CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Violet didn't know why she hesitated. Putting off finding the dead bodies of Vincent's family didn't make them any less dead. Yet she still avoided the stairs. She didn't want to deal with seeing her dead friends dead loved ones. She was tired of death. There was too much gore and debris. Too much suffering and sadness. Living like this seemed foolish. They were all going to die. The realization hit violet like a truck. She would never be done running, never be done fighting for her life. There was nowhere really safe. These infected beasts were going to hunt her down until she was dead.
She watched the human with a decent amount of curiosity. The human didn't seem inquisitive anymore. She seemed saddened. She could smell the panic coming off the human and was confused. There was no danger. Her common brothers and sisters hadn't noticed them and none of her special siblings were around. She slowly followed the sad and anxious human up the stairs.
Violet got to the top of the stairs and pulled out her sledgehammer. It was a little ungainly but it was quieter than her pistols and wouldn't alert every infected in the area to their location. She wouldn't be caught unaware. This may be a never ending fight but she wasn't tossing in the towel just yet. She had a baby to take care of. Despite her light frame, her footsteps echoed loudly in the empty hall. She walked over to the bathroom and was delighted to find a fully stocked medicine cabinet. She had been out of antiseptic for two weeks and here was a full bottle!
After loading up on supplies from the bathroom she headed over to the next door on the left. Inside was a mostly undisturbed bedroom. Such a sweet little bedroom it was too. A large canopied bed stood in the center of the room, up against the back wall. Worn dressers and nightstands stood on either side. Like all the other rooms she had encountered the walls in this room were barely visible behind all the family photographs. Vincent and his wife's images smiled brightly from the frames, their deep love completely evident. While posed, the photos weren't forced. They leaned into each other's embrace so happily Violet felt, yet again, a twinge of jealousy for having never achieved that kind of joy. She had never been even half as happy as thee people obviously had been.
The human was staring at the walls. So she did too. There were images on the walls, all of the same humans. She stared long and hard at the male in the pictures. She knew those eyes. How did she know those eyes? She froze as she heard a high pitched buzzing and heard a far off voice. "Ms. Bryant? Are you listening? Ms. Bryant? Eye contact isn't everything…."
She shook her head. The voices seemed to be coming more frequently, and she didn't particularly enjoy it. None of it made any sense. And it disrupted her concentration. She needed to pay attention. Her mate would be angry if she didn't pay attention and something happened to their human. She needed to be on constant guard. The human was intelligent but she didn't have the superior abilities that were necessary to be top predator.
Violet looked over every detail in this small room, trying to make sense of what could have happened to the family that had once resided here. She saw no signs of violence whatsoever, even though she knew for a fact that when someone turns, especially into a Special, the area around them is splattered in gore and torn apart. From what she had seen the mutation was a horrible occurrence, painful and took up to three days. Vincent must not have changed here. He couldn't have. Everything was too pristine.
She was so absorbed in her thoughts she almost missed an incredibly ordinary object. On one of the nightstands, a cell phone sat, plugged into the charger. She crossed the room quickly and tried to turn it on. But as she expected, the battery was dead. This house didn't have electricity. She wasn't really sure how her sanctuary still had power but she was going to take this phone and charger home and power it up. It probably wouldn't offer her anything but old pictures. But it was important she had all the information and pieces to this puzzle she could. She wasn't sure where this unhealthy obsession had come from but she figured it was better than falling into deep depression over the impossibility of their situation.
The human was picking up a small flat box connected to a black string. She inched forward eagerly. She liked this flat box. She wasn't sure why, but she knew she was delighted with that small thing. She snuffled happily at the box until the human gave her a strange look. She backed away and lay flat. She lay frozen on the floor, feeling a strange sensation she had never felt before. She hissed out a warning she wasn't even sure of. She wasn't sure why but she knew something very bad was happening and she knew she could do nothing about it.
Violet watched as the hunter spread eagle, flat on the floor hissing like mad. What on earth was she doing? She shook her head and headed downstairs. It was time to go home. She and the small hunter moved swiftly down the sidewalk and the hunter's low continuous growl wasn't lost on her. What had gotten into her? She was acting so strangely. Her odd behavior became acceptable as the neared the sanctuary. Something had overturned cars, tore through buildings and if she wasn't mistaken, chunks of concrete had been torn up. Had there been a freak storm? What the hell?
She arrived at the sanctuary and could have wept. Something had torn right through the front of the house. There would be no way to repair this. What the hell could have done this? How had this happened? What was she going to do? She and Estelle were sitting ducks! It was getting dark and she had nowhere to bunk down for the night. She walked through the gaping hole that had formerly been her wall and went about collecting whatever important supplies she could salvage and carry amongst the rubble. She looked down as the hunter tugged at her tank top. She growled and whimpered and pointed awkwardly. She seemed to want violet to follow her. Violet shrugged. Why not? It's not like she had anywhere to be. She trudged heavily after her hunter, wondering where she was leading her. She heard Estelle sigh unhappily from her back and instinctively cooed softly back. For some reason she trusted this hunter to lead her and her daughter to safety. The world had truly gone crazy.