I am still desperately looking for a Beta if anyone's interested. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! It's kind of a filler, but there's more Violate in the next chapter.

Chapter 3:

Whatever it was that happened in the basement… it did get Leah to leave her alone. Word must have spread, because no one bothered her anymore. One good thing came out of it, Violet supposed.

She hadn't seen Tate since that afternoon, either. She didn't realize until now how quickly she had become attached the blonde. At school, there was no one who wanted to talk to her. Tate had been the only one to actually want to hold a conversation with her.

Stop it, she told herself as she arrived home after another mind-numbing day at school. He did something to Leah - if not, then he lied about it. You definitely saw something in that basement.

She still walked on eggshells around her dad. He was making more attempts to talk to her, coming up with more creative ways to ambush her.

Violet knew she couldn't avoid him forever. Thankfully, he was with a patient when she got home, meaning she was able to quickly dash upstairs and hole up in her room. She decided homework could wait, and flopped onto her bed, turning her iPod on, content to doze off for awhile.

Eventually that got boring, though, and the teen realized she was craving another cigarette. Shutting the music off, she got up and quietly went downstairs, out the backdoor and to her usual spot, out of view from the windows.

She was smoking away, lost in her own thoughts, when she spotted a car stop outside the house. On the side was some sort of logo, and one of the people was standing up with a microphone like some sort of tour guide.

Curiosity got the best of her, and she moved closer. The words on the side of the car read "Murder Tour".

The fuck? She thought, cigarette falling from her mouth and onto the ground. Violet quickly stomped it out, glancing up in time to see the car pull away.

Apparently the house had a much more interesting history than she'd originally thought.

Tate couldn't help but have a little fun with Dr. Harmon the next time he saw him. Specifically, bringing Violet up.

"Do you think about sex a lot?" The older man asked.

"I think about one girl in particular. Your daughter," he replied, watching the slight twitch of a muscle in the psychiatrist's face. "I jerk off thinking about her. A lot."

He didn't, but it was worth seeing the expression on the man's face.

"I'm not comfortable with you talking about my daughter, Tate," Dr. Harmon told him.

But he was having so much fun. "Don't you want to know what I do to her? How I lay her lay her on the bed and caress her soft skin, making her purr like a little kitten…"

"Do you turn to these thoughts to comfort yourself in times of stress?" The man gave little away about how he was truly feeling, appearing to the entire world like a man in perfect control. But the blonde could see the cracks.

"Violet told me about the girl in Boston, you know," he said, changing the subject. "Not much older than her."

That was all he had to say to make the man snap. "Our session is over," he said sharply, standing up.

He entertained the idea of continuing to play with the doctor, but decided not to press his luck. He still needed him to get access to Violet - when she decided to seek him out again. Moria's words rang in his ears, "You knows, you might even enjoy her company".

Not likely, he thought. He never had that feeling around girls when he was still alive. But Violet also isn't like them, a tiny voice whispered in the back of his mind.

Tate shook his head and headed out the front door to give the appearance of him "leaving". As he did, he spotted a familiar figure coming out of the house next door. Constance. Before she could spot him, he quickly phased to a random room in the house. He would be perfectly fine with avoiding the woman for the rest of eternity if he was able to.

Because she was starting to get low on her cigarettes, Violet headed back inside after making sure she had put the one out. That had been a particularly good one, too. Oh well.

Inside, she changed her shirt to hide the smell of smoke and came downstairs to find her dad talking downstairs. The sound of Constance's drawl reached her ears, and sure enough, the blonde woman was standing in the doorway.

Realizing she was there, her dad turned and gestured her to join him. "Violet, this is our neighbor."

"I know," she replied, coming up beside him.

"I should also warn you my daughter, Adelaide, has a habit of wandering over here. I keep telling her she can't anymore, but she still does. If you happen to see her in the house, just tell her to leave," the woman said.

"Mrs. Langdon," the elder Harmon said. "There's something I need to talk to you about…"

Sensing that as her cue to leave, Violet quickly retreated upstairs. A few hours went by before the teen decided she was hungry enough to venture downstairs and risk getting ambushed by her dad.

As she was turning to head upstairs, she heard a faint noise coming from the basement. She stopped in her tracks, listening. She heard it again.

The girl set her food on the table and went back into the kitchen, grabbing a knife as a precaution, and went to investigate.

The brief glimpse of the...thing...she's seen flashed through her mind as she descended the steps, and her hand gripped the knife a little tighter. Reaching the bottom, she flicked the lights on.

And damn near had a heart attack.

"Jesus Christ Addy!" She swore, dropping the knife in favor of putting a hand over her heart. "How did you get in here?!"

The girl pointed to the other side of the basement, where the door leading outside was. Both of the Harmons forgot it was there most of the time. That explained a lot, actually.

Violet's heart calmed down as she stood there. "Could you at least use the front door next time?"

The dark haired girl nodded. The teen took a good look at the younger girl, and came to the conclusion that part of the reason she kept sneaking over to the house was because she was lonely. Something Violet understood well.

"You've lived here all your life, right?" She asked. At Adelaide's nod, she felt a small smile cross her face. "Would you mind telling me what you know about this place?" The tour car with the words "Murder Tour" on the side flashed through her mind.

The girl smiled and gestured for Violet to sit across from her. The teen complied.

Adelaide didn't know everything about the house's history, but she did know a lot more than Violet did. She mostly told the dark blonde about how almost all of the previous owners of the house have died in the house, or had someone in their family die in the house. At the last part, the girl went quiet, and Violet knew there was something there but she wasn't going to press for details.

"Violet?" Her dad's voice called, making both of the girls jump.

"You should go," she said quickly to Adelaide. "Just let me know next time you decide to come over, ok?"

The girl nodded and quickly headed for the door while the teen ascended the steps to the main floor.

"There you are!" Her dad said, a hint of relief in his voice. "I was looking for you. Where were you?"

"The basement. I thought I'd heard something," she replied, noticing her food was still sitting on the table. She quickly grabbed it and turned to the stairs.

"Wait," the older Harmon called. She paused. "I'm going to have to go out of town for a bit. An old client of mine that I treated two summers ago tried to commit suicide. She's in the hospital and won't talk to anyone. Her parents are begging me to go out there, see if I can get through to her."

Violet had a feeling the story was bullshit, but the other alternative - that he was going to visit another former client of his - she wasn't going to even consider. Not if she wanted to eventually forgive him and move on. So she nodded.

He couldn't help but watch, invisible, as Adelaide and Beau played down in the basement. It was something that was leftover from when he'd still been alive; Adelaide may technically be older than him by a couple of years, but he had always been the one to look out for her and Beau because Constance rarely bothered.

So Tate kept an eye on them. Not all the time, but he still checked in on them. Even if they couldn't see him.

The basement door opened, and Violet appeared, a knife gripped in her hand. She must have been passing by while Beau shifted and been drawn by the noise. She flicked the light on and jumped, the knife clattering to the floor when she spotted Adelaide.

The blonde watched their interaction, half expecting Violet to react the way most people would to Adelaide sneaking into their house. But he should have learned by now not to underestimate her.

Instead of demanding she get out, the dark blonde asked the darker haired girl to tell her what she knew about the house, listening intently to the story. When Dr. Harmon called for the teen, she stood up, simply telling Adelaide to let her know next time she decided to come over.

Adelaide got up and left through the side door, leaving Tate and Beau alone in the basement. Sensing Adelaide wasn't going to be back for awhile, Beau grabbed his ball from where Adelaide had rolled it before Violet had interrupted and vanished back up to the attic.

Tate decided to see what Moira was up to - she was probably cleaning the house, like she usually did. Unless she was continuing to have fun with Ben Harmon. He had asked her once why she continued to clean, even when no one lived in the house. The redhead had simply told him that it was a habit, a way of keeping sane through the years.

"Now, do me a favor and help me with this dusting. You're taller than I am, you can reach higher than I can," she had said, and he helped her clean the higher places in the house that day. He came back and helped her on occasion - he knew he wouldn't do it as a way to stave off boredom, but there was some odd peace to be found in the simple motion of cleaning. Not that he would ever admit that. He had a reputation to maintain in the house, after all.

That had been the start of the shift between him and the older woman's relationship. From friendly acquaintances to whatever it was they had now.

Sure enough, he found her in one of the unused bedrooms, going through her usual cleaning routine.

He couldn't quite pinpoint the moment he stopped seeing her younger self and saw her as she was - probably around the time their relationship shifted. The blonde had planned on standing there, seeing how long it took her to realize he was there, but one of the downsides of spending an eternity with a person is that you are eventually able to easily pick up on their presence.

"Let me guess: she's still not talking to you," Moira said. "Or have you not even attempted to approach her?"

He stayed silent, which was an answer enough for the older woman.

"You might want to try that," she told him. "Do you mind helping me get this light?"

The blonde helped her, the two working in silence before he decided to broach the subject of her advances on the eldest Harmon.

"How are your attempts at seducing the doctor going?"

"For someone who has a history of cheating, he seems to be very stubborn about giving into his desire. Even though he isn't married anymore," she replied. "He's apparently trying to make things up with Violet - not that it's going well, as I'm sure you know."

"She's pissed, that much is obvious. Then again, who wouldn't be pissed at discovering their dad's an asshole?" The last part came out a bit more bitter than he'd intended.

Moira paused in her cleaning to look at him. "Have you seen him?"

They both knew who she was talking about.

He shook his head. "I don't plan to," he answered.

When he had asked her why she had such an intense hatred for Constance, she told him the entire story. How Constance and his dad had hired her when they lived in the house originally, how his dad had come onto her despite her protests, how Constance had caught them and, in a fit of rage, killed both of them.

Tate had grown up believing Constance's lie that Hugo Langdon had left shortly after Beau had been born, and because he had very few memories of the man he'd created his own version of the man in his head. That version was far from the truth, he'd learned. Now, whenever he happened to see the man - when he chose to appear, that is - he quickly went in the other direction. So far, he'd avoided having to confront the man that was his father about what had led to his death. And he was intending on keeping it that way for as long as possible.

As if sensing a change of subject was needed, Moira suddenly said, "Dr. Harmon's going away for a few days - something in Boston. You should approach her then."

Violet wasn't sure what made her seek out Leah during study hall that day. Maybe it was to confirm with the girl that what she'd seen had been there. Maybe she wanted an explanation as to why Leah had targeted her so ruthlessly - not that she expected an answer. There never was one.

"I thought you hated smoking," she said, coming to sit beside the girl. Leah looked completely different than the girl she had met that first day. A giant floppy hat was covering her head, and sunglasses helped conceal her face further.

"I've taken it up," the other teen said, exhaling. "I can't sleep," she said suddenly. "I'm terrified of everything. That thing that attacked me? It wasn't human."

So there was something in the basement. Still, she knew she couldn't very well tell Leah that - it was obvious the girl was terrified enough. Violet got a small amount of satisfaction from that, if she was being honest. "It was Tate," she replied.

"No!" The girl protested. "You saw that thing too."

Sensing that she wasn't going to change Leah's mind, she decided to change the subject. "What did you tell your parents?"

The teen snorted. "Don't worry, I didn't tell them anything. I told them I got attacked by a Chola on Melrose who wanted my Chanel. Couldn't tell them I went to your house to score coke, could I?"

As Leah glanced sideways at her, she saw the bandage on the girl's cheek.

"How deep are the cuts?"

The girl inhaled and slowly exhaled. "Deep."

The two sat in silence, Leah puffing on her cigarette. "Damn it," she swore when she got to the butt.

Not entirely sure what possessed her, she offered one of her own. Leah eyed her warily.

"Why?"

Violet shrugged. "Something tells me you learned your lesson."

The teen let out a dry laugh as she accepted the offered stick. "Understatement of the century."