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CHAPTER EIGHT *JULIAN*

A living death. That's what grief this deep feels like. I haven't worked since Noah was taken. Instead, I spend my time calling and harassing the police. And always, the answer is the same: nothing, nothing, nothing. After that, I usually go back to bed. Violet and the Uncles show up, feed me whatever they think I'll eat, clean the house, stand over me wringing their hands. They don't seem to understand that nothing matters until I get my baby back.

It's different this time. It's not like the sadness I felt when Everly left. It's so much worse it's incomprehensible unless you're in it. I can't describe it except to say that I am dead. Andrea- oh, who, by the way, died in 1974 so, yeah, not even Andrea- has stolen the only thing I had left. Now I have nothing. I am nothing. I am this huge void. I know there's no overcoming it this time. No fix, no distraction, no cure for what I have.

Violet has tried all of her old tricks. The begging, the sincere tears- and I just can't get my legs underneath me. I can't find the energy to feel a thing. Everly left, I had hope that she'd find happiness. Everly disappeared, I had Noah to hold it together for. Noah is taken and I am out of things to pull me upright.

My depression is so vast, it stuns even me.

It is June. Noah has been missing for almost 3 months.

At the one month mark, my phone pinged. I roused myself from deep under the blankets to find a photo forwarded to me from an unknown caller. Before I even opened it, my stomach iced over. My phone was always in my hand then, waiting for any news. Any news at all.

When I opened the message, I sat up so fast my head spun. And then spun again when I saw what was sent to me. The accompanying message: "The end. You lose."

"Violet!" I shouted. I actually wasn't even sure she was there, but she seemed to be there all the time. I stared at that picture and moaned in anguish.

In it, Everly lay bruised and battered, bleeding from her nose, blood on her lips. Her tshirt was torn.

Vi appeared.

"What's wrong?" I held out the phone and started to shake.

"They killed her, Violet. They killed Everly." My sister looked at the image, dropped the phone on the bed, climbed in to take me in her arms.

"You don't know, Julian. You don't."

It was coming. I could feel it. The official breaking point. The rage, surfacing after all of that time.

"Go away, Vi," I warned. I pushed her back, rose to my feet. I was so full of hate and anger and fury, I could not possibly hold it in for one more minute.

"Julian," she whispered. And then it blew. I grabbed a lamp, shattered it against a wall. Lifted a chair, slammed it through the window. The baseball bat came in handy at last- it destroyed a tv, picture frames, the mirrors in the bathroom. The entire time, I was screaming, just screaming at the top of my lungs.

"Julian!" my sister begged, crying in the hall.

"You Goddamn mother fucking bitch! I will KILL you!" I roared.

I screamed and ruined until my bedroom and bathroom were unrecognizable. Then, I collapsed amid broken furniture and glass, looked at Violet dully.

"Call the police. Tell them they're too late for Everly."

That was mid-April. Since then, I've been sleeping on the couch. Even though Vi and the Uncles fixed the master bed and bath, I don't want to be up there without my family any more.

Twice in the last month I have sat at the kitchen table with my handgun loaded and placed flat in front of me. Twice I have picked up that gun, held it to my temple, shoved it in my mouth. And twice I have been a coward unable to pull the trigger and end this madness.