Don't own it; never did, never will.

(Sorry for the wait!)

CHAPTER 18: He Tore Me Apart Because I Really Loved Him

-O-0-o-0-O-

"I knew right then that she'd been abducted, I knew right then that I would be taking her heart, I knew right then that I'd never love her; no reasons and hope, no dream was bliss from the start…"

-Cults, 'Abducted'.

-O-0-o-0-O-

The air in The House was stagnant, much like the tenants within.

Her mother had always done her best to keep the windows open on sunny days, and to light cleanly-scented candles in the hallways. Yet despite Vivien's best efforts, she never managed to alleviate that ever-present heaviness which seemed to have settled in the walls.

To the living, it was an uncomfortable clamminess which rested just above the skin, like the air right before a storm; when the wind picked up, the skies turned a mottled dark grey and a rumbling could be heard off in the distance.

To the dead, however, it was the heavy burden of having to face themselves and all of the things they'd dine forever. Every dirty secret, every lie. Every bloody knife stashed under a mattress. Every body buried in the backyard.

Some of them relished in it, reliving every filthy moment of everything they'd ever done, recalling the things that they'd done while they drew breath and when they didn't like fond memories. They rejoiced in their darkness, in their resentment, in their hatred.

Others tore away at themselves bit by bit, feeling every inch of their guilt and shame.

Violet had decided very early on in her death that she didn't want to be either of these types of people. She refused to believe that her only options were to become psychotic or pathetic.

The former were delirious in their deaths; drunk off of their achievements, be they good or bad. The latter were like the dogs rescued from abusive homes; cowering away from every living thing until they felt threatened, lashing out violently.

Neither were even close to viable.

For Violet, this sense of having to choose between Heaven and Hell wasn't even an option. This was Purgatory. Not good. Not bad.

Mostly a product of self-perception.

She decided that she didn't want to perceive herself at all.

She was a ghost.

Ghosts can't be perceived at all, by themselves or by others. Ghosts don't have overinflated egos, or self-confidence issues. They don't get to wish that they'd died after the zit on their chin went away, or to announce that they're they greatest thing since sliced bread.

The whole point of being dead was that no one had a hold on her.

The law couldn't persecute a corpse. The dead didn't file taxes. People who'd died didn't foot the electrical bill.

No one but that fucker staring at her through the staircase's rungs, knees drawn up under his chin and his fingers gripping the rungs of the railing loosely. His black hole eyes were glazed in what she assumed to be tears.

Crocodiles can cry, but they're also known for biting off limbs like a hot knife through butter.

He was very much a reptile. Cold-blooded. Hidden in plain sight. Lurking. Waiting.

Hunting.

"She's right, you know."

The sound of him speaking was beyond unwelcome. His voice was loud for once, echoing about the large space of the main entrance rather than adopting the controlled sort of quiet tone he'd used to lie to her.

Her expression went from angry to acidic. Disdain dripped from her every pore as she parted her sneering lips and snarled.

"About what?"

Gripping the rails more firmly, he dragged himself upright. His face was passive in an empty sort of way as he wiped away the tears beginning to collect in the corner of his eyes with his long sleeves

If she could label him as anything in that moment, it would be 'detached'. That was abnormal; a deviation from the overbearing jealousy or blinding rage of the usual. Those were his usual. Those, or his plastic charm.

More plastic than a slice of American cheese.

Disgusting.

"You should be angry at me", he continued, slowly heading down the stairs, one step at a time. He let his hand trail down the railing as he descended smoothly and without hesitation.

"Only at me."

"And tell me why in the fuck I should listen to a goddamned thing you say?"

A faint smile rose to his lips. A grin etched in cellophane.

"Because for one of the first times since I met you, when I open my mouth to speak, I intend to tell you the truth. So go on, get mad. Get mad at me, take whatever kind of revenge you think might be appropriate against me and move on. Get mad at me and deal with it."

She had never wanted to punch him in the face more than in that moment.

Because what right did he have?

This wasn't his choice. He had no idea what it was that she was feeling. She didn't even know if he could feel.

Smug, self-assured sonnovabitch.

He has no right. He never had the right to anything that he took from you. You never gave it away. He just took and took until all that was left of you was loss.

She clenched her nails into her palm, certain that she was drawing that black sludge that had once been blood from her broken skin. It congealed around her fingertips, staining the bruised extremities an unhealthy wine color. A blob fell to the oak floor with a heavy splat.

No, you're wrong.

This was a different part of her that spoke up; muffled behind the wall she'd drawn up around it like an improvised quarantine zone. The part of her that had gotten her into this mess in the first place.

He didn't take everything.

Just as she began to end that line of thought and deny what it had just implied, that part of her continued to speak.

He took almost everything. But your heart; that part of yourself you gave away of your own free will. And you gave it gladly. Don't deny it. Don't lie to yourself.

Not again.

"You fucking idiot."

That got his attention. His gaze sharpened through the film of impossible tears that he'd produced in an effort to gain everything that he couldn't feel from her; sympathy, empathy. She had his full attention.

His full attention could be dangerous.

"I'm mad at myself. Stop making everything about you. This isn't about you anymore", Violet continued, shaking her head. Her death faded until she had nothing left to protect her. Nothing left to hide behind. She was just Violet now.

"I'm the one who was too stupid to notice it before. I'm the one who let herself be drawn in and caught. You're not the hunter. You're the fucking fox trap. Do you get it yet, you fucking tool?"

She was yelling at this point, her face crumpled in sheer frustration in a mirror image to the heart that had once beaten for him. And all he did was stand there at the foot of the stairs, his attention undivided; focused on her and her anger.

"I let myself fall for you. I gave into something that I didn't even really understand. I took the bait and you fucking reeled me in, like I was a dumbass fish too stupid to not go for the shiny hook. And the worst freaking part of this is that you didn't understand it either."

She paused, drawing in breath after breath in quick succession as if she still needed oxygen. As if she could still survive.

"I did, Violet. I knew exactly what I was doing."

He'd finally moved from his position by the stairs, appearing a solid three feet away from where she hyperventilated in the front hall.

He doesn't even know how much danger he's in right now. He doesn't know how little it would take for me to just snap. Like my corpse's fingers.

I could break him. So easily.

But then I would have to break too.

Violet was angry. She was frustrated, ready to scream, to curse, to cry.

Mostly, Violet was tired.

But that didn't mean that she wasn't about to give in to those other things that she was.

"NO, YOU DIDN'T!"

Her raw, ragged shout echoed throughout the entirety of The House. She could feel the walls vibrate with it, the floors creak and the inhabitants shift about nervously.

For just one moment, she and The House were the same. They wanted the same, felt the same and would do the same.

It didn't last.

"I didn't fall in love with you, you fucking jackass!"

There was a pause, a beat in her tirade that she allowed to stretch on for effect. She allowed that silence to tear at him, to rip at him with fervor. She allowed herself a few seconds of selfishness. It was all that she could spare.

"I didn't fall in love with you", she repeated, her voice quiet. Her face had gained a layer of frosty indifference. "I fell in love with the darkness that I thought I could see in you."

His eyes were red-rimmed once again, and he looked as if he'd just lived through a heart attack. His face was the color of concrete and his lips a shade of white only accomplished through thorough and continued bleaching. They were parting, as if to rebuke her previous statement.

She wouldn't allow that. Couldn't.

Or else he'd never understand what she'd done. The mistake that she'd made.

"You're not the darkness. The darkness only surrounds you. You use it to make yourself seem justified. But really, Tate, the darkness doesn't need any justification. Not ever."

His mouth closed.

"I think that I really pitied you more than anything."

"No."

His voice was strangled, as if he was truly crying for once. He remained that unhealthy tone of grey, his fingers clenched into fists and shaking; trembling like the leaves in fall that she had once missed so much. But his tone was just as crushing as a palm frond landing on the hood of a Beemer. It was heavy, and it left a dent.

"No, please, Violet. Don't do this."

"I'm telling the truth, Tate", she retorted, her sharp tone cut through his protests like steel. "The fact that I've only just fucking figured it out doesn't make it a lie. I don't think that I ever really loved you."

"But I did. I loved you."

She snorted, tossing her hair like an angry horse. "Please. Psychopaths don't feel love. That's a fucking fact. It's one of the things that distinguish them from sociopaths. They just know how to fake it is all."

"I loved you", he repeated, his tone resolute as he took a step forward. "I still love you."

"Liar."

"I love you." Another step.

"Liar." Another step. He was only a foot away at this point, far too close for comfort. But she couldn't bring herself to retreat once again. Not after her victory in her bedroom, not after everything that she'd just said.

She raised a tiny clenched fist, ready to pummel him away. "Liar!"

He caught her wrist in his hand, holding it firmly before it could make an impact. "I love you."

This time, her response was the barest of whispers. "Liar."

"No", Tate continued, his grip solid. "Everything I did for you was selfish. It was really for me. For my benefit. Because you were mine, Violet. You belonged to me. And I loved you."

"No!" she cried, yanking herself away from him, stumbling backwards. "You don't get to say that, you didn't own me! You didn't love me!"

"But I did. I loved you. I owned you; you were mine", he countered, his face twisting with frustration and resolve. "You belonged to me, Violet!"

"No!"

He made his way towards her, continuing even as she scuttled away until she reached a wall and, in her panic, forgot how to disappear.

His eyes were burning with rage. She knew that if he had to, he would make her admit to it; that she was nothing more than a possession, an object in his eyes.

Tate stopped just short of her and, to her surprise, crumpled in on himself, collapsing to the ground in a curled-up mess of what had once been her killer. The anger was gone from him, as if evaporated and replaced by nothing but a tired desperation.

He looked ready to surrender.

"You belonged to me, Violet. I can't feel love for people. You had to be mine, because it's the only way that I could ever love you."

Oh. Oh god.

Oh god.

Violet looked into his eyes, opened her mouth to speak and threw up onto her own lap.

Oh god.

She was so disgusted. He had to justify feeling by appropriating her as an object. A possession.

This was beyond unhealthy. It was sickening. It made her feel as though his words had carved holes through her and were wriggling under her skin as maggots were surely doing to her corpse as she sat in the front entrance, vomit on her dress and her murderer at her feet.

And then the front door opened, and she regained her senses momentarily; long enough to make herself invisible to the people filing through and into the kitchen, holding platters covered in plastic wrap and hauling in folding chairs.

It was only when the large framed picture of herself- an image from before the move in which she was sort of smiling- came in that she finally realized what was going on.

Holy fuck. They're actually freaking holding the wake here.

Those fucking idiots.

Remembering the reason why she was there in the first place, she glanced back at Tate. Or rather, the place he'd been lying before he vanished into thin air, as ghosts were prone to doing.

Sighing in defeat, she realized that she'd have to push back the surging emotional meltdown which was sure to happen in the near future to the back of her mind. With a thought, she was no longer wearing the contents of her stomach, and she had moved to the living room to watch as distant relatives and family friends of her parents' set up her memorial.

She was damned if she was going to miss this. This was a once-in-a-lifetime (well, not really) opportunity.

She'd get to attend what was essentially her own funeral.

Well. Her own funeral's after party.

But she wouldn't miss this for anything. Especially not that tangled mess that had just been aired for the first time since she'd had a heartbeat.

-O-0-o-0-O-

Her parents were nowhere to be seen.

Vivien, she could understand. Her mother was probably too strung out on sedatives to speak, let lone attend her only child's wake.

But Ben…

Well, she understood that too. He was a prick.

Her relatives milled about, transmitting gossip disguised as small talk about her family's current state. The only part of that that she minded was that she couldn't join in, on account of being dead. She understood the ramifications of appearing before them all and making ghost sounds as she was so tempted to do. People would freak out, the police would be called again and she would never be allowed to rest in freaking peace again. The House would be turned into a tourist attraction or a quarantined government experiment, and she'd come across more people screwing and snooping around in her House.

It was too bad that she couldn't risk snagging any of the refreshments. Aunt Jo baked a mean brownie.

There was a speech, conducted by her mother's mother about 'how lovely and sweet' she was, followed by her Uncle Ron reading an excerpt from an obscure poetry book about the beauty of heaven.

Yuck.

But it only got really interesting about halfway through the reminiscing that her dad's psychologist friend, Paul, was doing of the first time that they'd met; something about her kicking him in the shin.

Because halfway through, Constance Langdon had slipped almost unnoticed into the room, for once not attempting to make a scene.

Almost unnoticed. Only Violet had seen.

Violet, and a seething, very dead Tate, standing by her side and emanating pure loathing.

-O-0-o-0-O-

I AM SO SORRY.

This literally took me so much longer than I was anticipating, partially due to me having 8 classes and working this semester and mostly because of sheer lack of inspiration. I hate writer's block. Hate it with a fiery passion.

Also; you guys have been so supportive! Thank you so much for the feedback, which has been the catalyst in me finishing this chapter :)

Readers/favorites/alerts: Love you guys xD

Reviews:

jandjsalmon: She won't be giving in easily, you can bet on that ;D a girl's room is her palace, and Tate is in dear need of a good scolding.

TheFault-inOurMinds: Thanks for the love xD you're awesome too, and it's great to hear that you like the story so much :D

camwrites15: You are a machine for managing to do that, and I admire your dediction to AHS :) Thank you!

Starsaroundmars: Here you are!

littlexkiller: Thanks xD Hope you enjoy this chapter too.

Guest: I'll do my best to keep writing more often, I think that my writer's block has finally passed :D I should be posting more often now.

Thankyouthankyouthankyou for all of the wonderful feedback that I've received, it's really helped in the writing of the chapter!

Merida, out.