Shattered

Chapter 12: Memories

TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains mention of subjects that may be triggering, including death, violence, human trafficking and abuse. NOT for the faint of heart. It gets dark dark from here on out

Violet's POV:

"I'm never gonna let you close to me, even when you mean the most to me, 'cause every time I open up it hurts. So I'm never gonna get too close to you, even when I mean the most to you, in case you go and leave me in the dirt." – Sam Smith

To say I was embarrassed about hiding from Kaden was an understatement. To say I felt guilty for leaning in to him just to push him away was an even bigger understatement. I couldn't help it. When he got that close to me, I felt more than I had in my life. When I barely touched him and not even him, just his fucking sleeve, I couldn't even explain what happened. I just knew it made me feel too much. More than I thought I ever could feel. It was already getting out of hand playing video games with him because it wasn't like how it was with anyone else. It was just... Easy. When was the last time anything was that easy? I couldn't think of a time in my life someone had ever made me feel that much.

So I hid in my room until they were gone and afterwards had to endure lectures from both Alek and Lola about not pushing people away before Alek left. Why aren't you interested in him? They asked. He's so sweet, why would you not want to at least have fun with him? They asked. But that was the problem. He was so sweet. He was easily the sweetest person I'd ever met and I wasn't about to drag another person into the clusterfuck of a mess my life was. I couldn't promise anything when even my living situation wasn't permanent. If I was to even try to start something with him, it would put him in danger. It was bad enough I was already doing that with Lola and Alek. It wasn't that I wasn't interested in him, it was that I was too interested in him.

Which was why I'd spent the last few hours scouring the internet for him. I had to know who he was and what kind of shit he'd been involved in. I couldn't be that drawn to him and know nothing about him. I didn't know his last name and that may have contributed to how difficult it was to find him, but still. It was strange I couldn't locate him, Xander or Tess anywhere. I thought I was off the grid, this was different.

There was nothing. No social media, no school records except homeschool, nothing about his and Xander's parents. If they served and both died as a couple, I should've been able to find them fairly easily. That wasn't a common thing that happened and would most definitely catch the media's attention since they liked to profit off tragedy. Normally I didn't need to know much about a person to be able to find something but there was nothing.

The longer I looked, the more convinced I became. I was right to feel suspicious about Xander. Something was off about them.

I took Tess's number from Lola's phone and even with that, nothing real came of it. The strange thing was, when I hacked into her cell phone provider's network- one I'd never even heard of- it was under a strange name. BlooMoo Coalition, Inc. A business instead of a personal phone linked to someone named Kane Canmore.

It only got weirder after that. Kane Canmore virtually didn't exist anywhere on the internet either except I found a strange looking birth certificate when I really dug into government records, showing he was born at a family home, in Georgia. Didn't Kaden say he was from Washington?

What was even weirder than that was the fact BlooMoo Coalition, Inc. had no presence anywhere except a ranch, farm, and distillery in Georgia. The land they owned was impressive but not so big it would have as many lines registered to it as I found on their network. There were hundreds connected to that name. Some were DBA's but ultimately all under the same business name. Another red flag. Kane didn't have school records either except some homeschool paperwork sent in and a GED but that was it. Nothing else. No pictures, no course schedule, nothing.