Violate

56.

VIOLET

Arson. That's what they're calling it. I should be dead but I'm being interrogated in my hospital bed by two police officers with absolutely no bedside manner. They want to get me for murder too, but I don't think that will stick. The few survivors all say it was Tate. I don't say anything myself, partly because that's what I've seen in movies and partly because my throat is so sore and scratchy from breathing in the black smoke I know my voice would barely come out as a whisper.

Under normal conditions I should've been discharged after a day. My burns weren't that bad and my lungs were clean. Well, as clean as a smokers. They think I don't have anywhere to go. On top of it all they want to order a psychiatric evaluation. There is no way I'll be coming out of that looking normal. How can I explain trying to burn down my house to attempt to kill my already dead boyfriend and then remaining in the house so I can be with him for eternity? I can't. So I tell them I'm going for a walk. They send someone with me, a young nurse a few years older than me. When she's not paying attention I smack her head against the wall and run.

_____________

The house looks fine from the outside, but as soon as I step inside I am greeted by the acrid scent of smoke and blackened furniture. "Tate?" I call out. My voice echoes eerily. "Tate?" I try again.

I walk around the house admiring all the damage I caused. Every blackened wall, every crumbling piece of furniture. I did that. The house was incredibly well made. The stairs are still mostly intact but still I am cautious. The upstairs wasn't too badly effected, my old room hardly at all. A tear leaks out of my eye and falls to the floor. What happened?

My eyes scan the room for any trace of Tate, stopping at the chalkboard on my wall. 'When you love someone set them free.'

I can't hold it in anymore. I fall to the ground sobbing for the tenth time in two days because he's gone. I have no one now. My parents never came back, Moira didn't come back, and Constance disappeared.

That's how they found me hours later. Curled up on the floor of what was once the infamous Murder House. I didn't fight when they took me away. I let them take me back to the hospital. I let them poke me and prod me and analyze me. I let them because I'm having very bad thoughts. And I don't have anyone else to talk me out of them. So away I went. But as I looked back for the last time, I swear I saw Tate looking out at me.

THE END