CHAPTER SIX
something's wrong

"YOU KNOW, I STILL DON'T TRUST YOU," Violet says, raising her voice over the static roar of the sea plugging her ears.

             In the distance, a bird squalls. It is answered by the rush of current crashing against the rocks, the waves whispering in hisses up the shore, dragging along flotsam and pieces of driftwood. Where the overcast sky meets the ocean, the barely distinguishable horizon looms, like a watercolour one drop away from dissolving, something pulled out of a dream. Under her toes, the wet sand sinks with her footprints. There are about a few hundred of them by now, tracking back beyond black rocks and little pools and stretching up the beach. Beside them, Paul's tracks in the sand are a steady rhythm. Except a few feet back where she'd shoved him off course for trying to dump a hermit crab down her shirt.

             Paul scoffs. "Why? Scared I'm gonna push you into the water? Or because you're a slow sprinter?"

             Before they'd left the house, Violet had forced Paul to put on a shirt, to which he'd complied, though begrudgingly and not without a fight. Then, they'd left everything—including their shoes—back in Paul's house, and walked barefoot down the street to the beach. Somewhere, at some point, they'd passed a 'Stop' sign, and exploded off the mark in a race down to the beach for fun and bragging rights. Paul had won. Since then, they'd been arguing about cheating while Violet struggled to keep up with his long strides, only stopping to roll up the bottoms of her jeans when they neared the waves hugging the shore.

              Scowling, she whacks the back of her hand across his chiselled arm. Regret floods her gut when bone-breaking agony explodes in her knuckles and they bounce off without doing any damage, as though Paul was made of stone.

             "Fuck!" Violet hisses, shaking out her throbbing hand. "Did you flex or something?"

             Rolling his eyes, Paul rounds in on her and seizes her aching hand, walking backwards until they slow to a stop. "If you'd stop staring at my muscles for a few seconds—" he smirks when Violet slants him an incendiary glare— "okay, okay, lemme see."

              "I'm fine," Violet grunts, and her heart stutters in panic, guttering like a candle flame, when her sleeve slips down her wrist a little, exposing only the tips of the first tally marks encircling her forearm. She tries tugging her hand out of his grip but he only holds on a little firmer. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to anchor her in place. Warmth sears into her skin as the rough callouses on his palm dig into her fingers, like they're holding a wildfire between their hands. "Paul, I'm serious."

                "Yeah? So am I. Stop squirming, I'm trying to see if you broke anything." His fingers press into the bones of her hand as he speaks. Willing her sleeve to stay put, Violet winces as he presses down onto a particularly sore spot on her third knuckle.

               "Who's your surgeon?"

              Paul shoots her a bewildered look. "What?"

              Violet purses her lips as Paul lets her snatch her hand back. "Muscles like that can't be natural."

               Speaking of, Kit's arm seemed to have the same effect. Hard as rocks. Even avid body builders with monumental muscles that strained against their skin couldn't achieve this solid quality.

                 "Well," Paul says, clearing his throat, features reassembling into a mask of discomfort as he crosses his arms over his chest, "they are. So, like, deal with it."

              Tentatively, Violet gives his bicep a light squeeze.

             Paul slants her an incredulous look.

              "For science," she says, quickly, and refuses to meet his pressing gaze as they slow to a stop where the waves rush to meet the shore and the roar of the sea clashes with Paul's thunderous laughter.

               Freezing water engulfs her ankles, pushing sand between her toes. The wind whips her hair into her face. Beside her, the heat radiating off Paul's body sears into her arm. Violet inhales the salt in the air, the sting of the ocean lingering in her nostrils, and lets go of the tension in her body. Out here, facing the second most terrifying thing in the world, nothing seems to matter. Time becomes nothing, dissolving in the crashing waves and the pulverising force of undeniable insignificance.

                Violet can't remember the last time she'd actually been to this beach. Californian beaches in the summer were oozing warmth and glinting horizons, but La Push is cold, lumpy sand and unforgiving currents, with waters that rage instead of excite and black rocks sticking out like sore thumbs, survived by little pools collect between the awkward lumps. Off to the far end, the cliffs loom in the distance, imposing and immovable figures watching over them, and beyond that, pathless woods of fog and lurking shadows.

                  "Heard you had your first day at school today," Paul says, facing the uncertain horizon. Even though he doesn't ask, she can already hear the question in his tone. That was the thing about Paul. His frankness is so palpable it doesn't even take basic intuition and common sense to know what he wants. Sometimes, Violet doesn't mind giving. Other times, she feeds him squashed up earthworms and he accepts her unwillingness, doesn't press boundaries where he can easily get a mouthful of nastiness.

                 Violet pulls a face. "I hate it. Skipped art to smoke in the bathroom. I never liked school. Like, I'm good at it where I have to be, but if you asked me to run away to some mountainous region to live my life out as a forest hermit in the middle of nowhere, I'd do it in a heartbeat."

              "We could do that."

             "Yeah, and you could build me a house while you're at it."

            "I sense that I'm unwelcome in said house."

             "You can sleep on the rug. Outside. Guard my shoes."

             "How generous of you," Paul deadpans, kicking a little flotsam at her.

            A small smirk tugs at her lips. "I get it from my father."

                 Paul rolls his eyes, turning away, but not before Violet catches the barest hint of a smile. It's gone when he looks over at her again, dark eyes searing into her pale ones. "I just need to know one thing," he says, voice low.

               A seagull squalls overhead, white wings beating against the silver sky. Violet feels his searching stare in her bones, digging deeper than her scars, unearthing the darkness in her brain. As much as she wants to, she doesn't look away. Korchaks don't run from their problems, her father had told her, made sure she realised that no matter how hard life throws her into the gauntlet to beg for scraps, she must grab adversity by the ears and break its jaws in half.

                "I get why you had to leave here for your shiny schools in California," Paul says, in a voice made of flint and steel, "But what I don't get is why you had to turn your back on my sister."

                Violet fights down a cringe.

                 "You know she was devastated that you totally ghosted us all, right?"

                To that, Violet doesn't know how to answer without making every word that comes out of her mouth sound less like a pathetic excuse and more of an explanation.

               So she tells him: "I can't give you an answer without starting a fight." Her voice is steady but the words stick in her teeth and leave a bitter taste on her tongue. She monitors Paul's expression, though. Every micro-movement in his face, every tic of the muscle in his jaw, the slight frown pulling at his lips, the disbelief flitting like a shadow over his features. "But I'm here now. I never wanted to leave. I've done everything I could get away with to come back to Forks, and I intend to set things right. Including whatever I wrecked between myself and Kit. I know you care about her—I do, too—but you'll have to trust me on this. That's all I can tell you."

                It's all in the hard, cruel look he gives her. Pinning her in place, a butterfly under scrutiny, wings trapped under a magnifying glass, searching and searching and searching. He doesn't trust her. Not one bit. Violet doesn't blame him, really. If Wren's best friend up and left without an explanation, no calls, no emails, no word, leaving behind emotional wreckage and too many loose ends left hanging in the wind, until, four years later, they return like nothing's happened, she'd be a little suspicious too.

               "Fine," Paul says, curtly, after a beat of silence, pursing his lips. "Fine. But if you hurt her again—"

              "I won't." Violet cuts him a lethal look, eyes flashing, ice blue clashing with blazing brown. "I know what I'm doing."

              "Whatever."

              "Whatever," Violet mocks, rolling her eyes.

              Paul kicks water at her again, splashing her across the knees, soaking her jeans. Snarling, Violet lunges at him. But before she can throw her fist into his ribs, he catches her by the elbows with lightning quick reflexes and holds her at arm's length. Pinning her arms against her sides, Paul smirks down at Violet, who's more annoyed than stunned that Paul's much stronger than he looks. So much so it's almost impossible to even move. (Later, much later, after she plots his slow death, she'll wonder how it is that Paul's strength seems a little too superhuman to be real.)

              "Try a little harder next time, shortstack."

              "I hate you," Violet growls through gritted teeth, making quick inventory of the switchblades hidden under her clothes. "Let me go so you can fight me, coward."

              Paul scoffs, but doesn't let go. "You should stick to skateboarding."

             "I'll stick my board up your—"

              "Moving on," Paul says, loudly, clearing his throat declaratively. "You never told me how you got into skating."

              Instantly, the world feels a hundred times lighter. Sensing the shift in her mood, Paul shoots Violet a warning look and releases her slowly, as if she might go ballistic again and pull a knife on him.

               Violet cocks a brow. "What about it?"

               "I've always known you were good," Paul admits, scratching the back of his neck. "Don't laugh at me, but I used to watch you, Sage and Kit from my bedroom window while y'all were skating around in our backyard when we were younger. It's pretty entertaining. I'm just wondering, like, how you got into it."

                  An old, dissonant ache throbs in her chest. She shoves the broken piece down into the depths of her being where the rest of her sadness lay, slowly burning like coal, turning into a sharp anger. "Luka got me into it," she tells Paul, because there's no harm in a name, is there? Nothing can hurt you unless you give it the power to, and Violet is slowly learning that just because she chooses to ignore that she's drowning, doesn't mean that her feet will find solid ground. But she holds onto that belief, because it's all she's ever been taught. Korchaks don't cry. Korchaks have all the power in the world.

                      Silence lapses over them, hushed by the lullaby of waves kissing up the shore, swamping their ankles, burying their feet in sand. They both know what happened to Luka. Everyone in town does. That's the problem with living in small towns. Every little thing is everybody's business. A boy gone missing is hard to slip by unnoticed. Even less inconspicuous is the fact that said missing boy's mad little sister has been crying wolf and vampire and tearing her sanity to shambles. It's what got her forcibly extricated from Forks, left to be someone else's business in California.

                 "I used to watch him, you know," Violet says, because even though the good memories aren't enough, they still keep her away from the shark-infested waters of reality. "He'd be skating in our driveway, learning all those tricks and stuff, and I'd beg my mom to let me get a skateboard because I wanted to try it too."

                "And did she?"

             "No." Violet shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest, drawing in a controlled breath. When you can't control your feelings, you try to control everything else. Sometimes, the illusion is enough to get you back on your feet. Korchaks don't let others control them. "She thinks it's a guys' only sport. She wanted me to be more feminine, but... that's just not me, y'know? I've never worn a skirt or a dress a day in my life. I don't like to fuss over my hair and I don't like shopping. I won't ever talk to her about boys or make a big deal out of a small scrape on my knees. We never got along like that. My dad bought me my first board. He told me to fall as many times as I wanted to, just don't come crying to him if I broke a bone being careless. Then Luka started taking me to skate shops where his friends worked, and we'd get boards for free. Luka and his friends—" Callum, Healy, and Parker, who should either be in college now, or still stuck here, working behind the counter at West End Surf and Skate— "would teach me how to do tricks and stuff. When I got good enough to start learning on my own, we went to Tillicum Skatepark. That's where I met Sage and your sister."

                    "That's nice." Paul shoots Violet a sideways glance. "Do you still talk to them? Like, your brother's friends I mean"

              "No," Violet says, and her throat swells itself into knots. "Not since..."

             "Not since brother went missing," Paul finishes for her, nodding in understanding.

           The truth is inevitable. Violet knows this. So why does she have to bite down on her cheek to suppress the involuntary flinch when the truth she'd been running straight towards slaps her flat on her back?

             Luka is gone. A woman with red hair and red eyes and sharp teeth ripped his throat open. Only one thing in mythology could have achieved such a feat. A wolf the size of a large horse saved Violet from suffering the same fate, but in the same vein, it couldn't save what mattered more. Luka could be dead. Luka could still be alive. Nobody knows, and nobody was willing to find out. There had been no body to bury. That woman had taken everything. Luka is gone. Nobody believes this story, nobody thinks there could be a possibility that not everything is as it seems, nobody wants to believe that there could be something dangerous hiding in the comfort of their shiny, suburban paradise. There are too many monsters in this world—werewolves and vampires, shadows that move in periphery, darkness that only grows and grows and grows—and yet the scariest one lives inside Violet's head.

                With uncertainty flooding her eyes, Violet runs her tongue over her cracking lips, and meets Paul's unwavering gaze, and asks the most vulnerable question of all: "You believe me, right? There's something not right about this town. I know what I saw, and I know that these things should be impossible, but they're real. I wouldn't be... like this if it weren't."

             Paul sucks in a sharp breath. Discomfort creases his features, and his frown deepens. "To be honest with you, what you've told the feds does sound like kind of a stretch—"

              Of course. Of course Paul Lahote doesn't believe her. Why had she thought he could be different from the rest? Why did she feel like her insides were withering the moment she'd seen the shift in his expression? How else would he think of her as anything but the mad girl who had to be dragged into the ambulance, kicking and screaming about teeth and women with red eyes and Luka and wolves with black fur?

                A humourless laugh slices its way out of her throat, cutting down to the bone. Violet doesn't miss Paul's involuntary flinch. "You don't believe me."

           "Hey, look, I didn't mean to sound insensitive—"

           "Forget it," Violet snaps, all frost and fury, balling her hands into fists at her side. "I don't even know why I bother."

              Anger flashes across Paul's face, rippling down his body as his shoulders tense. Heat wicks off his skin, more palpable than before, like a sun god she'd incurred the wrath of, ready to evaporate her to nothing with just one look. "Oh, I'm sorry that everyone knows you can't exactly be a reliable witness when you're yelling things that don't exist," Paul growls. "I'm fucking sorry your brother's dead—"

             "Missing. Not dead. They never found a body."

              "Yeah, sure," Paul huffs, annoyed. "But it's a little hard to believe someone who's spouting shit about vampires and werewolves when those things don't exist."

            White-hot anger slashes through her veins, ripping its claws through her ribs, slicing her to ribbons from the inside, tearing its warpath through her ruptured flesh. Pure, unadulterated hatred erupts in her gut, crawling over her skin in a volcanic surge.

              "Fuck you, Paul," Violet snarls, digging her nails into her palms. "Just because you're too narrow-minded to consider the possibility, doesn't give you any right to try to make me look like the crazy girl everyone's so worried about. I was there. I know what I saw. I know that it sounds fucking insane, but it's all real, it happened, and I'm sorry you can still afford to live in this ignorant bubble of yours. Just like everyone else in this fucking town!"

           In frustration, Paul lets out a deep exhale, tipping his head back, eyes cast toward the sky.

           "Vi—"

            "Stop," Violet says, already backing away, shaking with murderous rage. "I've heard enough." The smile slashed across her lips is a knife's edge and every word out of her mouth twists the blade deeper and deeper between his ribs. "I don't know why I thought you're be any different. I should've known you'd be just as disappointing."

            Without a glance over her shoulder, she pivots on her heel and storms back in the direction of the Lahote's house. And in the depths of her mind, even as Paul's footsteps echo behind hers, as he lets her stride ahead, fury boiling her blood and blinding her in violent shades of carmine, something dark and wicked and familiar reawakens.

           —YOU SEE? WHO'S GOING TO BELIEVE A MAD GIRL? YOU'VE GOT NO ONE. YOU ARE ALONE. YOU ARE NOTHING—

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
👀 wyd paul