The Runaway

Chapter 19

Colton and the others scurried into the woods while Violet waited outside. She stood there nervously trying not to think about what the others were doing or the dead woman from the cabin. Unfortunately, it was difficult to pretend it never happened.

"Sorry about yesterday." Her eyes shot up to the speaker. "I'm sorry you had to see me like that," Delsin said.

She let out a sigh of relief. "It's okay. I can kind of understand why you did what you did." Violet was still disturbed with Delsin, but that was nothing compared to how she felt about Aiden.

He ran his fingers through his hair and then stuffed them in his pockets. He pulled out a granola bar and handed it to her. "I got this from the vending machines earlier." 

"Thanks," she said and put it in her bag. "Why didn't you go with the others?"

He said, "I don't need to. Plus I wanted to apologize to you. I want you to know I'm not vicious or anything. It's just that I couldn't control myself last night. It's one of our weaknesses you know. Learning control is difficult."

"I can tell," she said. Seeing Colton and Aiden made that obviously clear.  "So what's the plan? We're heading to Vegas to find Scarlet but where exactly is she?"

"Usually the injected kill a hoard all at once which leads to massacres and end up on the news. Scarlet's self control is worse than ours; this allows us to track her down easier by searching the areas she's invaded. We don't have an exact location, but we do what we can."

Massacres. That's worse than what she witnessed and Violet didn't know if she was ready to face that yet. "Victor's group and The Silvers are after her as well right? What if we run into them?" Mentioning those names sent shivers down her back.

"Then we deal with it," he replied bluntly.

She didn't know what that meant but she didn't want to ask any further. "Can we change topics?" Everytime killing was brought up, a bad feeling came over her. She didn't want to remember the events from last night right now. "I wouldn't have guessed you were Em's brother."

He let out a small laugh. "I know. People say we look nothing alike, but personality wise, we are. I'm the older one so I'm kind of overprotective. I just hope she's safe right now."

Violet could understand exactly how he felt since she was also an older sibling. "I totally understand. I have a younger sister too and I felt like I always had to protect her. It's tough isn't it?"

"Tough doesn't even describe it." He stared off into space for a litle bit. "I never knew you had a sister."

She nodded. "Yeah, well I do."

"So then why did you run away? What about your sister?"

Suddenly, she felt upset. She hadn't thought about anyone else but herself. Violet was selfish and the fact gnawed at her but she avoided the thought. "I was running away from my problems even when I thought I wasn't. It was a stupid decision that I believed would make me happy. I always thought leaving my sister behind was the best choice, but I realize now that it isn't. I made a mistake and now I'm stuck here. I basically begged for karma to bite my ass."

"Did you know Colton was in Oregon when you left?" he asked.

She did. She knew and headed straight there. The more she thought about it, the more regret she felt. Violet didn't want to be that girl who left everything behind for a boy. "I did," she said.

"How did you guys even meet? He never told anyone about his life in New York," Delsin thought out loud.

"We went to high school together for a year but then he suddenly left. I wanted to find him." It felt worse to say it out loud.