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SOMEONE HAD LEFT fresh lilies on the unkempt grass.
There were a couple rotting roses at the bottom of the pile, amidst the litter of stray fallen petals and carnations, but none that really suited Luka's taste. He liked poppies. He liked the idea of something so fragile and innocent and vivid as a representative of death—that little irony amused him. Nobody knew about it besides Violet. She'd always had a keen hyper-awareness for peculiar anomalies, and Luka's little tricks and habits were difficult for her to miss.
Typically, whenever Violet visited Luka's grave, she kept these little adventures of her own secret and brief. She never cried, never spilled what was buried deep inside to inanimate material because that was plain stupid and a waste of breath. Luka's body wasn't even in the coffin. It was more the sanctity of the act. Each time she visited, it wasn't to pay respects, but a promise of vengeance. Plus, she knew she was being watched from the forest behind the grave. These days, she never went anywhere without being surveilled by one of the wolves. She had a feeling she knew which one was on her trail this time.
"Can you tell me something about him?" Violet asked, to the wind howling through the empty graveyard, disturbing the flowers resting at the foot of the tombstones.
"Everyone has a story. A place in this world just for them," Sam Uley said, strolling up behind her, his voice closer than expected. "Ours was the beach."
"Luka hated sand."
"He didn't come for the sand."
Between them, the words lingered like a deadweight suspended over their heads. All these coffins and not one skeleton.
Violet pursed her lips. "Why wouldn't he tell me about you?" Luka told her everything, and yet nothing at the same time.
Sam shrugged. "Why wouldn't you tell anyone about you and Paul?"
His words sent a stab of pain slashing through her heart, and Violet cut him a cold look.
A deep ache unearthed itself from her chest, an avalanche that ripped something from the darkest corner of her mind. Each time Violet thought about Paul, she couldn't stop thinking about the lines scoring her arms. A prisoner of her own skin, marking out every day that is so unbearable she must carve something out of herself to ease the wayward itch blazing under her skin. She didn't know what he wanted from her. They hadn't spoken since the night he left her behind in her bedroom, half-dressed and breaking, like a glass dashed against the wall. And there had been all that swallowing silence, all those shadows in periphery.
For the first time in months, Violet had been alone, left to sift through every thought crashing against the walls of her skull like waves descending in a storm threatening to drown her. Somehow, even though it was intrinsic to her nature to assign the blame elsewhere, to pull the smouldering knives of rage from deep inside the core of her being and sever any connection and any accompanying feelings, she couldn't bring herself to. This time, the blame sat on her shoulders like a villain's familiar, something scaly wrapped around her neck. She couldn't rationalise it. She didn't want to. It wasn't as easy as it used to be. Curse her for getting attached so quickly.
