It's still light out when she unwinds the tape from his wrists and ankles.

He's out cold and the front of his shirt is stained cherry-red, stuck to the skin beneath it with the filth. Tape free from flesh; it leaves the skin behind shinier and redder than it was before. She doesn't care anymore because she knows the next time she sees him, he'll be good as new. His screams and the way he would tremble under his bindings—it only served to satisfy her for so long.

At the end of the day, she still never made it to age eighteen.

"Where'd you put it?"

"Put what?"

"You know what," he snaps with a look in Violet's direction. This is the first she's seen him since she killed him in the basement. "I mean what'd you do with it when you were done?"

He means the tongue she cut out of him and he's finally grown the balls to approach her about it. He stands a few feet off and he's fine now. Not a scratch on him and the appendage is there, so he's talking again. It makes her want to repeat the action just for some peace of mind for a while.

"I put it in a jar and then stuck it in the fridge." She answers the question like he's stupid and the answer should have been right in front of him.

Violet watches carefully and his hand grips the handle to the fridge and opens it—she's quick to round her way to the other side of the island as well. She's just as curious as he is, though she would never admit to it. She nearly forgot that she'd saved it.

Both sets of eyes hone in on the jar, and it's empty; as if it never even happened.

"What were you going to do with it? If it didn't, you know—disappear?"

"I was going to make you eat it." She's dead serious and she had already planned it all out. She would have knocked him out again, tied him up to the same chair, and then shoved it down his throat—hands clamped over his mouth and nose until he swallowed, or drowned in his own vomit. She's not sure which one would have been better.

"Oh."

She's alone and she's been soaking in a warm bath for almost an hour now.

Staring at tile walls, she twirls a bit of wet hair between her index finger and thumb. She remembers a time when Tate held her and cried in her ear while the room spun and crumpled in on itself in her vision. She doesn't even remember dying and she can't recall seeing a light. A lot of people talked about seeing a light at the end of a tunnel when they have close calls with death. She wonders idly where the light could be coming from, anyway. She hadn't been heading anyplace but where she already was, and the house was a simple prison; it was anything but bright. It was dark and infested with mice and spiders.

She remembers gagging around Tate's long digits down her throat and emptying the contents of her stomach.

Not enough to save her.

She remembers the way he whispered her name and cooed sweet nothings into her ear while she tried to grip the edge of her very life, just before toppling over.

Not enough to save her.

However, she doesn't remember actually falling asleep and letting the world black out, and she feels rather disappointed. How anticlimactic.

Violet lets her fingers trace the shapes of flowers on her bare abdomen. Shallow pooled water follows the movements like ribbon dancers and her honey hues follow the trails idly. The sound of the wood floor creaking just past the door to the bathroom sounds and she knows he's there. He must have heard the bath run and now he's curious. The groaning of the floorboards halts—he's standing right outside the cracked door and he's listening. Tate's gotten very good at picking out the sound of her breath hitching and the way the water sloshes when her back arches.

Just to taunt him, she lets digits slip between her legs, lets her breath catch on her tongue likes she's surprised. She's not surprised and, quite frankly, she's bored. Getting off with Tate listening in through the door will fill her time.

She's not serious at first, not really feeling it and it's mostly just for show, but after a while of tracing rapid circles and then plunging thin fingers into her heat, her breath hitches for real. If she shuts her eyes so hard they hurt and crease her cheeks, she can recall a time that it was someone else touching her. Eyes half-lidded and blond hair messy, sweat on his temple as her legs wrap around his hips; they dig into her inner thighs. She remembers curling her toes into the back of his calves and arching up into him as he fills her up and claims her virginity as his.

Her mind wanders and her fingers curl inside her warm walls—she recreates Tate taped to the chair in the basement again. The way he screams into the cloth of the gag and muscles flex as he tries to free himself fruitlessly. Whines leave the little flower's lips as she touches herself to images of him spitting blood to the basement floor, gagging on his own tongue as she carves it from the cradle of his jaw.

"Tate."

"…"

Silently, he slips into the bathroom, having heard his name, wet on her breath. Her eyes don't open, but she knows he's there and she doesn't have the willpower to shoo him away. She wants him there because sometimes her hand just isn't enough.

But his is.

He's pulling off his shirt and leaning over the edge of the tub to kiss her, larger hand than hers between the girl's thighs to push her own away and fill her up with nimble digits. It's enough and at the time it's okay because she's needy and her lips are chapped from chewing on them—she knows she'll be angry later. She'll want to kill him; she'll want to kill herself. He touches her and his eyes never close; he watches her face and his brow knits like he's cradling someone who's crying, not working their way towards orgasm.

"Violet."

"Stop."

He obeys and his fingers stop moving, so Violet cants her hips into the heel of his hand, a groan in protest. "I didn't mean that—stop talking."

"Oh."

He's doesn't kiss her anymore, because she doesn't seem to like it, he's just watching as she writhes in the water and digs her nails into his arm to leave red crescents behind. Jaw set and lips pursed—he's quiet and he's nearly holding his breath like a prisoner in his chest when she arches and whines; velvet walls hug his fingers and flutter like butterfly wings in a thousand crescendos as she peaks with a tiny gasp. He remembers what her climax felt like around his own arousal years ago.

He doesn't know what to do, or what to say when she opens her eyes and pushes his hand away from between her legs—like a slap on the wrist for ever having walked in on her in the first place. She looks at him as if she's sizing him up for a fight, or as if she's wondering what to do with him at all. He's still breathing heavy with arousal and his cock is straining against the zipper of his jeans, but he's filled with a sudden fear, mostly because he knows she has thoughts of shoving his face in the tub until he fills his lungs like water balloons.

"I died in this bathtub."

Her words elicit a look from Tate—he eyes her as if she's just said the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard. It was true, but he has nothing to say. He can only stare at her and wonder why she's brought it up all of a sudden.

"You shoved your fingers down my throat… you were yelling my name over and over again. You kept telling me I was going to be okay because I didn't even really take that many. Told me to keep my eyes open," she continues and her gaze is locked on him, accusing now. "Why did you lie?"

"About what?"

"About the pills, you shit-head. You kept telling me that I didn't take that many and that I was going to be okay." She's angry and it's clear in her stare.

Tate doesn't know what to say and he's not really sure why she's questioning him all of a sudden. "Because I didn't want you to be afraid."

"But you knew I was going to die."

"…"

Violet's gaze lingers for another moment, before she stands up—water falling down the dips of her body to make a jump down towards the tub once again. She steps aside him and onto the tile floor, wrapping a towel around herself, before walking out of the bathroom and leaving him alone to his thoughts once again.

"Do it."

"No."

"Please?"

"No—cut it out."

"Fuck you," she spits the words angrily because it's no longer a game; no longer a ploy to make him squirm. She's already achieved that and now it just feels like he's reprimanding her.

She's been trying to hand over the small X-ACTO blade for the past ten minutes now, begging like a whore on her knees for the male to slit her throat. The whole time, a smirk has been plastered on pillow-soft lips and he knows just why she's doing it. She's torturing him and she wants to get him angry. She wants to see the half of him that secretly scares her; the monster part of him that he stuffs down deep. She wants to see the side of him that smashes Hayden's head into the brick wall of the basement when she's running her mouth; the side of him that took three weapons into a high school and killed fifteen kids.

"Stop it, Violet," he snaps and there's an anger there that wasn't in the room a few seconds ago.

"Do it and I'll stop. I might even forgive you—you never know."

"I hate you." He's never said the words before now and there's a fire in his eyes that convinces even himself that it's true.

It's okay because she hates him too. The three words don't upset her and they hardly even surprise her. In fact, she seems pleased with the confession; like she's waited years to hear it. She has.

Violet brings the blade to her own neck and slices fast and deep—blood pouring from her jugular and painting the front of Tate's shirt, warm and red.

"You know, I bet you have this idea that you're being clever. In trying to piss me off, I mean." His voice is like the slow, soft rumble just before a storm erupts and rips trees right from the earth. He's sitting at the kitchen table and he's staring down at her. Violet's in a pool of her own blood, but her neck is without a scratch and good as new—her vision is coming back in patches as she wakes up from an artificial death.

Besides the fact that the sight of her in bright red is one that makes him want to fuck her stupid in the mess, he finds her quite beautiful this way. Beautiful, but infuriating and he wants to slap her for slitting her throat right in front of him.

"You're being a petulant child. You can kill me as many times as you want—kill yourself in front of me however you like; it won't change what you are and what happened." His voice is cold and mean.

"Fuck you."

"Fuck you right back."

"Why don't you?"

The question makes him go quiet and his eyes go round like saucers, before they squint at her. He doesn't know what she's playing at and he's fairly convinced that she's not even so sure, herself anymore. She just plays mean to hide away her bitterness—she says things that catch him off guard just because she likes the reaction.

However, she looks serious this time.

"It's because you won't take what you want. You're too afraid to try anymore," she says, and now he's the one that eyeing her with spite in his gaze and knuckles wound white as he forms fists with his hands. "You're afraid of being told to go away. You're too chicken-shit to be who you really are because you're afraid I won't like you."

"Stop it."

"I've got news for you, Tate; I don't like you. In fact, I don't think I've ever put so much energy into disliking someone else in my entire life, but you deserve it," she sneers, and she's still going on, trying to piss him off further, and it's working.

"Stop it, damn it!"

"Fuck you, Tate. You wanted to be the one to drag the blade across my throat and you know it."

She's still seated in the pool of her own blood and her final statement alights his eyes with a fire; anger she hasn't seen in a long time. It takes only a few seconds for him to clear the room and end up on his knees, at her level and right in front of her with flared nostrils and angry breathing. Violet holds his gaze and doesn't dare break it, like staring into an angry bull's eyes while wearing all red.

And then he kisses her, because maybe he did want to be the one holding the blade that split her skin. Maybe he just wants her to shut up for once.

Violet is on her back in a second and he's nudging her knees apart to fit himself between—lips trailing open-mouthed kisses down her porcelain neck to the base where tendons meet in the middle at her collar bone. She's not resisting; in fact, she's canting her hips up against his leg that's wedged in between both of her thighs—his hands are skimming up the sides of her and cupping breasts through the fabric of her shirt that's still wet and clinging with the maroon of her own blood.

"No—"

"What?"

"Your mouth instead, I mean..." Her voice is hushed and it's like a hum hallelujah to his ears.

He complies; leaning down to nip at the visibly hard bud in the middle of her breast through the shirt—the taste of metal on his tongue; it makes him want to lick all the red off of her and hear her purr out filthy, dirty things. He tries to dip a hand under the hem of her shorts, but she shoves his hand away and works at his belt; undoing his jeans instead and pushing them down mid-thigh to allow his hard and heavy arousal freedom from the bindings of clothing.

She doesn't want foreplay and the look in her eyes is serious when she shimmies and shifts out of both her shorts and underwear.

"Come on," she hisses, wrapping legs secure around his waist and pulling him in so his cock rests against the juncture between her heat and her thigh—dull and aching. He's never wanted to tear her apart and break her down so badly before and it scares him.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, stop being a shit-head and fuck me."

That's incentive enough for him, and he reaches between the two of them to position the crown of his shaft just at her need—and when he angles his hips forward sharply and fills her up with one swift motion, Violet whines and drags nails across his shoulders.

"Ow—"

"Sorry."

"No you're not."

"No. I'm not." And he's not, because he knows she'll get over it and he felt a lot worse when she clubbed him over the side of his head with a baseball bat.

A hiss in frustration when he thrusts into her again and the force slides them up the surface of the floor; slick and slippery with the blood of her split jugular earlier. However, she finds that if she keeps her ankles locked behind his back and arms behind his neck, she can ride out the momentum of his pushes and return right back with the soft slapping sound of skin and a wet whine on her breath.

"You're so tight." He's groaning and his hair is hooding his eyes as he lets his gaze fall for a moment to watch the place where he enters inside her and then pulls back out.

"Shut up."

"No."

Now he's elicited a grin on her lips as honey eyes stare up at him. Winding her hand back and rounding it off, her palm collides with the side of his face with a light crack—not hard enough to really hurt, but enough to make dark eyes dilate and a low growl to rise up from deep in his throat. She wants him mean and she wants him rough. She doesn't want to be babied and he can recognize it in her stare; it brings his hips to slam forward into hers with a force that pushes her up the floor beneath them once again, the squeak and squeal of slippery blood sounding around them.

When Violet comes hot and wet around him, she gasps and arches like she's been underwater for years and she's just now surfaced to fill her lungs with air. Tate doesn't stop even with her walls are fluttering like a dying heart; and when he's close, he tries to pull out, but her legs hug him to her like a stubborn vice.

One, two, three more pushes and the throb of his orgasm washes over him like a cold shower—muscles pulling and shaking below his flesh as his neck tenses and he fills her up with hot ribbons of his release.

They stay like that and bask in the afterglow for only a moment, fighting to catch their breath and steady their thoughts, before Violet presses palms to his chest and pushes him away. It's done just as quickly as it started and she slips on her underwear, not bothering with the shorts, before heading back up the stairs to probably take another bath.

He's not sure what she wants to wash off more; the blood, or his touch. He doesn't care.