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Violet slowly roused from sleep with not only a hard, delicious weight at her back, but a heavy feeling in her arms and legs. She was normally raring to go upon waking, but this heaviness screamed of something else and created a foreign kind of awareness in her. It reminded her of when she would have a cold and take Nyquil. If a midnight bathroom break hit her, she almost felt super weighed down, both in body and mind, getting to the bathroom.
Now, her sluggish mind tried to hitch a ride with the shot of adrenaline that pushed through her, but all she managed was to open her eyes.
She gasped and smacked out a hand blindly, trying to get her bearings. Her fingers slammed into something hard causing a jolt of pain to zing down her arm like lightening. She tried to look around and see where she was but all around was air darker than the night’s sky back home in Sherman, Connecticut, a tiny little town on the outskirts of Danbury. There, the city lights never reached the sky and when the moon disappeared, so did any illumination. Those were the scary nights, when you could barely see where you walked. But they were also the most beautiful, because you could see the stars and planets as if they lay just above your head in a spectacular arrangement that just begged to be touched.
But she hadn’t been home in over three years, having moved away right after high school. She didn’t even stay for her entire graduation. Simply walked off the makeshift stage on the beautiful green sod sitting on the football field, took one last look at the rolling hills that gave a backdrop for the school, then gave a peace sign to her favorite literary teacher and kept walking to her car. She didn’t stop moving, not when she reached the edge of town, nor the end of her state. Kept driving, trying to get as far away as she could from a place that caused some of the worst days of her life.
She wanted to create the best ones and figured she needed to find those somewhere far away. Far away from her alcoholic mother who couldn’t seem to keep her legs closed long enough to hold a job. She kept getting caught in “compromising positions” within days of getting hired. Mind you, these men were from all around town, some married, some not. But word got around. Then the looks and whispers would turn Violet’s way for a few weeks, pounding down on her head until she felt as if she needed to curl into a ball and hide from the world. Didn’t matter if she was twelve years old or eighteen. Was all the same.
Why were people so ignorant, so cruel?
“She’s just like her mother.”
“Look at that shirt and how low she’s pulled it over her breasts, just begging for the boys to see.”
“I bet she’s sleeping with her teachers, too. Girl ain’t got enough brains to pass a class.”
Putting on sweaters and hoodies, oversized clothing didn’t help either. Then she got it from the boys at her school. The taunting, wanting to see—expecting the right to see—her skin, her flesh, her curves … her body. Cornering her in a hallway until some teacher broke it up. Groping, wandering hands too rough for her liking, too exploratory.
Her “stops” and “no’s” didn’t help. Seemed to only encourage them. So she’d learned to time just right moving between classes to avoid those guys. Learned to change in a lonely corner in the girls’ locker room for gym so she didn’t hear the whispers from the others. Learned to never go out on weekends or after school, not to parties, not to dances, not the movies, nothing. She learned to stay by herself, alone in her room and deep in the woods around the shack her mom called their house. It was there she discovered new friends—hundreds of thousands—in different books and stories, some of which she wrote herself, most of which she read.
And that’s why Mrs. LaCava was her favorite literary teacher. She’d encouraged her love for reading and writing. Tried to help when she could by passing clothing Violet’s way when the cloth had become too worn or the top too small, the jeans too tight.
She’d even tried to get her to go to prom, but just the thought of being caught in a room with the same kids who’d tortured her for so long, and being there for hours had Violet immediately shutting down.
Instead, she spent the night in the observatory attached to her school, watching and studying different comets until the sun came up. Her only companion that night had been a snoring science teacher who ran the school’s astronomy club. That club had a whopping team of one—Violet Levine.
Kicking out with her foot, the heel of her shoe slammed into something hard, causing a reverberating noise to echo all around her.
“Someone will die before dawn,” sounded just above her head again.
Behind her, the hard press of a body tightened.
“The fuck?”
She went solid. It felt like every hair on her body stood up at the same time. That voice … she recognized it. But it couldn’t be. There was no way. She’d escaped her past and went as far as she could to get away. Somewhere she thought no one would find her. Ended up in Athens, Georgia, bustling in the streets like everyone else.
She’d lived there for three years now and had connected with someone back home once—to settle her mother’s burial arrangements. She had learned of her passing through a Facebook post where the article had plastered her face for all to see. Apparently, her mom had been drinking and driving, slammed into a tree going fifty-five miles per hour. Luckily, she’d been the only one to die that night. It could have been so much worse.
There had been sadness with Lucile’s passing. She was her mother, after all, but the woman hadn’t been someone Violet recognized for years. And she’d also been the starting point for the hell of a life her daughter had in high school. One linked directly to whom she suspected was at her back.
Elijah Cunningham.
A boy she’d once loved as a friend but who’d then made it his point in life to turn other students against her. One who boasted remarks about her clothing and body. A guy who taunted her, teased her, and had started every hellish moment she’d had in high school. One who seemed intent on ruining her life.
He shifted and slammed into something at their back causing the sound to go around them again and all at once she realized where they were. An image popped into her brain and bled panic into her veins. Her breaths started jumping from her mouth and a scream built its way into the base of her chest.
No.
Please, God, no.
She slammed out with both hands and hit a wall in front of her again, only a foot or so of space available. Kicking out, she felt the wall at her feet. Fear flowed through her as she faced the area above their heads and slapped out an arm, hitting something that went skittering and the wall above their heads.
The booming noise shook all around them.
A box. They were inside a box.
“No!” she shouted, letting loose a bloodcurdling scream. One that ripped through her vocal cords and out of her throat.
