Violet was aware of a lot of muffled, raised voices shouting around her - some things broke through her haze - things along the lines of stop and then her name.
The only thing that broke her out of it was the pair of gentle yet firm cold hands that prised her own bloody ones away from that man.
Violet couldn't tear her gaze away from his unconcious body, slumped there with his bloody face against his cast arm.
Five was holding her hands and she was letting him. He carefully guided her body to turn away from the bloody sight but her eyes were pinned. His hand gently touched the side of her face to turn her head and she finally locked eyes with his.
Bloodshot, teary, auburn eyes clashed with his earthy green ones and the urge to just run away from it all hit her right then and there. She wanted to lie in a field of green grass and let the soil of the earth swallow her away until she was nothing but a body resting where she should be laid to rest; where things would be right and she could close her eyes with pressed flowers and fade among the petals and leaves.
But the voices around her were chaotic and cacaphonous and rolled like crashing waves, one over the other and again and again. And her eardrums were the rocks. And she was about to drown along with it all, get lost in it.
Her hands went to cover her ears to block out the sound, and a cool pair of hands covered her own gently applying pressure. Her eyes closed for a brief second before reopening.
His fierce eyes scanned her up and down, every inch of her face, down to the dark purple tinted diamonds on his jumper, split down the side.
There was a hole in the centre of her chest through the fabric, but the bloodied skin showing through was nothing but covered in blood. No wound, just blood and pink marked porcelain.
It coated her like a second skin that she craved to shed.
"Vi, What happened?" Five asked gently but urgently.
She couldn't get any words out now. Her tongue was lead.
"Who the hell is this?"
"Violet, what did you do?"
So many questions, so little she could say.
Five's voice cut through the others.
"Is this him?" He asked seriously, not once letting his eyes fall from her own.
She let him carefully lower their hands from the sides of her head and she held his back loosely in her own, blinking at him.
"Is this him, Violet?"
She turned her gaze away.
The voices were so loud. They needed to just shut up.
It was difficult letting her hands slip from his as for once she almost craved the touch rather than despised it.
She leant down to tap her fingers on the mans motionless shoulder and in a sudden second he jolted out of unconsciousness. She kept it there for another second and the shouting quietened down.
Luther, Diego and Vanya - they all watched as the mans facial wounds healed; it was like time reversing in front of their eyes. Nothing but bruises remained, his front teeth resetting themselves.
A choked gasp left his lips as she took her hand away and he scrambled back away from everyone around him, dazed eyes taking in the new people, and most of all the girl covered in blood standing over him. Miraculously, he wasn't in pain anymore.
She turned to look at the others with dull eyes. "I didn't do anything." She said softly, simply.
The look they all exchanged was a concerned one. Except Five, who she looked to last, who was glaring murderously down at the pathetic form behind her with eyes the darkest green she had ever seen on him.
Their Violet Hargreeves had been instilled with a sudden new confidence; it was silent and festering and clung to her like shadows, hidden in the backs of her brown eyes. Stuble, soft somehow and yet entirely psychotic.
Something in Violet had snapped and they could all see it plain as day even though it was only a subtle change in her demeanor.
"Wait, is this the guy?" Diego finally asked, putting things together over time. His folded arms dropped to his side in realisation and he looked absolutely murderous. He pointed. "Violet, is he the piece of shit-"
"-wait, who is he?" Vanya asked quietly from the back.
"He is, isn't he..." Five said lowly, eyes narrowing into something dangerous looking between them. He didn't take his eyes off of him. "The other guy who attacked you?"
The entire mood of the room switched up completely.
Their eyes all pinned the man to the spot accusingly. Even Vanya, who knew only of the news report and had only just been informed that she was her sister, looked disturbed and disgusted at him.
Five caught how Violet's fingers twitched at her sides.
"How did he find you? I thought you said she was safe?" Luther asked, looking between Diego and Five who clenched his jaw. He had seen the news too and had been filled in on the way there.
Safe, she thought numbly to herself. When had she ever been?
Then, another darker thought came to mind; she wasn't the one who needed to be kept safe anymore.
"What happened to him?" Luther asked then, pulling a face at just the thought of his injuries and the amount of blood there was everywhere - the sound alone of his groans had been enough to make a grown man cringe.
Violet had the sudden urge to say 'he slipped.'
She had a feeling only Five would find that as amusing as her.
None if them expected the man to actually speak up for himself.
"She's a fucking psycho!" He snapped, giving her a filthy look from the ground. "She's fucking mental!"
It was a rare time when the Hargreeves all agreed on something; This man was scum of the earth.
Violet's stared straight at Five with a withering look. He alone looked at the edge of his tether, fists clenched so tightly at his sides they shook. Only she caught it.
"She killed my fucking friend-" he continued whining and was cut off, this time not by Violet, but by Five who could hold back no more.
He blinked in front of him and punched him so hard across the face he fell to the side, hands shooting up to cover his face with a crack. His nose spurted blood immediately, and tears leaked from his face while he slumped over and groaned.
"You're lucky you're not about to fucking join him." Five said dangerously low, towering over and looking down on him like he was nothing but the dirt under his shoe.
He had to keep himself from pummelling his face into a bloody pulp, tightening his fists and stepping back. The amount of restraint it took was incredible.
But this was not his place.
It was hers.
And he was going to let her take back what this man had taken from her by any means necessary. And he would do nothing but watch with pleasure.
He shook his hand out by his side, squaring his jaw looking down at it.
Violet slyly took his hand at their side and they watched the purple discolouration smooth out into his regular skin tone.
"Fuck you-" the guy groaned from the floor.
The entire room was surprised at his ability to keep going. He must have had a death wish.
Luther could have crushed his skull in an instant. One throw of a knife and Diego could end his talking. Vanya didn't know it, but she would do anything to keep her sister out of harms way. And Five; he could have beat him to death with his bare fists without breaking a sweat or ruffling his uniform.
So when they all collectively thought - what were they going to do with this guy? - their patience was tested when he opened his mouth again.
He wiped blood from his nose, glaring up at Violet who up until then had avoided looking at him. "If you really didn't want it you'd have used your fucking voice and said it."
A lump formed in her throat.
"Let go!-" she had cried out in panic, her heart jumping into her throat as she fought for him to get off of her.
Diego and Luther exchanged a dark look being right next to eachother.
Violet clenched her fists.
"Stop-" she gasped, barely able to string together words in her desperation and panic. It didn't even sound like her own when she heard it leave her lips. "Sto-"
She shuddered, a tingling sensation running up her spine like a spider across a spiders web.
Five's rage was so intense it radiated off of him in waves, his jaw so tense his teeth could shatter.
"Tell him to stop and he'll stop."
Lies.
Before any of them could make a move to attack him, Violet beat them to it.
She grasped him on the shoulder and that was when the screaming started.
He curled in on himself, clutching his head, voice raw as he yelled in agony. His nose began bleeding heavier than it already had, eyes bloodshot and pupils forming pinpricks. It began trickling from his right ear and his fingers appeared like claws, so rigid and strong enough it looked like he could crack them through his actual skull.
Luther, Diego and Vanya stood shocked and disturbed at the sight. She had a hand to her mouth. The boys stared horrified as they realised what was happening and what was causing him the torturous pain.
Or who.
Five, though, Five knew. He had always known.
Violet's eyes were half lidded and dull as she regarded his screams like it was the sound of rainfall. It was nothing.
Five's eyes widened a fraction at the sight of the man begging and writhing in agony on his knees. He had known but he had never had the fortune of actually seeing this power in action during the apocalypse for there had been no need.
This was otherworldly.
"That's enough." Luther was the first to break, far too uncomfortable and disturbed by watching a man tortured to insanity through the simple touch of another. He knew it wasn't right.
Violet stood there unwavering, her grip on his shoulder firm.
"Violet?" Vanya asked, having to half shout over his own. Her eyes were pleading, hands fidgeting together.
Diego exchanged a cold, silent look with Five who was beside Violet and the crumbling man.
A minute more passed of the torture and he clutched his stomach; his insides twisted and clenched like there was a fist tightening around them, eager to rip and tear. He was bent forwards with his arms wrapped around himself, forehead almost pressed against the floor, trembling like a mess.
"Vi."
She finally released him and calmly took a step back as he collapsed back against the stairs, exhausted. His shoudlers sagged and he looked deathly ill.
Violet wanted nothing more than to be away from this man but something made her crouch down next to him, revelling in his fear and delirium.
She leant in slightly, her hair tickling one of his arms wrapped around himself making him flinch.
"You're telling the police everything," she murmured softly, voice like silk; the sternest it had ever been even as a breath louder than a whisper. She swallowed, willing herself to continue without wavering as she felt she would. "You are going to confess to killing your friend, and tell them what you both did to me-"
Her voice shook and the entire room was dead silent, in quiet shock and morbid curiosity at what was happening.
Violet had found her voice, if only for a short while, and it demanded their silence.
"You're going to tell them everything. And if you leave out any detail," she raised her hand lightly and went to tap him on the side of the temple but he flinched back sharply, eyes wide with laboured breaths. She paused, quirked a tiny, uncaring smile, and stared right into his cold eyes - now laden with tears and bloodshot veins. She looked down at his arm in the cast and tilted her head, tapping her fingernail on the hard exterior instead. The tap made him shiver. "I'm going to break your other arm... And then your legs... And then your spine - just like I did to Max."
He was entirely frozen, too weak to pull away and afraid that any slight movement and he'd be begging for her mercy. Everyone else stood in abject shock listening to her eerily calm voice.
A shiver travelled down Five's spine as he watched her from the side, able to see her blank expression, noting how something within her had definitely snapped to allow her to do this. The years of pent up silence and expectations of her had been broken like glass.
She spoke with a deathly calm voice that was ten times more effective than a raised one.
Violet was close enough to him to instill fear and she was still - hands steady for once. Her voice as she forced herself to speak was soft and barely audibly, quiet enough for Luther, Diego and Vanya to have to strain to hear everything.
She continued after a long pause, searching in the mans eyes. "And I won't stop until I hear every bone in your body," she finalised the last word with a final tap on his cast with her nails. "Snap."
The entire room was hushed by the tense silence as they stared at little Violet - this version of her they had never seen before - not even Five.
It was brutal, and borderline disturbing to see their sister who wouldn't hurt a fly suddenly turned into this numb copy.
But it was still Violet; something inside her had just awoken.
She was tired of being taken advantage of, of her quietness being mistaken for weakness. She would not let another man walk all over her and think he was better than her because he was bigger and stronger. She would not.
She would have her voice heard even if it shook, even if they had to strain to hear. She would be heard, and she would speak her mind if it killed her inside or not.
She stared into the bloodshot eyes of her attacker and despite the nausea rising, she didn't back down.
Though her next question was silent and driven just by a look, he nodded slightly, fearfully, and the smile that graced her features was this time a real one.
Violet stood and stepped back to Five's side, him watching her face the entire time.
And when she glanced at half of her siblings, she finally, for once in her life, felt like she was actually their sister. Like this was how it should feel to have them support you and protect you. Especially with Diego's next comment, eyes never leaving the guy on the floor.
"So," he cracked his knuckles, breaking the silence before pulling keys from his pocket. He span them around his index finger, looking left and right. "Who's driving?"
The man on the floor eyed them all nervously. And finally, he decided to keep his mouth shut.
Violet, although exhausted both mentally and physically, smiled softly down at the floor.