Page 85 of Burn With Me

“Vi, you need to talk to me,” I said as she broke the kiss. “Please, you’re worrying me.”

“It was you,” she said. “And you didn’t do it. All this time, Beck was right. It wasn’t the guy in the hoodie.” She leaned back and covered her mouth as she smiled as more tears flowed from her eyes.

“What?”

“The fire…” She started and then stopped, collecting herself. “The fire you found, the one with the two girls screaming?” She turned her head and looked at me, and the lightbulb hit.

“Oh god. That was you, was it? That was your house?” My head began to spin, and I laid it back on the headrest. What were the chances that the one woman I’d have a connection with ended up being my brother’s first victim? I covered my eyes with my hand, not even sure what to say. “I’m so sorry, Vi, I….”

“No, don’t. You just gave me peace. I’ve searched for my parents’ killer from the moment it happened. I always thought that it was the boy I saw standing by the forest before he ran off. I became obsessed with the search and wondered why the person just disappeared.” She shook her head.

“Beck kept trying to tell me that maybe the person that started it was already caught, but I didn’t believe her. I was convinced they were still out there setting fires all these years, and I was determined to find him and put him behind bars.”

We stared at one another, and so many things clicked into place for me. We connected on so many levels, but she was the only person that truly understood the same pain, the same pain from the same night. We suffered it differently, but some of it was the same.

Reaching out, I cupped her cheek and ran my thumb over the soft skin. Vi leaned into me slightly, and my heart skipped a beat.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him. I wish I’d done more.”

She shook her head, and unclipping her seatbelt, she got up on her knees and leaned in, giving me a kiss. I wrapped her up, pulled her into my lap exactly like I’d wanted to, and kissed her like she was going to disappear.

“I may wish that too, but the entire situation is complicated, and you did the right thing and called the police. I’m just shocked I never heard anything. Anytime I spoke to the police, they said they had no news.”

I lifted my shoulder. “I don’t know why they would say that to you. I gave my statement and watched Derek put into the back of the cruiser, but after they moved him to a hospital to treat him, I couldn’t find him anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. It was like they’d wiped Derek away or lost their notes, and no one would talk to me. To this day, my brother and where he went are a complete mystery to me. I never saw a trial or anything. My mom called multiple times, and no one ever had any answers until one day, we stopped calling. Honestly, I wonder if he was killed and they swept it all under the rug. The killer kid had got what he deserved sort of thing.”

“Still, that’s weird for there to not be any trail of what happened to him,” Vi said and leaned back slightly.

“It is.” I shook my head at the painful thought. No matter what my brother had done, he was still my brother. “I have friends on the force and get this, they say they can see him being booked in and that’s all there is. No other notes or evidence. He was simply wiped away.”

“We’ll figure it out. You have me now, and I don’t give up. Besides, if we find him, I want to know why my parents. What did they do that would make him so angry that he would attack them?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. He never mentioned anything about anyone other than our parents. Could’ve been a random choice, but if we find him, I also want to know the answer to that question.”

Leaning forward, I placed a soft kiss on her lips. “We better get going, or we’re going to be late for dinner. You don’t want to see Monica’s anger over her food getting cold.” I gave her another soft kiss. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. For the first time in a very long time, I feel okay. Maybe we were always destined to meet Asher West. The universe is coming full circle.”

My lip curled up in a sly smile. “Maybe you’re right.”

I couldn’t express what was in my head or chest, but all of it said I wanted this woman forever. Violet Clarke was officially mine, and I was never letting go.

Violet

For the rest of the drive to Asher’s mom’s house, I wavered back and forth between being happy and crying. It was this overwhelming sense of relief but also allowing myself to finally grieve and take a step to put that part of my past where it belonged. I had a feeling that what he told me was going to take a lot longer to process than the time we had left in this drive. My emotions had become like a leaf blowing in the wind, and I ended up going wherever mother nature decided to take me.

I couldn’t stop staring at Asher. He was the boy I’d been looking for all this time. It just wasn’t for the reason I thought. Sometimes when weird things like this happened, I just couldn’t help thinking that the universe really did have a plan for our lives. It felt like there was this massive puppeteer sitting up in the clouds who loved screwing with us by pulling the strings.

Flipping down the visor in the truck, I gave myself a once over to make sure it didn’t look like I’d been crying my eyes out. That didn’t seem like a great way to meet Asher’s mom for the first time.

“What do I call your mom?” I said, realizing that he’d only referred to her as ‘mom.’

Asher smiled. “My mom’s name is Elizabeth, but she likes to be called Lizzy. If you call her Elizabeth or Mrs. Dunkin, she will make you do the dishes.”

He laughed as I stared at him, trying to gauge his seriousness. Asher jumped out of the truck and grabbed our bags. It seemed odd to me that the first time I met his family, I was going to stay with them for a few days. It was their tradition to come here for the entire holiday, and I didn’t feel like bringing my own car to do the five-hour drive back alone like I was the single party pooper. So here I was.