The Certainty of Violet & Luke (The Coincidence #5)(27)
Author: Jessica Sorensen

I watch her sleep for the rest of the night and finally fall asleep around five in the morning. About an hour later, I’m woke right back up by a knock on the door. The sun is starting to rise and the light is shining through the window, making it feel a little safer, but I still have a hard time leaving Violet in the bed alone, even if it’s just to answer the door.

It ends up being the cops, wanting to tell me that they didn’t find the person, but that they filled out a report.

‘A report.’ I lean against the doorframe and give them a cold, hard stare. ‘Yeah, that’s going to help a lot.’

‘It’s better than nothing,’ the taller of the two male police officers replies agitatedly while the other one jots something down on a clipboard.

‘No, it’d be better if you would have caught him before he came into the house.’ I clench my hands into fists, feeling that rage that lives inside me, the one that rises whenever I think of my mother. But this time it’s about Preston. I want to fucking beat the shit out of him so badly I can’t stand it.

‘Kid, lose the attitude,’ the shorter officer says as he scrawls something else on the paper. ‘We’re doing the best that we can.’

‘Clearly that’s not enough,’ I snap. ‘Since he made it into the fucking apartment before you realized something was up.’

They look just as annoyed as I felt, but continue on with their bullshit protocol. They show me this silver bracelet they found on the lawn, asking me if I can identify it. It’s Violet’s, the one that belonged to her parents and that she was confused about wearing or not. When I tell them that, they explain to me that they have to hang on to it for evidence, but will return it when they can. Then they give me a rundown of how they plan on upping security, but it’s all bullshit. This is the second, maybe third time Preston has been here and he’s getting braver. The annoying thing is, I’m not sure what he wants. To torture Violet? No, I think there’s more to it than that. The thing that really gets to me is I don’t think it’ll stop until the police catch him. I know how sick and twisted people work, having lived with it for years.

When I get back to the room, Violet is still sleep. She looks peaceful, always does when she sleeps, until she wakes up screaming. I wish I could see her like that when she was awake, wish I could find a way to just give her peace in her life for all the peace my mother took from her.

‘Who was that,’ she murmurs, half out of it as I climb back into bed.

‘Just the police,’ I whisper as I pull the blankets over us and scoot toward her. I think about informing her of the bracelet, but decide to wait until she’s fully awake.

‘Did they … find him …’ she asks, although clearly she’s out of it.

‘No, but you’re safe.’ I kiss her head, shut my eyes, and inhale her scent. ‘I promise I won’t let anything happened to you.’

‘I know you won’t,’ she murmurs, nuzzling against me. ‘But Luke …’

‘Yeah?’

‘I think Preston … I thought I heard him say he was there that day … that I almost … drowned … I think he really did put the bracelet on me which means he’s been in the apartment before.’

Every muscle in my body winds tight like a knotted rope. Not just because he was there the day she went into the water, but that he’s been in our apartment before. Fuck, I’m so angry and tense right now, I’m about to ram a my fist through the wall just to make myself feel better, but then Violet scoots closer to me and it reminds me that I’ve got to be more stable than that right now. I’ll try to let it out at the gym or something tomorrow, at least as much as I can.

‘Thank you.’ Violet says, pressing a kiss to my chest.

The fire in my chest simmers down. ‘For what?’

‘For …’ She yawns as she traces a circle on my chest, right over where my heart is beating. ‘For not leaving me.’

My heart clenches in my chest as I smooth her hair back and study her face, the way her eyelids keep fluttering, the way the sunlight hits the studded diamond in her nose, the way her lips are slightly parted. So fucking beautiful and so fucking tough, whether she realizes it or not. She’s a survivor of so much shit that a lot of people will never even begin to comprehend – the lucky ones.

Only when I know she’s fast asleep do I dare whisper the truth. ‘I would never leave you,’ I whisper. ‘Because I love you.’

Chapter 16

Violet

The next day I wake up from the strangest nightmare, if you can even call it that. I’m not even sure what the hell it is or means. In it was my mom. She was standing in front of her grave with her arm outstretched to me and I was frozen at the edge of the cemetery, unable to step foot on the grass and go to her.

‘I can’t,’ I’d cried. ‘I just can’t.’

She’d finally lowered her hand and smiled at me. ‘I’s okay, Violet my baby girl. You can do it. Just let me go.’

That’s when I’d awoken, gasping for air, not necessarily terrified but confused. A confusion that’s still whirling around inside me. And that confusion amplified when I remembered last night’s events.

I still agree to go to the gym the next day, even though Luke gives me an out, saying that either we can stay home if I want or that I don’t have to come after what happened last night. I can tell that he wants me to go with him, though, and honestly I don’t want to stay in the apartment after what happened. The worst part about this whole thing is I don’t even know why Preston is doing this or what he wants from me. In the past, I’d always know – deal drugs for him and sexual favors. But now it feels like he’s playing some sort of game with me where I’m left wondering what the hell will happen next. It’s been so quietly lately too that I’d started to let my guard down and almost forget he was still lurking around. I can’t do that, but I also don’t want to live my life in fear anymore.

I want to be fearless.

I want to be free.

I just want to be me.

Trying to shake thoughts of Preston the best that I can, I get dressed to go to the gym, putting on a pair of tight shorts and a tank top topped with a hoodie. Then pull my hair up, the entire time pretending everything’s okay, that I wasn’t shaken to the core last night.

I feel exhausted, but Luke looks even worse than I do. When I ask him if he slept at all, he says, ‘enough,’ but the dark circles under his eyes contradict his words.