Chapter Ten
Bitter Ends
'Cause I just can't find the strength
To pull you up and keep you taut
No I just can't find the strength
To hold you up and keep you taut
Hijacked, lost track, light fades another day left
Long shadows lure you in
The more you look the less you see
So close your eyes and start to breathe
Oh, you said yourself this wasn't easy
Oh, you said yourself this wasn't easy
-- Canvas by Imogen Heap
For a moment time slowed, allowing each tick of the detonator and drop of Olaf's blood to stand independently. Violet felt her breathing slow as she blinked at the speed of a crawl. If only this calm, sedate pace could continue…yet, as this thought floated through her mind, time returned to its normal passing and the deluge of delayed panic and dread choked her almost instantly.
She would never know how she managed, in the short time left, to drag Olaf in a bloody smear out of the house to the farthest reaches of the yard, moving as far from the explosives as possible before her arms gave out and she collapsed sideways across Olaf. The man's eyes were closed and she shook him, hoping he was still alive – if only to find out why she herself was still breathing and sound and he was the one bleeding in the dirt.
Inside the house, the detonator's count reached zero and an explosion rocked the street, throwing pieces of debris flying at Violet's hunched figure where she huddled over Olaf. The crashing of splintered timbers and tinkling of falling glass filled her ears as she clung to Olaf and consciousness, her eyes shut against injury and sight of destruction.
Then fire began to devour what was left of the grand mansion and all Violet could think of was the man and his wife, whose fate was to be unimaginably horrific. Her parents had probably died the same way, their bodies drugged or already cold with death as flames consumed them.
At that instant, Violet wanted nothing more than to simply leave the man who had caused so much grief and horror to bleed out on the ground, or far better, to be arrested, tried, and executed for his crimes. It would be simple for her to just stumble away, back to the faraway island where her siblings waited for her return. Yet she owed something to this man, who had saved her in repentance or desperation or some other reason her heart refused to fathom.
As she struggled to decide, Olaf's hand found hers and interlocked their fingers as his eyes flickered open and tried to focus on her. What his eyes found in Violet's seemed to sadden him; she could see him resign himself to his fate. He parted his lips and whispered, "Don't be a fool."
She wanted nothing more, it was all she had desired for so long, but she could not bring herself to rise and run, leaving a man to die alone sustained in her defense, no matter how she loathed him...and yet. She brushed the earth from Olaf's face and studied him for a moment, then rose.
As she stood, Olaf's face fell and he turned from her. A lonely death would be his reward for the suffering he had caused. For killing parents and destroying the happiness of so many children and their families, for lying and cheating and stealing, hell would welcome him years earlier than expected. He could not, in death, run any longer from the shadow of his deeds. Violet turned and stepped away to the noise of ringing sirens in the distance.
Olaf began to panic, drawing painful gasping breaths. Wildly, he thought of his parents and the life he might have had, had they lived to help their son grow into a better man. Was this the pain that Violet had tried, again and again, to make him understand – when she had begged for mercy and an end to the mad chase that had consumed all of their lives? Olaf knew that none of the belated, burning remorse that now poisoned his heart would ever be able to make right his actions but allowed the guilt and repentance to suffocate him in its flood.
A sharp, sudden pain brought tears to his eyes and a cry of pain from his lips. No more of Olaf's life appeared to him as he slipped closer to death, save one moment: the desperate kiss Violet had bestowed, in the hopes that it would bring to Olaf all the realizations that his mortal wound now freely released.
He felt a pull, a jerking movement, and he rose…and saw no more.
---
Bright lights were all he saw when he awoke. With a groan, Olaf realized that the heaven he thought had been denied him for his misdeeds was actually denied him because he was in fact not dead. His waist was swathed in a plaster cast and bandages, and fluids dripped into his veins through a bag tied to the bed. He was alive, and in the hospital – and, he established with an anxious glance around him, alone. Violet was nowhere to be seen.
And, as he also quickly discovered, he was tied to the bed with the kind of padded handcuffs reserved for the mentally unstable.
He seethed until a nurse came in with a meal that looked as if it had already been eaten at some point and then regurgitated back onto the tray. He was left with no choice but to try and bite her hand so that she would cease to try to feed him and leave him the hell alone. Luckily, as he heard her complain to another nurse in the hallway, he was still too weak to be given any sedatives or other mind-altering medications.
He was left with no distraction for the better part of a few hours but to simply stare into space and contemplate his brush with death. Obviously Violet had somehow saved him…those sirens had been some sort of emergency vehicle. He suddenly realized that she could have told them, the police and the hospital and anyone else who had arrived, exactly who it was that they were saving – and would have told them that he need to be chained, to be kept under control. Was he only here until he could be thrown into prison, perhaps executed?
And where was Violet? Had she seen that he was alive and fled, back to the island to be reunited with her siblings? Or perhaps she had only stopped there long enough to tell her siblings that they had to leave their home and run again, run from the man who had stolen their fortune but might seek them again for their lives. Might he do just that: somehow escape, kill those who had betrayed him and left him for dead, find a new crew, and set out again in search of innocent lives to claim? Was he still that man, he who had come so close to death because of the past he had already begun to question when it had caught up with him?
More importantly, did he want to be? Could he believe that after all he had done, all he had to do was simply decide to be the man he was supposed to be all his life – a good man, fighting to save what he loved instead of dooming it? He had thrown himself in front of a bullet to save someone else, for God's sake – wasn't that the act of a good man? Saving someone he loved?
Love. Could it exist, could it breathe through the pollution that clogged his damned soul and find impossible hope? It rested now on another's shoulders to decide if he could be redeemed…and now he knew that he would not resist her attempts to convince him. If she would but return, he decided that was all that mattered, he would do all that she asked…if only she would return and tell him there was still a chance. The memory of that kiss lingered, and gave him hope that if she reappeared she would offer again the chance that he had scorned so many times before.
He waited, listening to the room's caged clock tick away the minutes of his life, studying the shift of the sun's rays through the drag curtains, waiting. He had drifted off into a light sleep, caught between dreams, when the noise of the door creaking open brought him back to consciousness to see Violet standing by his bed, face bruised and tear-streaked. She had changed out of her gown into more somber attire but looked wholly harried and disheveled.
She sat on the edge of the bed, just out of his reach. "The doctor says that you should be fine. They removed the bullet and stitched your wound, but you'll have to stay here for a few days to heal before they'll allow you to leave. You'll be also be in a wheelchair for a while, but…"
She trailed off and looked away from him, playing with a small tear in the blanket.
He tried to meet her eyes again unsuccessfully. "And the handcuffs? Has the law finally caught up to me?"
The fright and shock in her eyes startled him out of his wry humor. "I came to see if you were awake, and to tell you what the doctor said. As to the restraints, I told them that you were frantic with pain and might end up hurting yourself. They don't know who you are, and I'm not going to tell them."
He reached for her hand, and when she saw that she was too far away, she carefully moved so that he could entwine his fingers with hers. "Violet…I know I have no right to ask you to stay with me…"
Never had he sounded so pathetic, lying restrained and wounded and altogether alone. She inhaled and leaned forward, not letting her eyes leave his, almost close enough for her lips to touch his, but then stopped, and moved back, confusion glaring like sunlight from her eyes. "I'll stay with you until you've healed."
His hand tightened in hers, and he smiled with wry happiness, but her next words cut through him as deeply as the bullet that had ripped through his flesh. "But then I'm going to leave, and I'm not coming back. I'm going to be with my family, and you are going to leave us alone."
He closed his eyes and turned away, angry at her and the world but most angry at himself, for driving away the woman who might have cared for him and the life that he had so desired but taken from himself. Violet's cool hand turned his face back towards hers.
"You saved my life, Olaf. You could have just let me die, and kept my fortune at that, but instead you saved me. Why?"
"Because no matter how evil I truly am, and no matter how much I hate the world, you're not just some orphan anymore, you're Violet. And I couldn't let myself watch you die…I care for you too much, I…"
The emotion made his voice raw, and watching the confusion and suffering in his eyes was too much for Violet. "I care for you as well, you know. It's strange, but I do. There's something good in you, I've seen it now."
And they fell silent, each unable to say what they wanted so much to voice or to let themselves feel what hid within their hearts, their hands still entwined upon the blanket.
---
Author's Notes
Not the longest chapter ever, but I wanted to get one finished in spite of how busy I've been with school and work. This is kind of an interlude of sorts, because not much happens but the characters come to a few realizations, and the next chapter or so is set up. Will Violet leave? If she does, will Olaf leave her and the other Baudelaires alone – or snap and go on another killing spree, denying that goodness that Violet has seen in him? You'll just have to wait and see! And don't forget, reviews keep me motivated ;) As do suggestions for what you think should happen next – I love feedback!
Cheers,
Katrina