He looks both confused and put off, even as I struggle to put some big-ass pins in things. But it’s all slipping out of my control little by little. One rug after another keeps getting yanked out from under me without any warning or cushioning between blows.

“Because they can’t be. We disassembled them to ensure an unconscious state—”

I hiccup out a sound as I swallow back bile, and he shuts up abruptly. His mouth opens and closes a few times, like he’s trying to find a way to make this sound less brutal than it does.

“They felt no pain, Violet. For beings who couldn’t die, we needed them as close to death as possible to keep Idun under,” he says like he’s somehow being reassuring.

“Get them out of the ground,” I grind out through clenched teeth.

His own jaw grinds. “If I could, I would. You’ve made me feel like this is actually the worst thing I’ve done, and I hadn’t given it a single thought until now. Why are you so fixated on the damn Simpletons? After all you’ve learned, why is this the part you focus on?”

“You’re a really smart man, Vance. I’m sure you are,” I tell him as I look away, my hands beginning to tremble.

“I’m not being condescending, Violet. I’m trying to unravel you before I lose my own damn mind. What’s going on? How did you survive the cult?”

We pass by my house that has all the lights off as dawn encroaches, and I continue staring away from him.

“Why is it you don’t eat unless reminded you need food? Why is it you seem so submissive and fearful, yet reckless and resilient?” he drones on.

My heartbeat practically echoes back to me with each heavy thump.

“I’ve actually survived the cult three times,” I say on a shaky breath, as though it’s not a big deal. “The first time they surprised me in my home. The second time I saved my mother. The third time I let them find me.”

“What? Why would you let them find you?” he asks, his tone almost emotionless, as though I’ve just thrown him into the same uncharted stupor he keeps unceremoniously tossing me into.

“Because I wanted to prove to my mother I could stop them. She only listened to me when I proved stuff, and I backed off when it scared her. I laid low instead.”

“How?” he insists.

Instead of answering, I continue. “The first time was horrifying. The second time was…slightly invigorating and then horrifying. The third time I’d practiced for. I’d paid attention. I’d learned. I wanted to know more about myself, and it was safer to learn alone. So when the third time came, I proved to my mother I could keep us safe.”

I look over at him, still finding him surprisingly clueless for such a smart fellow.

“It terrified her when I told her I plotted for that third attempt,” I explain very quietly as a slow, sort of wary, disbelieving wrinkle forms on his brow and his eyes narrow.

“She stayed gone a lot more after that, before finally separating us and moving us along our own paths. She loved me. She spent every birthday with me. She called me regularly and showed up somewhat often. But we were still apart, and the distance was felt, even after I promised her I’d never do it on purpose again,” I tell him as one tear rolls down my cheek.

He stays silent.

“Now, I get it,” I go on, clearing my throat as more and more realization tries to form, but he just needs a little more of a push, “I terrified her, because that room had over sixty cult members in it. I walked away with my head fused to my neck by the ribbons I always wore. It was my only injury, and I let them swing the axe.”

I see it the moment it fully clicks into place, and his pupils dilate, as his nostrils slightly flare.

“Tell me, do subtly tart and semi-sweet green apples mean something as crucial as a slightly sweeter orange?” I ask him.

It’s like he tries to shut down all his expressions, but a few sneak by.

Unease.

Surprise.

Extreme guilt.

There’s a clear moment where he calculates the fact he’s just sat here and told me the worst of his offenses toward my family without an ounce of true, heartfelt regret, but a heavy dose of honest, reluctant guilt.

We pass my house again, circling the town, as he exhales so hard that it creates a small fog patch on the window beside him.

“Fuck’s sake,” he says so quietly I almost miss it.

“Do you want to know something weird?” I ask him, pulling my leg up under me, and not giving him a chance to form a response. “I hate being cold when I’m sitting here in one piece. But when any part of me is dismembered or hurting, it feels so much less painful when it’s really cold.”

Tears gather harder in my eyes, and he glances over, his eyes trained on me, even as he drives flawlessly.

“I try to dodge lightning, because it really hurts. Rattles my teeth so hard I’m worried they’re all going to break and I’m going to be the undead girl who can’t smile. I’m afraid I’ll be the girl ribbons continuously thread back together so I can kill my latest attacker, while keeping this secret my mother felt would surely be the true end of me.”

He continues staring directly at me.

“I’m guessing their sentence ended about twenty-six years ago,” I tell him, finally slipping all the pieces together and figuring out the new gist of the situation.

“They gave you your thousand years, and they’re still underground,” I say on a strained whisper, barely keeping my emotions in check. “Alas, a gypsy freak is born a monster, when a very elaborate promise is broken among very unnatural creatures.”

He starts to speak and stops the car, rolling to a stop in the middle of the street, as he just sort of stares at me in such stunned, stoic silence. It’s as though he can’t seem to find a way to recover or react.

“For the record, this is what it’s like when one of you throw one of those grenades at me, and I’m expected to take it in stride and keep on going. I have to remind myself how desensitized to the world you must be after all you’ve endured,” I go on, hiccupping out a crazy-girl laugh/sob/whimper.

Clearing my throat, trying to keep my emotions as tightly reined as humanly possible, I shake my head.

“But these life-altering bombs are getting overwhelming. I can handle the grenades with some grace that really gets taken for granted around here,” I say through some really tight strain, wagging my finger in his face, as a few tears escape my eyes.

He looks both confused and slightly horrified.

“I came here, where the ghost activity is so high and supercharged that little zaps of subtle electricity are constantly lingering in the air lately. I’ll blame that on my arrival. Spirits feel my gypsy pride and stir in reaction, because I’ve never hurt or sacrificed the innocent. Never intentionally,” I go on, more stupid, embarrassing tears falling, as Anna crosses my mind.

“Those electric charges in the air are feeding me, much like Frankenstein’s monster…only that monster didn’t wear pretty ribbons on his neck. Lifting the jingling collection of necklaces around my neck, I give him a grim smile. “Instead of two bolts jutting from my throat, I wear a lot of metal charms.”

He swallows thickly, still slightly frozen to his seat, even as his nostrils flare.

“Emit didn’t kill the wolves,” he says very quietly, his voice barely above a rasp, as he stares at me with a sense of true realization, as though he’s worked his way here at a quick pace and is now feeling that pressing weight I am.

He’s handling it way better, because I’m about to bawl like a fucking baby, have a true meltdown, and take a minute to myself.

“They slit my throat and buried me. I woke up on top of Emit and had no idea what was going on,” I say on a whisper of a breath, my own guilt trying to stir. “Emit says not all of them had to die, but I shouldn’t feel bad, because he’d have done the same in my situation.”

When the tears start falling this time, he starts like he’s moving toward me, but I wave him off, shaking my head.

He pulls back, his muscles tensing.

“I had a firm grasp on what was acceptable of a monster until then. So tonight, I didn’t do anything when Damien almost died, because now I don’t know. I don’t know who I can or can’t kill or why I even think I have that right to decide. I worried my monster might even get Damien killed. Before all this, I knew well enough who and what I was, and now even all that’s a lie,” I go on, my jaw wavering as I suck in a painful breath.

“I finally understand why my mother was terrified, and now I’m struggling to stick to her plan. Truthfully, I don’t know if she loved me and sent me here to be safe, or if she worried what’d I do without her to reel me in, and sent me here to be kept in check. Anna never could understand why I trusted my mother. Whatever she did, she did it for one good reason or another. She did and does love me. I never should have doubted that.”

The emotional breakdown I’ve been staving off for an overwhelming few months finally crashes down on me.

“My snowball has finally reached the bottom of the hill,” I tell him, sounding halfway hysterical, as I angrily bat away the tears. “I thought I’d boulder through or just simply splat. Turns out there’s a third option.”

“Violet, I’m trying to follow and doing my best to not say anything wrong right now while you’re in this state, but I have no idea what in the hell you’re talking about at this moment,” he says in a calm, soothing tone.

“Just half of my snowball’s size has been shaved off,” I ramble on, my body shaking with the legion of tears that won’t fucking stop. “And those layers of defense have scattered, raining down in my wake, as I’m forced to continue rolling again in a different direction. It’s starting at a crawl, building up those layers much too slowly to help me out in this moment,” I explain, pointing a finger at him as my mouth distorts, working hard to rein in the series of sobs that would love to escape and humiliate me.

This is what it’s like to be driven insane.

“I’ve spent my entire life searching for my purpose. A monster who only thought she was self-aware and never really second-guessed herself, until today. It doesn’t even feel like I’m talking about me,” I go on, nervously cracking my fingers.

“Deep down, I’ve always enjoyed stopping them…killing them before they could kill someone innocent. I was saving someone’s life, at least in my mind. Much like people are trying to do to Emit or Arion or any other alpha. I’m surely an omega, and like those wolves, I’ve deduced that I’m a pureblood of some sort. I almost empathized with them, and you’re about to hunt them down for this. And I understand that too,” I go on, wiping away some of my tears, feeling confused and frustrated, as someone honks a horn behind us.

Vance puts the car in gear and drives us back in the circle, while I work damn hard to put a lid on my breakdown.