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He took another step and one more, until she felt the gun pointed into her shoulder blade. “I don’t think so.”
But as she turned, she felt a prick.
Not a bullet.
A needle.
It’d backfired.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tuesday, October 24
4:51 a.m.
Violet rolled onto her side, fuzzy in her head again. Jimmy had dosed her with another shot of morphine. Now she was in the basement in the pitch-black dark, and the smell...the smell was undeniable. Rot.
Death.
Was Ruby down here, but dead? Someone was dead down here. She breathed through her mouth. Her hands were tied behind her back, and her ankles were bound. Her eyes wouldn’t adjust to the blinding darkness. The concrete floor might as well be a sheet of ice.
The smell, it was days old at least. Couldn’t be Ruby. Had someone else gone missing but not been reported?
I killed her with my own two hands.
Jimmy Russell’s mother. She must be the rotting stench.
“Is someone there?” a shaky voice whispered.
“Ruby?” Ruby was alive!
“Yes. Violet? Is that you?”
“Yes. Are you okay?”
“No,” she cried. “I don’t want to die, Violet. I can’t die and leave Lula here. You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do.” Ruby didn’t know that Mother had been shot by Loretta, that Wanda had died by her hands too. “Lula is safe.”
“No, she’s not. Not if she stays in the holler.”
Might as well tell her now. “Ruby, your mom shot and killed Wanda and then Mother earlier today.” Or was it yesterday? Time had eluded her. “When she realized you’d been kidnapped. Mother died on the way to the hospital.”
A thought struck her. Everyone in the holler knew not to harm a holler girl. Jimmy Russell knew this too.
I’ll deal with who’s been murdering my girls. Mother had a whiff of suspicion or knew that Jimmy was the killer and was waiting on the SCU to leave to deal with him. Jimmy was in the ambulance with her. Instead of helping her live, he may have taken the opportunity to help her die instead. Loretta had missed her aim when Violet tackled her, hitting her shoulder region.
“Mother is dead? Grandma Wanda? Wanda was to take Mother’s place when she died.”
Loretta had chosen to end the cycle. Granted, she’d done it the holler way instead of legally. The only way she’d known how—through violence and rage. She’d done a terrible thing for a good reason—her freedom.
Violet had pushed Lynn—pushing, in reality, her mom—for freedom.
Neither act would bring it.
Violet had chosen to save Lynn with the hope that in return Violet would be saved. In a way, it had saved her. The trajectory of her life would have been drastically different had she let her die, whether or not she got away with it.
Save her and I’ll save you.
