what about the potential PTSD you have?”
Violet scoffed, turning away with her hands on her hips. She nodded, glancing down at the floor.
“Do you have anything else to say?” Amber questioned, trying to make eye contact with her.
She turned back to face her, her face set in a hard stare. Violet opened her mouth, preparing herself for her next words.
“I know who my father is, Mom.”