So I decided to update a bit early - I was planning on finishing chapter 3 before updating, but I figured I'm close enough I'd go ahead and update. Thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed/favorited/followed this story so far! It means so much to me.

I'm also still desperately looking for a beta reader if anyone's interested.

I also own nothing; all rights belong to the respectful owners.

Chapter 2:

Tate knew he'd gotten the girl's attention. He'd found her sometimes glancing down at her wrist where the healing cut was with a thoughtful expression on her face. She hadn't done it again since the time he'd caught her.

He waited a few days before approaching her again. As she was walking up the steps after school one day, he stepped out from behind the tree. The other teen jumped, startled, before recognizing him.

"Oh, it's you," she said. "What are you doing here?"

"You know some would consider that rude," he replied. She shrugged.

"You're the one who showed up inside my house randomly."

He couldn't help but let a small genuine smile cross his face. "I live around here."

Which was true - sort of. He didn't technically live anywhere, being dead and all, but he was stuck inside this damn house for the rest of eternity. Not that he was going to tell her that - he had a plan to put into action, after all.

She seemed to accept that as an answer. As if sensing she might be out here a while, she pulled a cigarette out of her coat pocket and a lighter, lighting up the cancer stick with the ease of someone who had been doing it for awhile. The teen glanced sideways at him.

"What, no comment on this being a bad habit?" She asked as she exhaled.

"I've done worse," he told her. Also true. "Mind if I have one?"

She stared at him for a few seconds before pulling another one out of her pocket and handing it to him. He grabbed the lighter from her and lit it, feeling the familiar burn of the smoke entering his throat. He hadn't smoked since a few weeks before his death. The blonde had been planning on getting some more, but hadn't gotten the chance. It felt good to light up again.

He opened the eyes he hadn't even realized he'd closed to find her looking at him. Up close he realized her eyes were a lighter shade of brown than his.

"I'm Tate," he said.

"Violet," she answered.

They sat there for awhile, smoking in silence, when a car suddenly slowed outside the house and began pulling into the driveway. Violet's eyes widened.

"Shit," she said, yanking the cigarette from her mouth and throwing it onto the concrete, viciously stomping it out. "I forgot my dad said he was running to the store this afternoon."

The door was beginning to open, and while Violet was intent on hiding signs of her illegal habits, Tate took that as his cue to vanish back into the basement.

He still had the cigarette in his mouth, he found out. Moira, who was down there doing laundry, glanced at him and simply wrinkled her nose.

"I never understood that habit," the redhead commented. "I assume you got it from Violet?"

The blonde nodded, exhaling. "She's an...interesting girl," he said.

"Do me a favor and don't breathe that over here," Moira advised him. "It's not easy getting the smell of smoke out of clothes, you know. And I just washed these."

The blonde held his hands up in surrender and went off to the opposite side of the basement to finish the cigarette.

Violet turned around from where she had just put out the remainder of her cigarette to tell Tate it'd probably be a good idea to leave, only to find he was already gone. She blinked, wondering how she missed that - surely she should have heard something for him to have disappeared that quickly - but the arrival of her dad tore her thoughts away from the blonde teen.

"I thought you'd be upstairs working on your homework by now," the older man commented, hands full of groceries. "Mind helping me with these?"

She helped carry the remaining groceries inside and put them away. The elder Harmon had gotten various things - enough that they wouldn't have to go out for a couple weeks at least. She knew what he was going to ask next - when she was younger, she used to help him and her mom make dinner - and quickly told him she would be working on homework upstairs.

The teen did some homework, but she decided to put some off for another day. In the grand scheme of things, homework didn't count for much anyway - one thing that stayed the same across the country, it seemed.

Instead she browsed the internet, looking for more music to download. Her iPod was currently softly blaring some The Smiths, and she was looking for some more songs she may have missed from various '80s-'90s rock bands. Not that she had a feeling she'd find any - she had most likely already downloaded all of them.

A sharp knock broke through the music, followed by her dad's voice. "Dinner's ready."

Her stomach growled at that, causing her to realize how hungry she really was. She shut the music off and went downstairs, finding her dad had made spaghetti. Unlike before, he didn't try to stop her from grabbing a plate, but he did call after her when she tried to head upstairs.

"Eat with me," he said. "Please," he added - no, pleaded.

When he realized she didn't immediately storm up to her room, he pushed on. "We don't have to talk. We can just eat."

An internal war waged within her. She did miss their closeness, and it gave her no small amount of satisfaction to see him practically begging her to simply spend time with him, but she didn't want him to think she was beginning to forgive him for everything. Because she wasn't. She didn't know if she ever would.

But...he was giving her such a pleading expression she felt her resolve crumbling. One dinner won't hurt, she told herself.

She turned and followed him into the dining room.

True to his word, the man didn't try to engage in conversation throughout the dinner. The silence got awkward after a while, but neither broke it - even though the dark blonde could tell he really wanted to.

The silence continued as they washed the dishes and put the leftovers in the fridge. She quickly retreated to her room after that.

Immediately she went over to the speaker that connected her iPod, intent on listening to some more before she went to bed - only to pause when the screen lit up.

Violet knew for a fact she had been listening to The Smiths just an hour ago, and yet the screen proudly displayed Nirvana. She was pretty sure she hadn't gone through all of the Smiths songs she had on that thing before she'd left.

Maybe you just hit shuffle on accident, she told herself, removing the device and plugging her earbuds in. She hit play, and let the familiar voices fill her ears as she pulled out a book - she did enjoy a good book every once in while, and she had been doing it a bit more ever since the fights had started. Not that she was going to hear the raised voices, shouting, or even objects being thrown again anytime soon.

She couldn't shake the feeling that someone - or something - was watching her as she laid there, though.

It seemed the more he learned about Violet, the more interesting she became. When she had left to go downstairs, Tate had been unable to help himself and scrolled through the device she used to play her music. It was times like this that he realized technology had come a long way from what he remembered. Not that he would know, being stuck in this house day after day, year after year.

His brows raised as he scrolled through the various bands she had. She had a great taste in music, he'd give her that. Some of his favorite bands were on here, including some he'd never heard of.

He clicked on Nirvana and let it play, suddenly being taken back almost two decades ago when this used to be his room. The blonde had a habit of blaring Nirvana as loud as he could, mainly just to piss Constance off. She despised that type of music, and it just made him love it more.

Adelaide used to come in here, sometimes, drawn by the music and the desire to get away from Constance - to be with someone who genuinely cared about her, not just put on a face while hiding disappointment.

Say what you will about him, but Tate had always cared about his siblings. He knew where Beau was - here, in this house, like him, away from the crazy bitch for good - but he wondered about Adelaide. He saw her, sometimes, sneaking into the house when it was vacant, rolling the ball with Beau in the basement.

Not that he ever showed himself. He couldn't bring himself to, not when they were so...innocent, in everything.

Tate was pulled back to the present by sensing someone coming upstairs. Violet must be coming back. He shut off the music and placed it where he'd found it, vanishing when she opened the door. He lingered, though, invisible.

Immediately the darker blonde went for the music, frowning slightly when she turned it on and found Nirvana on it. But she must have found a reasonable explanation for it, because she simply plugged headphones in and settled onto her bed, grabbing a book off of the side table.

So she was a reader of sorts. The teen had never been one for reading; it had probably been one of his least favorite things to do in school, if he was being honest. He wouldn't have pegged her for one, either, but she was capable of surprising him, he was quickly discovering.

At his next session with Dr. Harmon, the man asked if he had been taking the meds he gave him. Of course he hadn't - they don't do shit for someone who's already dead - but when pressed for an explanation, he told the man it was because he was worried his dick wouldn't work right anymore, because he'd "met someone".

And he had. Not that he was expecting to suddenly fall in love with Violet or anything - she was interesting, yes, but he'd never had a crush on anyone when he was alive and he doubted being dead would magically change that - as the most important thing currently was giving Nora the baby she so desperately craved. Maybe then the woman will stop being so sad all the time.

To be honest, he didn't remember much about the ending of that session. Because he became aware that someone was spying on it - a person he knew was Violet. Sure enough, when he glanced in the direction he could feel the eyes, he saw her peeking around the corner at him. Their eyes met.

She had simply been walking up to her room when she heard her dad speaking to someone in what was now his office (really the living room). A familiar voice answered, and she realized the person her dad was talking to was Tate.

Unable to hide her curiosity, she crept closer, peeking around the corner to see she had a perfect view of the other teen. She stood there, and eventually the blonde became aware she was there because his eyes suddenly lifted to meet hers.

Violet waited until the session ended to corner Tate as he was going to leave.

She grabbed his arm as he passed by and tugged him in the direction of the stairs. Receiving the message, he followed her upstairs to her room.

This was extremely unorthodox, she knew, bringing a boy she barely knew to her room. But she couldn't think of another way to talk to him without her dad noticing.

As soon as the other teen cleared the threshold, she shut the door.

"I couldn't think of another way to talk to you," she admitted.

A brow raised in amusement. " So you're solution is to drag me upstairs into your room?"

"I don't think my dad would be happy about me hanging out with one of his patients," she replied. "Why didn't you stop me?"

They both knew what she was referring to. She'd wanted to know why he didn't react the way typical, normal people did.

"I did it," he answered. "It'd be a little hypocritical of me to try and stop you."

"Did?"

He nodded. "I stopped a few years ago, though." The blonde sat down on the floor and raised the sleeve of his sweater. "I'll show you."

She took a seat opposite him, and they ended up comparing scars.

"I did this when my dad left. I was ten, I think?"

"Last week. I started my new school...sucks" Which you already knew, she added silently.

"Westfield, right? The worst. I got thrown out of there." He said.

"I hate it!" She exclaimed, unable to stop the joy at finding someone she can rant about the hell hole known as Westfield High to from filling her. "I hate everyone. All there bourgeoisie designer bullshit. East Coast was much cooler. I mean, at least we had weather."

"Why did you move here?" Tate asked.

"My dad had an affair," Violet admitted, not entirely sure why she was spilling her secrets to a virtual stranger. Though something told her it wouldn't be hard to be friends with Tate. "My mom caught him in the act, literally. They tried to make it work afterwards but that went as well as you would expect. Eventually they decided to get a divorce and split custody of me. Causing me to move across the country because my dad won rights to the school year."

As she was speaking, Tate got up and wrote something on the chalkboard. 'TAINT'.

Turning back, he said, "That's horrible. If you love someone you should never hurt them."

"Tell that to my dad," she told him bitterly. "And that's not even the worst part! My mom had a brutal miscarriage a few months before that. We had a funeral and everything. I mean, have you ever seen a baby casket?!"

At some point during her ranting Tate had resumed his seat opposite her and reached for her hand.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, and something in his eyes told her he knew about losing a sibling - even if the baby hadn't ever been born.

She quickly realized it was time to change the subject. "Why are you seeing my dad?"

"You already know the answer," the blonde replied.

Violet had a feeling, but she didn't know if it was right or not. She could tell he wasn't going to talk more about matter. She got up and grabbed her iPod, holding it up for him to see.

"Want to listen to some Morrissey? He's cool and he's pissy and he hates everyone and everything," she asked, smiling.

"Got any Kurt Cobain on that thing?"

Before she could reply, a familiar shape filled the doorway of her room.

"What are you doing in here?"

"We were just listening to music, dad," Violet said.

The older man turned to Tate. "You need to leave Tate." He turned back to Violet. "I'm sorry. He shouldn't be in here, and I think you know that...please." The last part was directed at Tate again.

"Dad, nothing- !" She began protesting, feeling a flash of anger towards the elder Harmon. Yes, Tate was one of his patients, but he was the only one she'd met so far that seemed like he could be a friend.

As Tate got up to leave he said something indistinguishable to Ben. Whatever it was, it made the man fix his daughter with a strong look.

"Stay away from him," he demanded. She opened her mouth but he cut her off. "You heard me!"

With that he turned and left the room. As she glared at the door she realized this was the first time she had called him "dad" in months. And he had to go and ruin it - again.

She winced as the cut on her forehead gave another twinge. Leah had some nasty claws on her, she'll give the other girl that. Something told her she had been in fights before - not that it surprised her, given how much of a bitch she was.

Thankfully, no one had been in the house when she got home, and she was able to avoid answering any questions about the cut on her had quickly cleaned and disinfected the cut, heading back into her room - only to find a familiar face already in the room.

"How do you keep getting in here?!" She'd demanded, staring at Tate.

"What happened to your face?" He'd asked, and she found herself telling him everything about the situation with Leah.

"I hate her!" She spat at the end, pacing. Tate had made himself comfortable in her desk chair during the story. "I just want to kill her!"

"Then do it! One less high school bitch making the lives of the less fortunate more tolerable is, in my opinion, a public service," he said. She gave him a 'don't-be-ridiculous' look - she couldn't just kill the girl, no matter how much she wanted to. "Look, you want her to leave you alone? Stop making your life a living hell? Short of killing her, there's only one solution. Scare her. Make her afraid of you. It's the only thing bullies react to," the blonde told her.

"How?" She asked, pausing to face him.

He gave her a grin. "It's simple." And he launched into a plan.

It sounded great but… "She's a cokehead. I don't have coke."

"You don't need any. You just need to get her here - she'll leave empty-handed and terrified. And I can guarantee she'll never bother you again."

"How am I going to do that? Tell her that the previous owners died down there?"

His grin turned malicious. "Leave it to me."

It was ungodly easy to get Thaddeus in on the plan - the Infantana hadn't had a chance to terrify someone in a long awhile. All he had to do was wait for Violet to bring the girl down here.

He took up a spot in the tiny sideroom sitting the rocker, waiting. He was eager for a chance to get revenge on some more 'I'm-popular-and-therefor-better-than-you' bitches - and from Violet's stories, this Leah girl definitely was one of them.

It was shaping up that his plan could actually be fun. The blonde had thought that he'd have to grit and suffer through acting like he gave a shit about the girl in order to seduce her, but Violet was turning out to be far more than he was expecting. She wasn't like normal teenage girls. It was...refreshing.

He heard the basement door open, followed by Violet and another girl's voices.

"I want my goddamn drugs."

"Then keep going."

Violet switched the light on, lighting the small room up with yellow light.

"So this is the coke whore," he said conversationally.

The girl, Leah, frowned in confusion. "Who are you?"

He ignored her. "Get the lights," he told Violet. She gave him a tiny smirk before turning the lights off. He could tell Thaddeus was itching to be let loose.

Focusing, he was able to make the lights start flickering. For added effect he started laughing like a complete lunatic (which some might say he was, he briefly thought) before launching himself on top of the bitch.

"Get off of me! Get off of me!" The girl shrieked, but Tate wasn't on her anymore. The Infantata had taken his place. He moved behind Violet to gauge her reaction - only for her to start screaming suddenly.

"Stop it! Stop it!" She yelled as the Infantata scratched Leah's face. Reaching behind him, she immediately threw the lights on. He had just enough time to appear back in the rocking chair, looking to both of the girls like he'd been there the entire time.

With a fearful look in his direction, Leah ran as fast as she could out of the room and up the stairs, one hand covering her bleeding cheek.

Violet began to run after her, but the other girl was too fast.

"I don't think she'll be bothering you anymore," he said with satisfaction, coming up behind her.

The other teen whirled around on him. "What was that?!"

So she saw Thaddeus. Interesting. "I don't know what you're talking about," he lied easily. "She kneed me in the balls and got away. She must have ran into something."

"I saw something!" Violet insisted.

"It was nothing; you're talking crazy. Look, we showed the bitch!" He attempted to move closer, only for her to suddenly shove him back, hard.

"Get out!" She screeched at him, a hint of fear along with confusion in her voice. "I never want to see you again." With that, she turned and ran up the stairs, leaving him standing alone in the basement.

"I thought you weren't afraid of anything!" He yelled after her.

"Give her time," Moira said suddenly behind him. He had no idea the redhead had come down here - he thought she'd still be upstairs seeing how long it took to seduce Ben Harmon. Which she had apparently made her goal.

"She said -" he began.

"Don't give me that," the older woman cut him off. "We both know you're the only thing she has here even remotely resembling a friend. She'll come back - eventually."

"That doesn't mean anything about me still being able to go through with the plan."

"Then you give her as much time as she needs. Who knows, maybe you might find you enjoy her company."

The implications in the maid's voice registered in his mind. "Are you trying to set me up with her?!"

She didn't respond, instead choosing to disappear.