Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 114260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
She sighs.
“Are you sad, Violet?”
“I… I don’t know,” she says honestly. “I was more angry than anything for a while, as I’m sure you know. I was furious with you, Cain. I hated when I felt like everything between us was a lie.”
I have so many things to say I have to clamp my lips together to let her say what she needs. It’s the least I can do. I owe this to her.
“And after all this time, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to know when I pulled the trigger that he was the one that murdered my parents and that he earned the bullet that killed him. That he was getting his just rewards and my parents were avenged for what happened to them.”
Her voice trembles. “And I… didn’t know if I’d be able to do it when the time came. If I could intentionally choose to take a human life, even if I was justified and had good reason.” She sighs. “And now I’ll never know. Now I’ll spend the rest of my life never knowing if I had what it takes.”
“Oh no you don’t. Uh uh. Nope.”
I spin her around so she’s facing me, her legs straddling either side of me. It feels so intimate with her here like this, which is precisely why she’s here and not sitting over there apart from me, where I can’t touch her, hold her, keep her.
“What?” she says, lifting her chin defiantly. But I don’t miss the way her pupils dilate. I don’t miss the way she swallows, or the way her breathing accelerates. She’s turned on.
But we have something to discuss.
“You don’t get to blame yourself for what you did. I won’t allow it.” She opens her mouth and is likely planning on reminding me that I don’t allow or disallow a blessed thing, but she finally just shakes her head and clamps her lips together. Good, because I’m not done yet.
“Violet.” I hold her chin. God, I missed the way her soft skin feels against my rougher fingers. The way her eyes widen when I make her hold my gaze. “Just because you reacted by instinct doesn’t mean it wasn’t intentional. It wasn’t pre-meditated, no. It wasn’t in cold blood, no. But listen to me when I tell you that if it was, you might never forgive yourself.”
A pained look lights her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t get used to it,” I say gruffly. I make myself hold her gaze. “You don’t. Taking someone’s life, no matter how justified, never feels right. You go to bed at night wondering who you left mourning their loss. You wonder if you had all the facts straight, if they changed who they are and really did deserve to be killed.” My voice lowers as my own emotions threaten to choke me. “You start to wonder if you’ve mistakenly given yourself more privilege than you’re allowed, and you wonder if the universe will demand more of you now that you’ve demanded more yourself.”
She says one word, one syllable, that brings the smallest measure of comfort to me. “Cain.”
I swallow again and keep going. “You talk about forgiveness, Violet. What you don’t understand is that once you take a human life on purpose, it becomes almost impossible to ever forgive yourself for becoming the person you have.”
She bends closer to me and kisses me. Silencing me. Hearing me. Maybe even forgiving me.
I gather her to my chest, and we stay like that for long moments.
I finally break the silence. “So… are you still leaving?” I ask in a teasing tone.
She exhales. “Leaving?” she says, as if the very idea’s preposterous. “And leave that sweet puppy and truck behind?”
“They’re yours, though. Take them with you.”
She laughs. “Surely not. I’m not taking anything with me that reminds me of you.”
She lifts her head and braces herself with a hand on each of my shoulders. “Every day, I’d remember you. Every day, I’d want to be with you. Every day, I’d fight the urge to come back.” She shrugs with forced nonchalance. “So, I decided it’s best to not even leave to begin with.”
It feels as if I can breathe again. As if I can see again. I feel as if she’s given me new life.
“Cain,” she whispers. “You say that it’s hard to forgive yourself. Maybe if I’m here with you… and I’ve forgiven you… then we can teach each other how it’s done?”
“Now that is a deal I can handle.” I hold her face in my hands and take my time brushing my lips across hers. I groan at the taste of her, the feel of her so close to me like this. “I’m sorry, baby. I love you.”
“And I love you,” she says. “No more apologizing. This is all behind us. Everything. Now we’re just two people who can’t stand to be apart from each other. Deal?”