I shove her hand off and head down the sidewalk, hoping she’ll just stay behind. But she follows, her high heels clicking against the concrete as she rushes to keep up.

“God, it’s such a beautiful night,” she says with a contented sigh.

“If you say so,” I say. “Don’t you need to go back to the club and catch a ride home?”

“You said you were going to take me home,” she reminds me, rushing to keep up with me.

“I did?” I sway as a maneuver around what looks like a bush in the middle of the sidewalk… no, that can’t be right. I bump my hip on a fence and stumble off the grass and back onto the sidewalk

“Yeah, you said you’d love to give me a ride.” She braces herself by grabbing my shoulder, then giggles. God, I hate gigglers. I really need to start paying more attention when I pick them up to avoid getting stuck with a Miss Fucking Giggles.

“I’m pretty sure you misunderstood me.” I move my shoulder out from under her hand, stepping back onto the grass, and causing her to miss a step. She looks stunned, but still grins at me as she adjusts her boobs in her dress, pushing them up so they bulge out. I’m sure she does it on purpose, trying to remind me what she’s giving me if I take her back to my place, but what she doesn’t realize is that I’ve already had it. A lot. And I don’t care about what she gives to me as much as I care about what I took from her back behind the tree.

There’s a party going on in one of the townhouses nearby and music booms and vibrates the ground. We’re walking in the ritzier side of town, made up of two-story townhouses, the yards matching, and the sidewalk is lined with trees and a fence. I’m not even sure how I got here, nor do I know the way back to my dorm. Sometimes I wonder how the hell I get into these messes.

I really need to stop drinking.

I laugh at my own absurd thought as I stop to retrieve my cigarettes from my shirt pocket. The only time I can actually deal with the chaotic aspects of life is when I’m drunk, otherwise I panic for some structure. I never had structure when I was a kid. I had a crazy mom who did crazy shit and dragged me into her crazy world, making me feel crazy with her. I still have nightmares about some of the stuff I saw or heard her do and I need order, otherwise the vile, sick feeling I experienced when I was a kid owns me.

I pop a cigarette into my mouth and light the end with a lighter I dig out of the back pocket of my jeans. I light the end, deeply inhale, and blow out a cloud of smoke. I start walking again, zigzagging back and forth between the sidewalk and the grass just to the side of it, running into the fence a few times

“Where are we going?” the blonde asks as she tugs on the bottom of her dress, hurrying to keep up with me.

I graze my thumb on the end of the cigarette and ash it onto the ground. “I’m going to my place.”

“That’s cool,” she says with a slight slur to her speech, not taking my not-so-subtle hint. “We can just walk wherever.”

She doesn’t look that drunk and she only drank girly fruity drinks at the club, but her voice is portraying otherwise. She’s putting a lot of trust in me at the moment, to get her wherever it is she’s going and whatever it is she’s looking for. Maybe sex. The best orgasm of her life. A fleeting escape from reality. Maybe she’s looking for love or someone she can connect with. From the needy, I’ll-do-anything-you-want look in her eyes, I’m guessing it’s the latter. And if it is, she’s not going to get it from me.

I consider my two options. I can take her back behind a tree again and just bang the shit out of her until she’s crying out my name and I get a few more moments away from the helpless, drowning feeling inside me—get the control I need. Or I can call my friend and roommate, Kayden, to come pick my drunken ass up, because I’m getting exhausted.

I’m battling my indecisiveness when I hear this strange swooshing sound coming from above me. I look up just in time to see something tumble out the window of the townhouse we’re passing.

I stagger back onto the grass as it falls toward me and stick out my arm out to push Blondie back. The tips of a pair of clunky boots clip my forehead and I stumble over my feet as something lands on the grass in front of me and rolls down the shallow incline toward the sidewalk.

“What the hell,” Blondie says as she rolls her ankle and her foot slips out of her shoe. She quickly works to fix her hair, smoothing her hands over it.

Catching my breath, I shake my head, which is going to hurt like hell in the morning when I sober up. Usually when I’m this wasted my heart goes still, but my pulse has forced its way through the multiple shots I hammered back and suddenly I feel sober.

Blowing out a tense breath, I focus on whatever the hell just fell from the window as I mentally tell my heart rate to shut the f**k up. At first I think I’m seeing things, so I blink my eyes a few times at the… person… a girl lying on her back, groaning as she clutches her ankle.

“God damn it… that hurt,” she moans, rolling to her side.

My heart is still racing and I move my hand toward my mouth to take a drag, hoping nicotine will settle it down but realize I’ve lost my cigarette somewhere. “Shit, are you okay?” I drag my fingers through my cropped brown hair as I glance up at the window she fell from, then back at her, wondering if I should help her up or something.

She releases a grunting breath as she gets up on her hands and knees and pushes to her feet. Her legs wobble as she gets to her feet, then she limps forward, trying not to put weight on her right ankle. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Her voice is tight, and normally I’d back off from her leave-me-the-fuck-alone attitude, but she just fell out of a f**king window and a painful sense of déjà vu hits me square in the chest as I wonder if Amy fell the same way.

“Did you hurt your foot or something?” I follow after her as she limps down the sidewalk. Blondie calls out that she can’t find her shoe, but I ignore her, walking after the girl. I’m not even one-hundred-percent sure why other than I’m worried she might be hurt or that she might have been trying to hurt herself on purpose, like my sister Amy did, only she never walked away from it.

“I’m fine,” she says and then picks up her pace when a guy shouts something out the window she fell from. “Now go away.”

I look down at her ankle, hidden under her boot. It’s obvious it’s causing her pain by the way she won’t put pressure on it. “You shouldn’t be putting weight on it if it hurts. You could f**k it up more.”

At the corner of the sidewalk, she veers to the left, and steps into the light of the lampposts surrounding the parking lot. I finally get a good look at her and recognition clicks. She’s got long black hair with streaks of red in it that match the shade of her plump lips. She’s wearing a leather jacket over a tight black dress and her boots—the ones that put a lump on my head—go all the way up her long legs, stopping at her thighs.

“Hey, I know you,” I state as we step off the curb. “Don’t I?”

“How should I know?” She peers over her shoulder at me, giving me a once-over. I can tell she does know me, by the recognition in her expression, just like I’m almost certain I know her.

She continues to hobble toward a row of parked cars and I walk with her.

“Wait… I’ve seen you around at UW… We have Chemistry together.” I make the connection as she stuffs her hand into the pocket of her jacket. “And I think you’re Callie Lawrence’s roommate?” I point a finger at her. “Violet… something or other?”

She shakes her head as she removes her keys from her pocket. “And you’re Luke Price. The stoically aloof and somewhat intense man-whore/football player who dorms it up with Kayden Owens.” She stops in front of a battered up Cadillac. “Yeah, we know each other. So what?” She extends her hand toward the lock on the door, holding the key, but I grab her arm and stop her.

“Wait, ‘stoically aloof’?” I ask, slightly offended. “What the hell does that mean?” I’ve crossed paths with her quite a few times, but never actually talked to her. I’ve heard Callie say she’s intense, which I’m getting right now. But people say that about me, too, and it’s for a reason. A dark reason I don’t like to talk about. I wonder if she has a reason, too, or if she’s just a bitch. Plain and simple.

“It means whatever the hell you want it to mean.” She jams the key into the lock and unlocks the door, glancing over the roof of the car. “Now will you please let go of my arm?”

I’d completely forgotten that I was touching her and I instantly let go, tracking the line of her gaze to the sidewalk and a guy heading toward us. When I look back at her, there’s panic in her eyes, but when she notices me staring at her, the look quickly disappears and is replaced by indifference.

“Is that guy messing with you?” I ask. “Because if he is I can kick his ass if you need me to.” I cringe as I say it because most of the time when I start swinging punches I have a hard time stopping.

She seems shocked for a very intense split second but then again the look vanishes. “I can take care of myself.” She leans into the car and falls into the driver’s seat. She puts her hand on the steering wheel and takes a breath before looking up at me. “Look, I’m sorry I kicked you in the face during my fall.” She carefully pulls her leg in, wincing from the pain. “I didn’t mean to.”

I touch my finger to my forehead, feeling the forming lump. “It’s not a big deal,” I tell her. “But I’d really like to know why you… fell out the window.” I’m not sure if “fell” is the right word. She could have jumped. On purpose. For so many reasons.

“I didn’t fall… I jumped.” She stares up at me and I see something in her eyes. I have to search my hazy brain for what it is, but finally I get there. Detachment. Like she feels and cares about nothing. For a brief second I envy her.

Before I can say anything else, she glances through the windshield at the guy who’s reached the border of the parking lot and then she slams the car door. She revs the engine and I have to jump back as she peels out of the parking lot, driving away like her life depends on it and all I can wonder is what the hell she’s running from.

Chapter 2

Violet

I’m supposed to be sleeping, but I’m too excited to sleep. My sixth birthday’s tomorrow and I can’t wait to see all my presents. My dad already gave me one, a really cute purple bear with a pretty bow on the front of it. He told me that I was too special not to get one of my presents early, but that’d I’d have to wait for the rest tomorrow.

It’s really late and I can see the moon outside my window, looking like a half-eaten cookie. The stars sparkle like the glitter on my pajamas and my nightlight in the corner of my room keeps flickering. It was the Fourth of July today and I can still hear some of the fireworks the neighbors must be setting off.

I lie in my bed staring at the glow-in-the-dark stickers on the ceiling, some shaped as hearts, some as stars. I try to close my eyes, but it’s not working. Finally, I decide to get out of bed and go down to my toy room in the basement. Maybe if I play with my toys for a while then I can stop thinking so much about all the toys that I’m going to get tomorrow.

Taking my new teddy bear and the flashlight I keep in my nightstand drawer, I tiptoe down the stairs. I pause at the bottom, staring at the window in the living room where I can see showers of red and silver sparks glittering sky. It’s so pretty and I stop at the bottom of the stairs to get a good look at them. When the colors fade, I turn for the basement door and open it. A lot of the kids I know are afraid of the basement, but mine’s not that bad. My dad even let me paint my favorite flowers on the walls and I get to keep all my toys down here, too.

I don’t flip on the light, instead I use my flashlight because I’m not supposed to be out of bed this late at night, but the moon and fireworks shower light through the window. Once I get the flashlight turned on, I skip down the stairs to where my toys are stacked in boxes around the room. There’s also a chair in the corner by a bookshelf where I have a ton of books. I love to read about anything. Princesses. Monsters. Magical kingdoms. I asked my dad once if stuff like that really existed and he told me of course and asked what fun would life be if fairy tales weren’t secretly real.

I go over to the bookshelf, deciding I’ll read for a while, and maybe that will help me fall asleep. My favorite one isn’t on the shelf, though, so I go to the storage room where there are more books stacked on the floor. My dad loves to read, too, and we have so many books that there’s really nowhere to put them. At least that’s what my mom says.

I set the teddy bear down on the floor and shine the light on the first pile of books I come across. They’re all my dad’s books so I kneel down in front of the next stack, reading over the titles. Finally I find it, but as I’m pulling it out of the stack I hear a noise coming from my toy room. It sounds like scratching or scraping maybe and my mind instantly goes to the possibility that maybe it’s a monster or a dragon or something else with claws. My hand shakes a little as I stand up and turn back toward the room. When I step into it, I feel the wind hit my cheeks. I shine the light around and notice one of the windows is open. I don’t understand why. I didn’t open it and I don’t think it was open when I came down here. What if it was a monster?

I sweep the flashlight around the room at all my toys as I start back toward the corner. Then the light lands on something tall… I hear voices. Ones that don’t sound like they belong to a monster, but just people. But that’s what they end up being.