Slowly, painfully, she stood up to admire her work. With a little work, the faded hardwood floors of the front hall positively glowed. With the windows washed, the fading light streamed through and played across the cherry wood, turning it a rich red-gold. It reminded her of her childhood home, opulence at its old world finest. Of course in a few days it would need scrubbing again-

"Violet! My troupe is waiting for dinner, as usual!" A harsh voice from the kitchen broke Violet's reverie. She sighed.

"On my way." Violet muttered, almost to herself. She quickly unbuckled her shoes to tiptoe across the floor in her stocking feet, ignoring Olaf's demands for faster dinner service.

"Violet, we have a guest tonight."

Esme Squalor in all her carmine glory, sat perched on the edge of the counter, gazing at her own reflection in a pot hanging above the stove.

Nicky sat on the floor, smearing potatoes in his hair.

"Sorry I didn't get to take you for a ride." Violet said as she picked him up. "Later, I swear. Esme, are you eating?"

Esme shook her head, and Violet went about serving the roast beef without much small talk. She was too tired for it, and as usual, the troupe ignored her anyway.

"I heard you want money for Nikolai. Let me hold him." Esme demanded. After a moment of hesitation, Violet handed Nicky over.

"As long as it's going to the baby, I suppose I can spare something. How about five hundred?"

"That'll do." Violet said.

"He's absolutely precious, isn't he?" Esme cooed. "I'll bet he's walking before Christmas, that is, if mommy ever puts him down long enough to give him a chance."

Violet scowled, but said nothing.

"Can't be too careful with babies." Flo said. "They're always going where they shouldn't."

"Like Char-" Flo clasped her hand over Tocuna's mouth before the younger sister could finish her sentence.

"That's enough of this talk." Olaf interrupted. "Any more and I'll leave you all to do dishes."

"Stupid!" Tocuna hissed to Flo, who hung her head and sniffled pitifully.

"I said that's enough. We have a job to do tonight, I want all of my troupe in top form for it. Especially my girls."

Olaf turned back to Violet. "Get the baby dressed. He's old enough to get a taste of what his father does for a living."

"We don't have room!" Flo protested, and Olaf only had to glare at the woman to silence her.

He stood up, pushing himself away from the table.

"Violet, go get the baby dressed. I've lost my appetite completely."

She nodded. "Luca, carry the baby up for me."

Lucafont shrugged, and picked up the toddler in the crook of his arm.

"Upstairs?"

"Of course."

Up the stairs, down the long hallway to the lonely bedroom that housed her son, Violet feeling along the wall for the light switch to make their journey a little easier.

As they rounded the corner into the baby's nursery and set him in his crib, Violet could wait no longer. She pinned Lucafont hard against the wall, pressing her body against his with every ounce of strength she had.

Her hands fluttered up the outline of his body, gripping his shoulders with a ferocity Lucafont has been unaware she possessed.

"We really, really shouldn't be...doing this..." He managed between kisses. "It's an incredibly hot... incredibly bad idea-"

"-Then stop kissing me back, silly." Violet replied as she fumbled for the buttons of his shirt with one hand, and reached out to slam the door shut with the other. "Nobody will find out, it can just be our little-"

A knock on the door broke the mood.

"Violet, is that thing dressed yet? He's tiny, he can't wear that much."

Violet sighed, and released her grasp on Lucafont. "Yes, Olaf. We'll be right down."

"Later." Lucafont murmured, a hint of regret in his voice. "The troupe comes first. Come on."

It was a long, dull car ride.

The car pulled up in front of a ramshackle two story, surrounded on all sides by heavy, overgrown vegetation. Violet squinted to see in the dark. What a miserable place.

Why would Olaf have any interest in this...shack?

There was not much time to think about it. The troupe was piling out of the car one by one, silent. Violet didn't dare open her mouth and ask questions. Violet pulled her jacket tighter around her body and stepped out behind them.

The cold struck her in the face like a slap.

Dead vines and dried leaves crackled under her feet, but Violet got the feeling the owners would soon have a much bigger problem than bad landscaping. It reminded her of a haunted mansion from one of the late night movies she had grown so fond of.

Olaf's hand on her shoulder made Violet snap back into reality.

"Violet, you're on watch duty as usual. Don't let us down."

"Of course." She replied, shifting her son to her other hip.

"Good girl." He kissed her on the forehead, and Violet couldn't help but smile.

As Olaf and his troupe crept around the back of the house, Violet settled down on the step of the decaying front porch, cuddling her son partially for warmth and partially for comfort.

"Are you having fun, love?" She murmured.

Nicky yawned in response, and dug deeper into his mother's heavy jacket.

"Me too." She sighed.

The silence was enveloping, heavy. Violet tried to keep her eyes open, with little success.

She dozed, drifting into a deep and dreamless sleep under the stars, and the blanket of the night sky.

"Olaf, don't do it please I'll give you anything you want just don't-"

BANG!

Violet's eyes snapped open.

Stupid dreams. What a waste of a good nap. But where was...

They're taking too long. Something's wrong.

She laid the toddler down on the steps and stood, stretched and yawned. Her knees hurt. An aftereffect of the cold, and too much floor scrubbing. The moon had reappeared from behind the clouds, somehow making the night seem even more cold and empty. She took a few steps out intro the yard, not daring to go too far from her appointed post.

The sound of branches cracking broke the silence.

Violet spun around her on her heels.

"Put your hands up." Violet said, trying to control the shaking in her voice.

"Just me." A soft voice called back.

Violet instantly recognized the deathly white face staring back at her, and she let down her guard.

"Tocuna?"

Before she could get an answer, Flo and Lucafont appeared.

They were dragging somebody behind them...what the hell? It was...was it the owner of the house? Violet bent down beside him, and her curiosity turned to cold horror.

It was Olaf. He was deathly pale, the only color in his face a splatter of drying red running down his neck and staining his collar.

"What happened?" Violet cried as she unbuttoned her shirt to press against the wound.

"It was Snicket." Tocuna spoke in a quavering voice. "He shot him."

"Where?"

"Once in the neck and then-then in the head, that's when he fell down."

"Let me see."

Violet peeled back the balled up fabric pressed against his neck, and a fountain of blood gushed forward onto her dress.

"Oh God." She instantly pressed her hands against the wound, the hot crimson, soft like liquid silk poured out between her fingers faster than she could contain it.

"Get back!" Esme screamed, knocking Violet away.

"What's the point?" Flo said quietly. "Let's dig a hole before the cops show up."

"Shut your mouth, Flo." Lucafont responded. "He's not even dead yet. I don't think so anyway. Get him in the back."

"Where's Snicket now?"

"Knocked out cold." Tocuna replied as she heaved the body into the backseat. "I hit him with a brick."

"We have to go to a hospital." Esme repeated again, in the same choked whisper. "We have to do something. I won't just let him die."

"No." Lucafont replied. "We can't do that. We'll go home. Violet, you still have those medical books Justice Strauss left you?"

Violet nodded, not daring to take her eyes off Olaf.

"I'm not letting her kill him!" Esme wailed.

"Esme, even if we took him to a hospital what do you think they could do? Look at him, there's fucking brain all over the back seat!"

"We have to try!"

Violet huddled down and covered her ears. She didn't want to hear it. Not that, not the fighting, not any of it.

She never heard Olaf's last breath, or the screams of mourning that followed.

So that was that. It was over.

A hole, about four feet deep and shiny with ice already. It smelled too, as if this was not the first time somebody had met an unofficial burial in this lonely backyard.

What a sad looking grave.

"You should've dug deeper." Violet said at last.

"Can't." Lucafont replied. " It's frozen solid. Took us all this time just to get a few feet."

"It might thaw out in the morning." Flacutono offered, but Lucafont shook his head.

"He's attracting roaches." Lucafont said, as he stomped on one. "Let's just get it over with."

"I should cry or something."Violet commented.

"Just go back in the house." Flacutono replied. "This isn't any place for a little girl."

Violet did not answer. Instead, she turned and shuffled back to the house, kicking up clumps of dirt and regretting the whole damn day.

Numb, she made her way up the stairs, down the long hallway to Nicky's room. He was asleep. Blissfully unaware of what had just transpired.

It would be all right. She would take Nikolai and they would start over, somewhere else. Leave the life of flames behind. It could work. They would finally go see his older sister Charlotte's grave, untended for so many years.

A cold hook against her shoulder made Violet sigh.

"What will we do?" She asked, not bothering to turn around.

"I don't know what you're going to do. But I'm taking my share of the Quagmire fortune and getting out of here while I still have most of my limbs."

"You could come with me and the baby."

Lucafont smiled, and brushed her hair away from her face with one of his hooks.

"In a word...no. Nothing personal."

"So, really, I'm free to go." Violet said aloud.

Lucafont nodded. "If you want. I don't know why you'd stay here, but I don't really know where else you could go."

A soft voice from the doorway coughed, and Violet looked up. It was Flacutono.

"Luca, we're leaving. Taking Esme home."

Lucafont stood up. "I'll come back in the morning. Just to get my money."

Violet shrugged. Who cared?

Her head was starting to pound. She stumbled into her bedroom, rather, Olaf's bedroom, and collapsed in the dusty arm chair that faced the window and the immeasurable night sky. She lay backwards in the arm chair, closing her eyes. It was entirely too much to deal with in one night. She heard the slam of the front door as what was once Olaf's troupe dispersed into the night.

What a legacy. She wanted to sleep. Or something. From somewhere in the house, she could hear a radio playing. Soft and sweet.

You'll be a volunteer... Violet opened one eye.

Don't scream... It sounded so familiar, like something she had heard long ago but forgotten...the radio?Violet sat up.

The world is... no, the radio was broken. Broken?

With some effort, Violet dragged herself out of the armchair. It was coming from her son's room.

"Nicky?" She called out as she reached his door

"Nicky?" The door frame was off. She pushed on it, and the entire door fell with a crash to the ground. Off the hinges.

What?

The window, shattered across the floor...and the cradle...overturned...oh GOD.

The baby.

Gone.

The baby was gone.