A/N: Hey guys, sorry I've been MIA for a while. Quite frankly the past month has just royally sucked and I have been so tired and stressed out that I couldn't find the energy to write. I cannot thank jandjsalmon and Gray Glube enough for cheering me up. Gray Glube told me that she would love to see a canon one-shot from me and after I finished fangirling because it's Gray Glube and she wanted me(?!) to write something, I've decided to do one just for her. Enjoy, y'all. As I said, this story is canon and Michael makes quite an appearance. Triggers for sexual assault and some yucky incest-y comments made by Michael, so be fair warned.

The part about the band teacher is actually very loosely based off my high school band teacher, who got fired for having sex with one of his students.

The definition of flashpoint is the lowest temperature at which the vapors of a flammable liquid will combust spontaneously.

Flashpoint

She wasn't sure which state of being she hated more.

If she was feeling particularly angsty, she could say she hated living without it being a lie. It just took so much effort sometimes, eating, walking, thinking about useless homework, trying to tune out and keep her parents' bickering to a low hum instead of a loud clash, packing and unpacking, moving her whole world from one coast to the other. When she was alive, she was tired of everything – tired of her train wreck of a family, tired of being forced to try new things, tired of being alone – and all she wanted was some peace and quiet. Who was she to stick her nose up at some little pills that provided exactly that?

However, she may have reconsidered taking all those pills if she knew that death wouldn't be much better.

Death didn't take effort. No, that wasn't true, it did take effort, but in different ways, and those ways were most definitely harder than those in life. In life, she had to move her body to get anywhere, groaning every time she had to bring a dirty dish to the kitchen or had just remembered that she had left her purse or book downstairs. Now she could just wink in and out of existence. One mere thought and poof, she was wherever she wanted to be. In life, she had to maintain homeostasis and metabolism, eating her obligatory three meals a day and sleeping the requisite eight hours at night. Now she did not need food and both sleeping and breathing were optional.

For all the chains she had cast off with life, it seemed death shackled her even more tightly.

She had freed herself of the constrains of the body and the limitations of physics, but she had committed herself to a prison of something even more confining. She sacrificed her emotional freedom for a bodily one, and she regretted it.

She really fucking regretted it.

"What are you doing?"

She was reading, and she knew the book was plainly in his sight. He knew exactly what she was doing, but he was trying to get her to speak to him, trying to engage her socially ingrained, involuntary desire to respond to questions asked of her. He never stopped trying, even though she always answered him with silence, their conversations now just an endless loop of questions left forever hanging in the stale air between them.

She licked her forefinger and turned the next page, willing herself to remain focused on the words in front of her instead of the boy to her left.

"Do you like it?"

She guessed she did, it was a book about serial killers, Bundy and Dahmer and Ridgway and Gacy, all men whose twistedness was so brutal and savage that they had been commemorated in humanity's annals of history. She had a morbid sense of curiosity, so naturally she wanted to learn about these things, but she couldn't deny the other, more personal reason she studied these men.

She wanted to understand how she could love one of them. Was she just another crazy person who would send love letters and marriage proposals to these bastards while they sat out their days in prison? She tried to examine her emotions as she read through their upbringings and crimes, trying to see if she could pinpoint any emotion other than disgust – excitement, admiration, desire, even? Could she summon those things up for them as she had done for him?

"I guess you do. You're already halfway through it."

But she couldn't find anything as she thumbed through gruesome pictures and sob stories of childhood abuse. All she had for these men was contempt, for they had stolen precious life for no reason other than ones that only made sense to them – power, dominance, demons of the past, lust, control, money, or just the cold hard thrill of killing.

"Mind if I join you?"

Now she was mad, because she hadn't found the answers she was looking for. If she wasn't fucked in the head, then how could she explain herself? How could she rationalize what had happened? She couldn't, she didn't understand anything, least of all herself, and it didn't help that he was right beside her now, his breath just barely tickling her bare shoulder – it was hot and she had foregone her usual sweater in favor of just her spaghetti-strapped maxi dress – and his knees almost touching hers.

She slammed the book shut, which caused him to start slightly.

"Violet –"

But she was gone, the book lying forgotten on the couch as if it had never been opened.

Watching Michael had become a masochistic pastime of hers and today was no different.

He was her age now, maybe a little older, but she clearly remembered when he was little, even then his psychopathic tendencies making themselves known in dead neighborhood pets and school suspensions.

She had made it a priority to keep herself out of his view because she didn't know what he knew about her or his father or the circumstances of his birth. She didn't trust Constance to tell him the truth and she didn't want him to see her, get curious, and decide to come over. That was a party she never wanted to start.

So she passed her time just watching him from her old room, which conveniently had a window a little bit higher than his bedroom window, so she could look down at him undisturbed.

Most of the time he was smoking pot or looking at what she guessed were hardcore fetish porn sites, hastily exiting from the browser window and pretending to do homework when Constance would check on him.

But today was different.

Today he had a girl with him.

She wasn't very beautiful, but maybe it was that Violet couldn't get a long enough look at her to judge. She was short, dwarfed by Michael's tallness, and she had wavy light brown hair. She could hear the girl's laughter as Michael charmed her with his jokes.

As she expected, the girl soon ended up in bed with him, his plan from the start going exactly as he wanted it to. He undressed her slowly, taking time to touch her, and then she could see him thrust into her from behind and start fucking her.

She waited for his more savage part to come out, and she didn't have to wait long. His pace sped up, he pulled her hair, and she was sure if she opened the window she would clearly hear the slaps of his sweaty body against hers.

She wasn't surprised when he reached his hands around her throat and began choking her as he continued to fuck her. She heard somewhere that lack of oxygen makes orgasm even better, so she bet that was what he told the girl, whispering it in her ear as he coaxed her under his spell, made her highly suggestible with his dark eyes and touches that just seemed to know what she wanted. She wouldn't be able to resist him – she was too plain next to him, not at all used to boys giving her looks and asking her out on dates, and just to have this charismatic man's attention and desire would cloud her judgment.

Violet understood all too well.

So when he squeezed just a little too hard for a little too long, she wasn't surprised either.

It was a beautiful day out, not too hot and not too cold, so she decided to grab a blanket and just lay in the yard with a nice drink and some cheese and crackers. Her parents had just had a tiff that rocked the whole house and she was uneasy with the hungry, sinister energy that the house was now thrumming with. Outside seemed safer and the whiskey on the rocks was beginning to soothe her jittery nerves.

"Nice set of parents you got there."

Chad walked off the porch and settled next to her on her blanket, his hand clutching his own drink, an extra dirty martini. He always made sure to buy a ton of alcohol every Halloween to make sure the house was completely stocked for the rest of the year. Violet had never thanked him for it, but she now thought that she should, considering he always seemed to get her favorite brand of whiskey.

She laughed a little as he rolled his eyes.

"Yup, they definitely win the Best Parents Award every year."

He ate an olive before balancing his drink on the grass.

"How are you doing?"

The two of them had reached some odd state between acquaintances and friends as the years had gone by. They didn't have any late night sleepovers or long heart-to-hearts, but they always said hello to each other if they passed in the hallways and sometimes would sit in silence together, sipping on drinks and watching the sun set.

"You already know the answer to that."

He sighed as he looked up at the top floor.

"Looks like he's watching you."

She followed his gaze and sure enough he was right. He was staring down at her from the attic window, probably seething with jealousy even though she wouldn't ever think of Chad that way and Chad had made it abundantly clear that he only liked dick.

"He's always watching me."

"Do you ever tell him to go away?"

"I used to, but now I don't ever speak to him."

"Why?"

She looked down at the grass and started plucking out some strands, taking care not to squish the line of ants that were marching along nearby.

"It got too hard, I guess."

Chad just nodded.

She never liked her perpetual infant brother, and she especially didn't now since his crying was interrupting her peaceful bath. She had decided to do something nice for herself since she had been feeling so crappy about her failed experiment with the serial killers book. The bathroom was alight with Halloween candles she'd gathered from previous years, the water perfumed with lavender and bergamot from her favorite bath fizzes. She lifted a leg out of the water to run her loofah over her skin, relishing in the slight sting as its rough surface pressed down on her skin.

"Feel good?"

He would never fail to pop up when she was taking a shower or touching herself or changing clothes, and while she had previously gotten mad about it, particularly back when she had first died and the pain of what she had found out about her dear dead lover boy was still fresh, now she had perfected shutting herself down when he showed up at intimate times like this. For all she was concerned, it was like he was just another piece of furniture, just with eyes and a mouth.

She continued to scrub the other leg now, back and forth, up and down.

"I can help you reach your back if you want."

She didn't want him to help, so when he reached for the soap, she snatched it away from him, but her fingers were slippery and it fell, cap opened, into the water, and she watched as the last remnants swirled up into the water and melted away.

"I'm sorry."

She didn't reply, as always, and stood up, letting the water run down her naked body and splash over the edges of the tub, getting his sneakers damp. She pretended not to hear his breath hitch as she walked over to the door to grab her towel.

She was patting herself down when she felt his presence right behind her. When she looked up into the mirror, she could see desire in his almost-pitch eyes.

"Vi, I –"

She turned around, not caring that she was naked or that he lowered his eyes for a fraction of a second to her chest. She just looked up into his eyes, positively swirling with lust and love and all the beautiful emotions that he used to tell her as they lay in her bed, and did nothing.

That's what really killed him. There was nothing she could do that hurt more than that.

As he reached for her, she didn't react at all.

As he put his hand around her hips, she didn't shiver or sigh or close her eyes.

As he kissed her gently, she didn't open her mouth to let in his probing tongue or relax into his chest. All she could focus on was her baby brother screaming his lungs out as if he was reminding her about all that had happened and that she better not fucking forget it.

And she hadn't.

He stepped back, now anger filling his eyes instead of love. He punched the tiled wall right next to her head, but she didn't flinch.

"Goddamnit, Violet."

She dropped her towel to the floor and walked out.

She wasn't sure how Michael managed to either cover up the murder or convince the police that it was just an accident of breath play, but he hadn't had any late night excursions to the garden or had been hauled off to the station that she could see, so she could only assume that he had wiggled out of trouble yet again. She marveled at how a charismatic person could get away with so much, but then again she shouldn't still be getting surprised by something like this.

Constance was in the kitchen, drinking a glass of scotch. Violet took a sick joy in watching Constance cycle through men. She had fun predicting the type of men that Constance would go after next – would she chose the thickset Italian man with the strong accent and too many rings that shouted his money at all that passed or would she chose the pretty boy model who was only concerned with shallow drama? The man du jour was neither – he was a business executive of some company that specialized in natural herbal remedies and he had recently been making a fortune with the revival of interest in alternative therapies, so of course Constance had been all over that. He was currently rubbing her shoulders as she sat at the kitchen table, probably pouring over the newspaper or some women's journal.

She peered into Michael's room, but he wasn't there. There was no evidence that he had killed that girl in his room – everything looked the same. She didn't know why that disappointed her – maybe she expected to see something different, like a glow or a color change, something that made it unmistakable that life had been consciously taken there. But she saw nothing.

She spotted him in the backyard among his mother's rose bushes. He wasn't weeding or pruning, but just looking at the roses, white and red and pink blooms hiding the thorny branches beneath them. He picked a red one and held it up to the light.

She was too busy thinking about how much he looked like his father to notice right away that he was looking right at her.

She gasped when she realized his eyes were trained on her, but she tried to quash her fear quickly because even though he was far away, she was afraid he could smell it, like a shark could smell blood. The last thing she wanted was for her fear to attract his interest.

He held up the rose to her and gave a small bow without breaking eye contact, but she wasn't at all fooled by this gentlemanly gesture. She could still detect the slight smirk on his face that betrayed his disingenuousness.

She had learned well from his father.

She quickly backed away from the window, almost tripping on the rug in her haste. She had the urge to shower or hide under her covers, as if to wash away or hide from the evil Michael radiated out, but she refused to do either because to do so would be to acknowledge that he held power over her.

What she didn't see was Michael smiling and plucking petal by petal until no flower remained, only a scraggly stem full of thorns left where beauty had once been.

Her father had decided to continue offering weekly therapy sessions to the denizens of the house, setting an hour every Thursday from 1 to 2 PM to listen to whoever showed up if anyone did. She didn't believe that it would do much good for anyone, mainly in part because she still thought her dad was a shitty therapist, but she didn't really have the authority to judge anyone. Everyone needed their own way to survive being trapped here, and being dead did not mean you got to check all your baggage at the gate.

However, he did show up for a session every once in a while, but she made it a point to go to the attic whenever she heard the scuff of his sneakers coming down the hall to the study. She would pass the hour playing with Beau or lighting up a precious smoke while watching the squirrels fight over nuts in the yard. She knew she was the predominant topic of their conversations, so the rational part of herself would propel her away from their muffled voices, whispering to her that it would be healthier to remain blissfully ignorant. Hearing him go over the happier times of their relationship, the intimate times, bodily and emotionally, just would be bad.

Really bad.

But this time, she had completely forgotten that it was Thursday; days seemed to blend together in the house and it was honestly hard to keep track sometimes. She had been walking down the hallway when suddenly his voice cut through her consciousness.

"It's Violet."

She stood frozen, like a deer in the headlights, the rational part of herself screaming to get away, get away fast, but she hadn't had time to adequately fortify herself as she usually did for every Thursday, to methodically steel herself with logic against the emotional side that still wanted so, so badly to listen in, and so her defenses, caught off-guard and ill-prepared, were quickly overrun. So unlike all the Thursdays before, she crept up to the just barely ajar door, pressing her hands against the cool wood and resting her ear against the grain.

"Can you go into more detail? What about Violet?"

"Well, I hate feeling helpless. Apparently sociopaths crave control. You should know that. And she has made me powerless and I hate it."

"So how does she make you feel like you have no control?"

"It's not that she makes me feel that way, that is the way it is. It's reality with her. It isn't that I have power and haven't realized it. It's that I've realized that I have none. Nothing I can say or do does anything to her. She doesn't speak to me. She doesn't react at all. It's as if she is a doll around me. But I see her talking with Chad and she is alive. Sometimes she smiles. Sometimes she even laughs. I fucking hate it."

"Tate –"

"It makes me so angry. I used to have her smile. I used to have her laugh. I used to have her in the palm of my hand, and I was in hers. Now she has slipped from mine, but if anything, I'm gripped even more tightly in hers and she can crush me whenever she wishes."

Constance was right about her son having a poet's heart.

"And then she gives those precious things, the things I long for and dream about, to fucking Chad. Are you fucking serious? I hate him so much for that. Why does he deserve them? I could kill him over and over again for a single smile. I've thought about the best ways to make it hurt many times. But I won't, because she wouldn't like that. But I really want to."

Her father was silent for a long time, or at least it seemed like a long time to her, but it was probably only ten or fifteen seconds stretched out by her fast beating heart and the slow drip of sweat falling down her forehead.

Suddenly she heard the skid of a chair sliding hastily backwards and his voice rise in panic.

"She's here."

As he headed to the door, she winked out, off to her room to lie on her bed to try to calm her racing mind. Her father still had to give Tate a half hour of his time, so she had at least a half hour of silence just to think.

Tate knew she was there the second she decided to listen in. Her father in his obliviousness apparently failed to pick up her presence until after the beans had been spilled, but that was exactly what Tate wanted. He wanted her to eavesdrop. He wanted her to know how much she hurts him by refusing to acknowledge him. He wanted her to know that he wouldn't kill Chad even though he really wanted to because he loves her. And he knew that she couldn't as easily ignore it this time.

She hated herself for it, but she started to cry.

She was in the habit of helping Moira clean the house every once in a while. This time they were cleaning off the remnants of Thaddeus's last meal from the basement floor. Blood from the dead raccoon was sprayed in ugly patterns across a fair swath of space. She didn't see any bones.

Moira's rag was already red from scrubbing and the soapy water in the bucket was quickly turning a hideous shade of pink.

"What are you thinking about, Violet?"

She dunked her sponge into the bucket and dripped the excess water onto a particularly large pool of blood, watching the blood and water mix and dribble down into the creases of the floor.

"You're thinking about that boy, aren't you?"

"I don't want to talk about him."

"No one ever wants to, but not talking about him doesn't make him disappear."

She scrubbed the floor, but it only seemed like she was spreading the bloodstain bigger instead of cleaning it up. She wondered if Moira had the same problem when she was cleaning up Chad and Patrick's bodies.

"There is nothing left to talk about."

"You seem like you still have a lot to say."

"It wouldn't matter even if I did. It wouldn't change anything."

"How do you know it wouldn't change anything?"

Now she was getting angry. She threw her sponge into the bucket and stood up, turning to face Moira as her angry eyes met her calm ones.

"Did he put you up to this?"

"No, Violet. I'm just voicing my opinion."

"I'm leaving."

She began walking up the stairs, but Moira's sharp voice made her pause as she reached for the doorknob.

"Shutting down and running away won't work eventually. Things will start to hurt. Your thoughts will begin to dwell. Your eyes will begin to water more. Your breath will begin to race faster. The dam you have built will break. The pain will come back. It always does."

She slammed the door shut behind her before she heard anymore.

She was on the roof this afternoon. The sun was shining, but its heat was tempered by the breeze coming from the ocean. She brushed her hair behind her ears to stop it from blowing in her face, but some strands just wouldn't stay put and they whirled around her face like annoying gnats, pricking her cheeks and nose.

She scanned the yard, but no one was there, which was unusual considering how nice it was out. Most residents jump at the chance to be outside, but the yard was deserted, the only sounds the tree leaves rustling and a lone bird chirping. She lay down on the warm shingles and entertained herself looking at the clouds and seeing what objects she could find in their wispy shapes – an elephant, a whale, a steamship billowing smoke, a knight with a sword, a lion with its jaws barred and ready to pounce on his meal.

The bird fell silent.

She tried to focus on the clouds, but something felt wrong. The breeze was no longer cool and gentle, but sinister, the rustling of the trees no longer soothing, but full of warning.

She sat up and peered into the yard, but she saw nothing at first. The gazebo was intact, the lawn furniture exactly as it had been. Even her whiskey glass was still resting on the grass from her chat with Chad.

She blinked.

And there was Michael, standing in the middle of the yard, the bird limp in his hand, staring up right at her with a big grin on his face.

She immediately disappeared to the attic, hand clutching her chest, right on the brink of a panic attack. She didn't dare look out the window for fear that his manic smile that so clearly showed just how unhinged he truly was would make her break down into hysterics. She fell into the wall, letting its hard wood brace her back as she sunk to the floor, breathing heavily as her heart raced and raced. She tried to calm herself down, breathe in, breathe out, count to ten, but it still took much longer than she would care to admit for her to fully relax.

She stayed in the attic for as long as she could bear and then appeared to the back door. She walked out onto the porch slowly and cautiously, eyes darting quickly around to detect any threat that might suddenly leap from the bushes, but she did not see Michael or any sign that he had been there.

She turned around to go back inside, breathing a sigh of relief, but something right by the bannister of the stairs leading down from the porch to the grass caught her eye.

She walked towards it, but as soon as she saw what it was, she backed away, her hand covering her mouth in horror.

It was the bird, split wide open right dead center, its heart completely severed from the body and lying next to it, a tiny red ball oozing blood into the wood.

He had left it for her to find.

But the implications were even more frightening, made clear in the delicate dissection of the animal, made obvious in his choice of organ to remove.

It was a gift.

She was in the kitchen pouring herself a drink, a gin and tonic this time, the second of the morning already and it was not even 11 yet. Ever since Michael had left her the bird and its heart on the porch a few days ago, she had been drinking a lot more, especially at times that couldn't even be considered somewhat close to happy hour. She told herself that she only did it because she coincidentally happened to be having one of her routine bouts of insomnia – she did have episodes of sleeplessness when she was alive, so being dead should make no difference – but she knew that explanation wasn't completely truthful.

Chad walked in as she took her first big gulp of her drink.

"Hey, hey, that's a lot of alcohol for one morning."

She set the glass down on the countertop, watching the ice slowly clink against the sides as it melted.

"You're right, but I really need it."

He rounded the kitchen island so that he was across from her, looking at her with a mixture of concern and even a little panic, and she felt bad for making him worried.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Please, Violet, give me some fucking credit. I'm not stupid. 'Nothing' doesn't cause you to become an alcoholic overnight."

"Hey, I'm not an alcoholic."

"You know what I mean. Something happened."

"You could say that."

She took another sip of her drink, the alcohol burning her throat and she could feel it coat her empty stomach. She hadn't had anything to eat yet.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?"

She remained silent. She wanted to tell Chad – tell him how Tate hates him because of his relationship with her, how she cried after listening to his session with her father, how she is fucking terrified of Michael who now has taken a twisted interest in her that she doesn't understand – but she couldn't do it. She did not know what the consequences would be of her telling anyone else what was happening. She didn't know the rules of the game Michael was playing. She somehow knew deep in her heart that he would find out if she told. Would he do something to retaliate?

Would he hurt her?

Chad?

Her family?

Tate?

She quickly pushed the thought of Tate being hurt out of her mind, trying to ignore the small but sharp pain in her heart.

She couldn't risk it, not until she figured out what dangerous game she was now tangled up in.

"I can't."

Chad looked at her, his raised eyebrow clearly broadcasting his skepticism, but his face grew softer as he saw a single tear slide down her cheek. He reached for a napkin and handed it to her.

"Hey, it's okay."

But it wasn't okay, it was so not okay.

She nodded slightly, and Chad squeezed her shoulder before walking away.

She suddenly felt dizzy and her stomach roiled like an angry tidal wave, and she barely made it to the garbage can before throwing up, her drinks mixed with green bile dribbling down the white plastic of the trash bag. Long after there was nothing more to vomit up, she dry heaved for what seemed like hours, as if she was trying to also purge the emotional toxins from her heart as her body had done from her gut.

Everything she had built – her indifference to Tate, her fearlessness against whatever danger threatened her both from in and outside the house, her hard-worked-for peace she tried to find despite everything – was falling apart.

The dam was cracking.

"Violet?"

He sat down next to her on the couch. She was reading again, this time one of her father's psychology books. Even as a little girl, she was fascinated by all the different disorders – so many things could go wrong in a human brain, so many weird things that make no sense like pica and phobias and fugue state. When so many things can go wrong, you appreciate the "normal" working brains so much more.

"Why are you reading that?"

She was open to the psychopathy description page. Apparently the word was a conjoining of two Greek words: psycho, meaning soul, and pathos, meaning suffering.

Suffering of the soul.

Doesn't that happen to everyone?

"You look pale. Are you sick?"

But she was right, wasn't she? Everyone experienced that. That is the definition of life, that was how life was, how her death still is.

So does that mean everyone is a psychopath?

"Vi? Vi, say something to me."

She couldn't make her tongue move. Everything had gone Technicolor, orange and purple splotches clouding her vision. His mouth was moving, but she couldn't understand what he was saying. Then the earth was spinning and everything went black.

She awoke when the sun was setting, the blankets of her bed surrounding her, a mug of now cooled herbal tea next to her on the nightstand. She quickly sat up, but froze when she saw him sitting in a chair besides her bed, one arm cushioning his head as he slept dangerously close to her hip, the other stretched out to grasp her hand in his. He must have carried her up the stairs after she fainted and fallen asleep as he watched over her.

She quickly yanked her hand out of his, refusing to think of how warm it felt, and the sudden movement woke him up. His eyes immediately found hers, and she could see the hurt from her pulling her hand away.

"Vi, are you alright? You fainted and I was so worried since you weren't waking up."

She swung her legs over the other side of the bed, tentatively putting one down on the floor, then the other, to test her balance. She took a few shaky steps to the adjacent bathroom, but another wave of vertigo hit as she got through the doorframe. She didn't have the strength to brace herself against it, and then she was falling backwards, her only thought being that hopefully she would somehow kill herself and get some more silent, dark hours of reprieve.

But she instead collided with a hard chest, spine to sternum, and she felt his strong hands wrap around her front, steadying her against his body. Her treacherous body trembled, like it remembered how it felt to be in his arms, the warmth of him covering her like a blanket, his mouth next to her ear whispering how gorgeous and kind and amazing she was. Everything came rushing back and she went limp against him.

"It's okay. I got you."

He swept her up in his arms and carried her back to bed. He lay her down gently, as a mother would a baby, and smoothed her hair out of her face, his eyes locked with hers and radiating love so strongly she thought she would go blind from it.

"Violet…"

She quickly turned away from him and his beautiful eyes, pulling the blanket over her face so she didn't have to deal with the unwanted feelings, which she had beaten dormant for so long, bubbling up like lava in her chest.

Michael started leaving her gifts every day on the porch.

A squirrel with his tail cut off.

Three baby mice with their mother draped over them.

A mocking jay, its feathers all plucked.

It was like he was a cat leaving dead prey for his master, knowing nothing of the inside disgust his owner felt over this perfect present of love and devotion that the cat thought he was giving. But Michael was no cat and he definitely knew how well his gifts would be received.

She never left anything in return, never did anything to encourage it, but without fail there would be an animal every morning. Sometimes they were already dead, sometimes they were still dying. She could see their chests gasp for air and their terrified eyes dart around. She tried to stay with them as they died, to give them some form of kindness and comfort, but sometimes she just couldn't do it and she would flee to the attic and bite her nails as she counted time in her head, waiting there until she was sure they would be dead. If they were already dead, she would sometimes touch their skin and it would still be warm.

She wouldn't move them until the dead of night when she would bury them in the backyard. She just couldn't leave them there knowing that they were the casualties of some cruel game she was an unwilling participant in. She was responsible for their deaths, even if she didn't actually kill them. She at the very least owed them a proper burial.

Today it was a feral cat. He was beautiful, all black, his coat sleek. He was still barely breathing, his green eyes wide in fear as she knelt down next to him. She couldn't see any cuts or incisions, but the way he unnaturally curved his back was indicative of a badly broken spine.

She took one of his paws in her hands and sobbed.

He was starting to seek her out even more than usual. Make no mistake, she knew that he watched her often, followed her around while invisible, but he was coming to her more often in the flesh. He would sit by her while she read or walk into the kitchen at the precise same time she would be fixing a snack or drink. He would be sleeping in her armchair in her room when she woke every morning. He would be smoking in the backyard at the same time she always took her afternoon smoke break. His presence was becoming more a physical one than a shadow and it was unnerving her.

"When are you going to speak to me?"

His questions to her were also becoming more hurried, gaining speed and urgency like a tsunami, even though she still did not respond. He would outright ask her when she would talk to him again instead of asking subtle questions to try to trick her into replying. He was becoming bolder, more insistent.

"Tell me what I have to do."

She wasn't sure if he somehow had taken hope when she let him carry her to her bed. But he must have – that was the only explanation for the sudden change in his behavior, the raw intensity in his questions. She could hit herself for that now – she should have been more firm in her rejection, should have walked that tiny distance herself, definitely should not have sagged back into his arms when he caught her.

But she didn't.

Why didn't she?

Because she liked it.

She missed it.

The dam was breaking.

Her mother was playing the cello upstairs, a concerto by some composer who probably killed himself or died a tragic death too soon, and she could hear the sadness in the notes vibrating through the air. Her mother always loved music and had dreamed of playing in a professional orchestra one day, but then marriage and children and affairs screwed that up and her dream was put on hold. Now she could never achieve it. Maybe that's why she was so partial to sad pieces.

She herself had tried to play an instrument in grade school – she despised the traditional girly instruments like the flute and violin and instead went with the oboe. She liked the taste of the reed in her mouth, the melancholy sounds she could produce just by changing the positions of her fingers, but she quit the next year.

She couldn't pinpoint a reason then. She just sometimes felt like there was something off with her band teacher, the way he would linger a little too long over the girls' shoulders or how he would shut each girl in his office for an hour after school for private lessons.

Later she found out that he had been arrested for child molestation. When they went to his house, they found loads of child pornography and graphic diaries detailing his sexual fantasies about his students. Thankfully she was never told whether or not she was in those depraved stories, but she wouldn't be surprised if she was.

She never touched an instrument again, preferring to listen to music on CDs and later iTunes instead of making her own.

She did learn an important lesson, though – to trust her gut – but she didn't want to listen to what it was saying now.

Something was going to happen. With Tate pushing her, with Michael leaving bigger and more disturbing gifts, it would all have to come to a head soon. The house didn't like to leave tension stewing for too long – it wanted explosions and excitement, and those two perfectly volatile men were the perfect fuel.

She turned her mind back to listening to her mother, hoping that once, just this one time, that her gut would be wrong.

She was taking a smoke break in the backyard, curled up on a lawn chair under a blanket. Her parents were playing with her brother, and when she turned down their invitation for some family time, she could feel their disapproval in their slightly downturned mouths. She felt a little bad, but she also knew they would have more fun without her now perpetually bad mood raining on their parade. She knew they would ask why she was upset, but there was no way she could tell them about either Tate or Michael. Her denials would only bring back old suspicions and reopen wounds, which was the last thing she needed right now.

She puffed out a ring of smoke, which lingered in the cool evening air before slowly dissipating.

"So you didn't like my gifts, I take it?"

She froze, every hair on her body standing straight up and out, hastily dumped adrenaline coursing through her blood like liquid fire. She didn't need to turn around to see who it is, which was a relief because she was too scared to move, because the smooth, dangerous voice was unmistakable.

Michael.

He emerged out from behind the tree, his teeth gleaming in the dusk. He approached her slowly as if not to spook her, glancing once in a while at his sneakers like he was bashful about moving closer to her, but she wasn't fooled. He was a predator, a wolf in sheep's clothing, and as smart as he was, even he could not mask the confidence in his gait, hide the quick sweep of his eyes to check the surroundings for any interruptions, or still the excited twitching in his hands as if they just couldn't wait to wrap themselves around her slender neck.

"I was sad that you didn't like them."

All she wanted to do was disappear into the house, but he might get angry at her and follow her in, potentially dragging more people into the mess. She quickly scanned the windows, but she didn't see anyone in them. He picked up on her searching for an escape route and smirked.

"I got very creative for you, you know. I've never done that for any other girl. You should be flattered."

She tried to swallow down her fear, but her response was still too shaky for her liking.

"Why would you think I'd like dead animals for gifts?"

"Because you're no ordinary girl. You don't want flowers and poetry."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because I like you."

She drew in a sharp gasp as he came closer. He reached out to smooth her hair, but the act felt profane and dirty, not at all like when Tate had done it.

Tate.

"I think you're pretty. I know you saw me kill that girl. I could fuck you like that. I could kill you like that, too, if you wanted, and it would be fine because you would just come back later."

"We're half-siblings."

"And you think I'm bound by those silly rules?"

"I don't want you like that."

"Of course you don't. You still want my bastard of a father, don't you?"

She didn't say anything. Michael scoffed, kicking a clod of dirt onto her foot.

"Nothing to say because you can't deny it without lying through your pretty little mouth. I've jerked off thinking about fucking your mouth, about forcing my cock deep down your throat. I'm sure if my poor daddy dearest heard me talking about this, he would pitch a fit."

He leaned in closer, his mouth right next to her ear.

"Don't you want to punish him for hurting you, Violet? What perfect revenge. He fucked your mother, now you fuck his son. You'd break him."

She felt paralyzed, powerless to do anything, her wide eyes now staring into his, like slits in the dark. He laughed at her obvious terror before turning around to leave.

"Until next time, Violet."

And then he was gone.

She wasn't sleeping at all now. She paced back and forth in her room each night, hoping that somehow the rhythm of the footsteps would calm her reeling mind.

She had wanted to break Tate before. She had wanted to make him hurt as she hurt. But that was before, not now.

There was no way she would take Michael up on his offer, not only because he was her half-brother and that was all kinds of icky, but also because she couldn't deny that her feelings for Tate were still there, pushing themselves up further and farther up from the depths of her consciousness where she had buried them, refusing to be ignored and neglected any longer.

"Violet?"

She jumped when she heard Tate's voice. She didn't turn around, but she was sure that he just looked ethereal in the moonlight streaming through her window, his blonde hair angelic, his eyes reflecting the light like prisms.

"What's wrong?"

And she just started to cry, a soft wail making past her lips before she could rein it in. Big tears slowly made rivulets down her cheeks and she could feel him rush to her side, his hand gripping her forearm and spinning her so they were facing each other.

"Vi? Jesus. What happened?"

She just shook her head – the first time she had openly acknowledged him in years. She heard him gasp, the surprise of her gesture overwhelming him after he had given up hope that it would ever come, had resolved himself to being forever ignored.

He wrapped his arms around her slowly like he was afraid of scaring her away or reminding her that she wasn't supposed to be acknowledging him, but she didn't want to leave, at least not right now.

Her heart ached as he kissed the top of her head.

Moira was right.

The pain comes back. It always does.

"So, are you back together with him?"

She almost choked on her sandwich as Chad came sauntering into the kitchen. He grabbed an apple from the fruit basket and took a big, juicy bite, chomping down noisily as he had looked at her expectantly.

"No, whatever gave you that idea?"

"I can read you, Vi. I know when people like us are having a relapse."

"People like us?"

"People who still love someone despite all personal efforts not to. You held out valiantly for a long time, but I suppose even you cannot suppress your feelings forever."

"I'm not going back to him."

"You may not right this minute. You may not even for a few years yet. But you can't shut him out anymore and you'll soon find that you won't want to."

As she watched him walk away, she knew he was right.

She was walking up the stairs to her room when she heard his voice.

"Hello, Violet."

Michael.

He was at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at her with a grin on his face, his eyes trained on her like she was a particularly tasty piece of meat. She tried to stop the shivers from running down her spine.

She gripped the bannister so hard her knuckles were white.

"Have you thought about my offer?"

"I have."

"And?"

He scuffed the floor with his sneakers, looking nonchalant, but she didn't buy that act for a second.

"Not interested."

"I was afraid you'd say that. What a pity."

He started to ascend the stairs one by one.

"I thought we could have made this a mutual agreement, but I see that won't happen."

Alarm bells started ringing very loudly in her head and a cold pool of dread began to form in her stomach. She started backing up the stairs slowly, trying to put as much distance between him and her as possible without provoking him to do something drastic. His face started to warp in front of her, his teeth more pointed, his eyes darker and hungrier, his lips redder. He seemed to transform into an animal right before her eyes, the real devil beneath the human skin finally showing itself in all its horrific glory.

"So I guess I will just have to take it."

She started running, up the stairs and quickly down the hall, her heart pounding so loud it almost drowned out his footsteps behind her. She wrenched open the door to her room, but when she tried to slam it closed to lock it, he had already gotten there, his hands straining to keep the door open as her little ones pushed back as hard as they could. However, he soon overwhelmed her, and with one last big thrust from him, the door swung violently open and sent her falling back onto the floor.

She scrambled back, screaming and kicking, trying desperately to get out of his reach, but he pinned her arms over her head and sat on her torso, immobilizing her lower half. She snarled and tried to bite the hand covering her mouth, eliciting a laugh from him.

"So feisty. You're going to be much more fun than that other girl. She was too easy. So gullible. So boring."

He ripped off her cardigan, throwing it over his shoulder onto the floor. He gripped her hip tightly, feeling the elastic band of her tights through her skirt. He snapped it like a taunt, and tears sprung to her eyes. She had to do it, it was the only way. So she scrunched up her face and screamed at the top of her lungs –

"Tate! Tate, please!"

She broke her silence. The first time she had called out to him in years, the first time she had spoken to him – he must come. He has to come.

Michael chuckled as he now tore at her t-shirt, exposing part of her bra, and she thrashed even harder, bucking her hips to at least try to get him off balance. She had to hold on.

"Calling to your knight in shining armor? How charming."

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"

Michael was suddenly ripped off of her by two hands that she recognized instantly.

Tate.

"Don't you fucking touch her!"

Tate threw him into her dresser, the collision making an obscenely loud crash, and she quickly scurried to the other side of the room, clutching at her destroyed shirt.

Michael rose from the floor, wiping a trickle of blood from his forehead, and started laughing. He rested his hands on his knees for a moment before looking up at Tate. She couldn't even begin to describe the rage she felt radiating off him – his back was ramrod straight, his hair tousled from the fight, his hands balled so tightly into fists she was sure the nails were drawing blood from his palms.

"Hello, dad. Nice to finally meet you."

"Get out."

The tone of his voice was low and ice cold.

"But the family reunion was just getting started."

"I said get out!"

"What if I want to stay?"

"I'll throw you out."

"I'd like to see you try."

Tate suddenly lunged at him like a tiger, his fists swinging so fast she couldn't even follow them. Michael quickly blocked one punch, but didn't have time to block the other, and Tate's elbow cracked across his nose. A thick gush of blood immediately began flowing out and based on that and his yowl of pain, she was sure it was broken.

Michael rushed back at Tate, his hands trying to push him back and create some space, but Tate grabbed his arm before he could withdraw it, pulling him close to knee him right in the groin. While Michael was on the ground in pain, Tate yanked him up by the ankles and dragged him to the window. With wide eyes, she watched him open the window and throw Michael over the ledge. Once Michael realized the dire situation he was in, he started yelling at Tate to let him up, to which he responded by letting one leg go, chuckling at Michael's subsequent yell of fear. He looked over at her, and didn't break eye contact as he began to speak.

"I would let you go right now, but I don't want you dying on the property. So we are going to get one thing straight. If you ever come back, I will kill you. If you ever touch her again, I will maim you in ways you can't even imagine. I will make you suffer pain. I will gouge out your eyes. I will snip out your tongue. I will cut out your bowels. I will slice through each layer of flesh until there is nothing left. Are we clear?"

She heard a slight groan from Michael.

"Good."

Tate yanked him back up and dumped him on the ground, his look of disgust so deep she thought it would physically burn his son's skin off.

"Get out."

Michael quickly jumped up as fast as his injured groin would let him and fled the room, with Tate hot on his heels. Once he had gone out the door, Tate stopped, breathing hard.

She approached his back hesitantly, not wanting to spook the animal that he had become on her behalf.

"Tate?"

She was suddenly enveloped in him, his hands everywhere inspecting for bruises and cuts.

"My God, Vi, are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

"I'm fine, really."

"I'll fucking kill him. I swear to God, I'll fucking kill him." He looked at the yard next door, the murderous gleam from earlier rising up again like a forest fire.

"Please, Tate, please. I'm okay. You saved me. I'm alright."

He turned back to her and looked in her eyes. He cupped her cheek tenderly and she leaned into the touch, not caring that his hands were bloodied and callused.

"Jesus, Violet, I –"

And then he kissed her, deeply and passionately, and the last thought she had before getting lost in the kiss was that she didn't care that she wasn't supposed to do this. She didn't care that she wasn't supposed to grip his strong forearms or pull him closer or let him slip his arms around her waist.

She wanted this.

She wanted him.

The dam had broken.

A/N: And that's the end. Reviews are much loved!