Dead Hearts

Summary: Though she'd never admit it aloud, Tate's mouth pressing gently against her inner thigh is enough to scare the girl who isn't afraid of anything. Violate. One-shot.

Disclaimer: I don't own American Horror Story or Macbeth (from which the italicized quotation is taken).

Timeline: This takes place sometime between "Smoldering Children" (1.10) and "Birth" (1.11).

A/N: My growing love for Violate and American Horror Story in general has been influenced so much by the many amazing writers in this fandom: ScarlettWoman710, pheromones, ohyellowbird, and Gray Glube, especially, whose AHS pieces are both hot and beautifully-written. This particular story was inspired by the song Dead Hearts by Stars and – of course – the disturbingly sad-but-fascinating "Birth" episode. Poor Violet. On a slightly unrelated note, I imagine Tate would really like the Roman Polanski version of Macbeth...

She delights in being different. Idiosyncratic in a way that made her school peers scoff and share sidelong glances as she trailed by, her waifish passage heralded by thin plumes of cigarette smoke the colour of her name. She has always been a bit stuck in the past: Nirvana, Albert Camus, frumpy old lady cardigans, and Annie Hall hats. But now her uniqueness – a subtle "fuck you" to a world of stereotypes and normalcy – is ironic and a little bit sad.

Because she's dead.

Sort of. It seems surreal that she can't recall that moment of transcendence – passing over from living to something else, a mockery of life conjured into existence by a house that is more like a tomb. Shouldn't that transition be sort of, like, epic or something? Tolling bells and whistles and a dirge like a scream. Possibly, she reflects morbidly, the manner of her death inhibited awareness somewhat. Mass amounts of sleeping pills will do that.

Dead Violet isn't so different from Living Violet, except, of course, for all the Sixth Sense crap and her inability to leave the Murder House. There are less obvious signs of wrongness, too. She feels sick all the time. Wrong. Her skin is oddly tight, and she's acutely aware of the density of her bones, the way muscles and joints slide against each other, slickened by a bubbling froth of blood. She obliges Tate when he asks – almost begs – her to stop cutting. Mostly, this is because the slow rise of blood along her wrists has lost some of its allure since she died. What's the point if there's no uncertainty, no threat of cutting too deep? The cuts just heal. It's freaky.

"I'm sorry."

Tate draws small designs on the delicate skin of her inner wrist. He apologizes sometimes, seemingly for no reason at all, but really for nothing and everything that's happened between them. Maybe even for some things she doesn't know about or understand.

Violet gives him the small, restrained smile that means she's feeling restless, trapped in the house and the cage of her own skin. Tate's fingers on her wrist are a tether, drawing her back to reality. Or perhaps a leash, him petting her as one would a skittish animal.

She's trying to read, but his touches and her wandering mind are distracting. It's a bit annoying, because she actually likes Macbeth. Blood and bodies dripping over the pages of her Norton Shakespeare textbook, dribbling into real life:

[M]urders have been perform'd

Too terrible for the ear: the times have been,

That, when the brains were out, the man would die,

And there an end; but now they rise again.

God, has she always been this morose?

Violet abandons Macbeth. Really, what's the point in reading a play for a class she'll no longer be attending? Besides, she can guess how it will end: with lots of death followed by unlikely catharsis. She twists on her dark purple sheets. Tate is there, attentive and understanding in a way no one has ever been before.

"It's okay," she says, responding to his apology. It's not okay, but she almost believes it will be as she traces a line across his jaw. Eyelids drooping, Tate bites down gently on her index finger when it whispers over his full lower lip. She can feel the wet rasp of his tongue, twining around the digit in his mouth. She lets out a gasp: a faint feminine sound she would usually hate, but which she doesn't mind so much when he's the one making her react that way.

Tate's grin becomes a smirk. He's beautiful. Twisted and vulnerable. His boyish blond hair is wispy and messy across his forehead, doing nothing to obscure the intensity in his dark gaze. It amazes her that this lover of Byron and birds who professes to care for her so intensely could be the dazed remnant of a psychotic murderer.

Good people don't just have a bad day and start shooting people!

But maybe they do, if one bad day is anticipated by seventeen years-worth of days that are equally suckish. It's not inconceivable. More likely, Tate wasn't – isn't – a good person. She's come to terms with that, to a certain extent. He understands her, loves her, and that's enough. He tried to save her. Besides, she figures the world is pretty much shit. Nothing is perfect. Not her parents' marriage, not the freakish twin fetuses making a carnivore of her mother, and certainly not the happy new existence they intended to procure from the purchase of a quaint Victorian abode in sunny Los Angeles. Yeah, right.

If two sad little lost souls can find solace in mutual understanding, bonding over angsty music and self-inflicted scars, shouldn't that connection be nurtured and preserved? Yes, she thinks, feeling poetic. Their dead hearts deserve the unlikely romance they've cultivated in a house that personifies the slow degradation of life and love.

Tate ghosts a fingertip over her hipbone. She can barely feel the touch against the exposed skin of her lower belly, and yet the whisper of sensation is both tease and caress. His tongue twists around her finger, sending shivers of feeling down her body. Violet is vaguely aware that she's trembling, just slightly. This annoys her insofar as it's an admission of fear or anxiety; she isn't afraid of anything. Tate grins at her, smug to an insulting degree. There's a depth to his black eyes, which she remembers looking so hopelessly defeated behind a coating of translucent tears. She focuses on his face, keeping at bay another memory, one that reeks of flies and decay and a morbid mirror image. Tate has shadow eyes, she decides, as dark as death.

The devil is real, and he's not a little red man with horns and a tail. He can be beautiful.

Violet recoils – from Tate and from the insidious whisper of remembered words. Her finger is still warm and wet from his mouth as she puts both hands down on the bed to steady herself.

"Why did you do it?" she asks suddenly, almost desperately. She wants to know. She doesn't. But the Not Knowing is a black smudge that spreads across her mind, tainting the way she feels about him.

"What?" He offers her a tiny, bemused half-smile. His lips tilt toward mischief as he adds, "Touch you? I'm thinking of doing it again. Would you mind?"

His hand moves to her thigh, warmer and more solid than any ghost's has a right to be. Her long peasant skirt bunches as he draws it up. She's wearing tights underneath, but they seem thin and insubstantial beneath the heat of his hand. As usual, Violet decides her morbid curiosity isn't so urgent after all. She's been dead for almost three weeks; one more day of ignorance won't kill her.

"I want to make you happy, Violet," Tate says earnestly. He has a way of making things sound monumental, small and significant admissions alike. The sincerity in his voice resonates with the part of her that hates bullshit. Liars and cheaters, as far as she's concerned, are worse than murderers.

"I'd do anything to make you happy," he continues. "You know that, right?"

"I know."

"Let me show you." His expression loses some of its seriousness as his hand continues to feel her up. He's playing with her now, and she likes it. One hand cups her cheek as he angles her head for a kiss. His lips are slightly chapped – they always are. The roughness suits him, mitigates the vulnerability in his eyes and the angelic blondness of his hair.

"Vi," he whispers as they part.

Pliant and loose-limbed, Violet lets her head fall back against the wall behind her head. Tate correctly interprets this as an invitation to kiss her neck. His mouth is gentle against her skin, and it disconcerts her. Because she's reminded of a bathroom and pelting water cold enough to kill. Retching sobs and the bitter press of lips against the back of her hair-covered neck.

You died...loved.

She's so preoccupied with the grim memory that she only vaguely registers Tate's descent down her body. His hands skim the length of her simple blouse, stilling only when they reach her thighs. The way he tugs at the waistband of her bunched-up skirt is almost childlike in its single-minded intensity. She lifts her hips absently, allowing him to pull the fabric down her legs.

"I screwed your mom," he says casually, staring at her knees.

That certainly gets her attention. She peers at him, expecting humour, but his expression is strange. Almost devoid of emotion.

"How was it?" Violet asks, playing along.

"Best sex of my life."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yup." He glances upward, grin teasing. He's her Tate Langdon again, all mussed blond hair and teenage rebellion epitomized. Gone is the brief image of a stranger with cold, unfeeling eyes and a tight-lipped mouth. "She was really attentive, you know, lots of moaning and stuff."

"Ew," Violet laughs, thoroughly disgusted. "That's so wrong."

"Don't worry," he says cheerfully. There's still something in the way he looks at her – sadness, maybe – that concerns her. It contrasts with his smile, and she doesn't know which to believe. Nevertheless, his tone is light. "I still like you better. Even when you aren't paying attention to me at all; I love you."

"Sorry," she says, feeling a bit guilty for essentially ignoring him. Her lips echo the shape of his, a mischief-imbued smile. "I swear that's never happened to me. Not with a guy."

"Are you gay?" Tate asks, and his impression of her voice is high-pitched and silly.

They giggle like girls at a sleepover, death and depression relegated to the back of Violet's mind. Tate presses his mouth to hers again. The kiss is abrupt and not-quite-gentle. His tongue coaxes her lips apart as his deft hands draw down her tights. Despite her earlier nonchalance, Violet feels her breath hitch slightly. It's still novel and strange, the sensation of being undressed by a boy.

The anticipation curling in her stomach makes her feel sharply, blessedly alive. She sits up, undoing the tiny buttons on her blouse and flinging it aside in one quick motion. She attempts to undo her predictably dark purple bra just as hurriedly, but her fingers are clumsy. She can't find the clasp. A noise of frustration catches in her throat – and Tate's arms are reaching around her, his chin resting on her shoulder. His hands are gentle as he sweeps her hair aside, allowing him a better view of her back.

"Someone's impatient," he breathes into her ear, sounding amused.

Smirking at that, Violet presses her lips experimentally to the skin just above the neckline of his sweater. His intake of breath encourages her to bite down gently. Her tongue sneaks out, soothing the faintest indentation of teeth marks. Tate's fingers shake nearly imperceptibly as he fiddles with her bra, and he sits back with notable reluctance.

"Thanks," Violet murmurs in a voice that is low and conspiratorial, as if they are sharing secrets.

Their mouths reconnect almost immediately after she's tossed her bra on the floor. The scrape of Tate's threadbare wool sweater against her nipples is scratchy, discomfiting. Her fingers tug ineffectually at the hem. Tate obliges her unvoiced demand and pulls away in order to draw the offending sweater over his head. As usual, his bare upper body intrigues Violet. Her eyes take in the play of muscles under tanned skin, which initially surprised her given his dreamy loner-poet-rebel attitude.

"I used to run track at Westfield," he quipped the first time she saw him shirtless. He was wearing a small, self-deprecating smile as he said it, and she's still not sure whether he was joking or not. She thinks he probably was, because she can't imagine Tate jogging around with a bunch of happy-go-lucky jocks.

And there's the fact that his skin is smooth and unmarred. It makes her wonder about the specifics of his death, which she doesn't like to think about so much. The online articles she read about the Westfield High Massacre mentioned a S.W.A.T team killing the murderer – obviously in this house, because, duh, here he is – but details were sparse. The other ghosts have bullet wounds and fire-scarred faces – gory reminders of the pain they endured in life – but Tate has none.

Violet draws her fingers lightly across the source of her curiosity, tentative in her inexperience. She is taken by surprise when Tate grabs the wrist of her searching hand, draws it away from his chest. Did she do something wrong?

But no: his eyes are smouldering, burning her as surely as his touch, and his breathing is slightly unsteady.

"Let me," he says. His voice is gentle but firm. He releases her wrist and presses a quick kiss to her cheek, oddly chaste.

Violet's hands curl against the sheets of her bed, obedient but uncertain, as Tate shifts lower over her body. His mouth skims over her upper body, barely touching, before tickling the patch of pale skin just above her hip bone. Watching his gradual movements turns her anticipatory sense of what's coming to unease, so she sinks into the bed, shifting her gaze upwards. The ceiling is plain and white, belying the blood and gore that is the house's foundation.

That unsettling observation is forgotten as Violet's eyes slip closed. The black landscape of her eyelids only heightens the sensation of Tate's barely-there touch, and she feels herself begin to quiver. Her lips part slightly in a gasp. Though she'd never admit it aloud, Tate's mouth pressing gently against her inner thigh is enough to scare the girl who isn't afraid of anything. No, she thinks abruptly, that's not right. Vivien was only partially correct in labeling her daughter as fearless. It's not that Violet isn't afraid of anything; it is that she likes fear.

The darkness and despair that repel other people attract her.

Tate's breath is hot as he hovers over her, full of promise. Despite her nervousness, Violet is almost embarrassingly eager as he slowly – torturously slowly – removes the thin cotton barrier that is her last remnant of clothing. Still, she can't quite resist the impulse to squeeze her thighs together.

"...Violet?"

She shakes her head mutely, unwilling to voice her embarrassment.

"Don't be nervous. You'll like it, I promise." His hands pry her legs apart very slowly, gentle enough that she could easily force them closed if she were so inclined. "Trust me. Let me make you happy, Violet."

Her name becomes a lewd whisper, muffled against the apex of her thighs. Tate does no more than blow over her heated, quivering flesh, but she imagines she can already feel his tongue, deft and slippery. She's wondered how it would feel. Late at night, such thoughts leave her so hot and unsettled that not even the press and curl of her own fingers can assuage the need for something more fulfilling.

Last time – the first time – it was just sex. Well, not just sex, but at least it hadn't made her feel like she would tremble apart at the faintest touch, fragile as a flower. She doesn't like feeling breakable.

"Don't," she says. It's meant to be forceful, but she can't seem to find the air to form proper words. Her lungs hitch and ache, waiting. Her entire body is taut with waiting – and wanting. "Tate."

There's a pause. Tate rises slightly, meeting her gaze for a moment. His expression hints at genuine concern, but the way she glares seems to reassure him. He has the audacity to smile. His cheeks dimple. "You've watched porn, right?"

The question surprises her so much that she laughs lightly. "Um, what?"

"Porn," Tate drawls. "Fat guys with big dicks doing women dressed as school girls and shit."

"Thanks for clarifying," Violet says, seeking comfort in the familiarity of sarcasm. She is about to make the droll observation that she especially likes the stuff with slutty French maids, but her mind conjures an image of strange, craggy Moira bent over her dad; the joke immediately sours, unspoken.

Tate's hand rubs soothing circles on the soft skin of her inner thigh, a gentle counterpart to his coarse words. "Just pretend you're one of those girls. Relax."

Right. Because it's just that easy, is it? And yet, she does feel more at ease. He's Tate and she's Violet. Two wrong and weird individuals, maybe, but there is comfort in finding each other, even in death.

"I'm not going to moan or scream or anything like that," she warns him, in case he's getting any ideas. It doesn't occur to her until after that she's confirmed what he already knows: she has watched porn, a few times, because she's curious by nature and the forbidden intrigues her. "That shit is totally fake."

Tate concedes her point with a quirk of his eyebrows, but all he says is, "We'll see."

Suddenly, she is nervous again. Seeming to sense her mood, Tate doesn't wait for her to reconsider. His mouth cuts a swift course from the relative safety of her thigh to more dangerous territory. The first caress of his tongue against the small bundle of nerves aching to be touched sends an electric current of sensation through Violet's body. She arches slightly – it feels weird – but coupled with that unfamiliarity is a sharp intensity of pleasure.

Tate is tender and imploring. He presses obscene kisses to her clit only until the sensation becomes too much, too soon. His tongue leaves a trail of wetness across her skin while Violet relearns how to breathe normally, but her reprieve is short-lived. Her muscles clench and spasm as he tastes her more fully, unabashed in a way that is totally characteristic of him.

"You're so wet," he murmurs, his voice darker and more liquid than usual. "I knew you would be."

Violet is beyond speech. Their communication becomes a back-and-forth of her breathy gasps and his curling tongue. She lets out a particularly vocal moan as two of his fingers sink into her, beginning an in-and-out pattern that mirrors the circling of his tongue against her clit. It is perhaps the first moment Violet is relieved to be dead; otherwise, she suspects the experience of being eaten out by Tate might kill her. Pleasure spreads in ripples over her skin. She is falling apart, becoming less Violet and more quivering thighs, aching flesh, and rising heat.

"Does it feel good?" Tate murmurs rhetorically, fingers still thrusting. In. Out. His voice is casual, as if they are discussing their favourite books or the colour of the sky. The Stranger. Heart of Darkness. Blue. Cloudy grey. And yet she can feel the weight of his concentration in every touch, each thorough stroke of his tongue forking lightning through her body.

Her teeth clench on her bottom lip as the feeling builds and spreads, too much, too much. Her thighs shake with the force of it, and Tate grins – she can feel the upturned imprint of his lips, his self-satisfaction – as his fingers prolong the rippling sensation of her pleasure. And then he's lapping at her opening like a kitten, and Violet is aware of nothing but how unbelievably good everything feels.

After, she feels bodiless and boneless, and she is honestly considering never moving again.

"You made yourself bleed," Tate chastises, moving to sit beside her. His mouth glistens in a way that seems unbelievably obscene to her, though she doubts anyone else would even notice the slight sheen in other circumstances.

Violet's tongue flicks out to probe her lower lip, and she tastes the copper tang of metal. Despite his reprimanding tone, Tate watches the movement with an avid gaze.

"Guess so," Violet murmurs, still dazed. Tate kisses her, and she responds with limp compliancy. She is hardly bleeding at all, but he meticulously licks her mouth clean. His tongue is flavored with a hint of musky bitterness that probably shouldn't turn her on as much as it does.

She feels for the crotch of his jeans – the distended material makes it very easy to find – and is aware of her tiredness melting away as she rubs him.

"Do you want to–?" Tate asks, pulling back to cup her cheek.

"I just want to touch you," she says.

"You don't have to."

"I want to," Violet emphasizes. She shrugs. "It's not fair if I'm the only one to get off, right?"

"It's not about fairness," he says, but he obligingly flops back against her pillows, arms crossed behind his head. Despite the erection visible in his jeans, he's the picture of contentment, as if satisfying her was a truly vicarious experience for him.

His gaze is as watchful as ever as her fingers find his belt. Violet's hands are deceptively steady and confident, undoing the buckle and discarding the black length of leather beside her. She unbuttons his jeans with the same sense of surety, but the zipper makes a grating noise that seems shocking and harsh.

Now what?

Spurred by the challenge implicit in Tate's observation of her, Violet draws out the length of his cock, all feverish-hot skin and pulsing vitality. Her hand seems small and pale wrapped around him.

Again, she pauses. Tate exhales loudly. He unwinds his arms from behind his head and props himself up, observing her inactivity. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

No. "Shut up."

"This was your idea."

It was. "I know."

"It won't bite."

No shit. "Shut up, okay? You're not helping."

"Give me your hand."

Nonplussed, Violet releases him – for now – and places her hand in his outstretched one. Tate kisses the back of her hand like some top hat-wearing gentleman in an old-timey movie, but the effect of restrained chivalry is quite ruined as he proceeds to lick her palm with long swipes of his tongue.

"...What are you doing?" she asks, startled.

"Helping."

Tate draws her lubricated hand back to his dick. He hisses out a breath as his hand moves, directing hers to glide up and down. It's hot. His hand guiding hers, making her touch him in exactly the way he wants. Despite her inexperience, Violet is smart and intuitive, and it really isn't that difficult. She begins to experiment with pressure and speed, taking control, finding the pattern that makes him groan low in his throat in the way she likes.

She straddles his knees, thinking only of improving her angle. His jeans rub against her sensitive flesh, and it hurts a little, but not in a bad way. The not-pain makes her breath hitch, thighs tightening against the outside of Tate's legs. He watches her with heavy-lidded eyes. His hand soon falls away from hers, his elbows dropping to prop himself up. He still wants to be able to see.

She doesn't mean to mention what she's been thinking about. But she is happy and careless from Tate's recent ministrations, and words just tumble out of her mouth in a breathless procession. "I read your file."

"What?" Tate is – justifiably – a bit distracted.

"Your patient file. In my dad's office." Her voice is casual. It was inevitable that she would, eventually, as she's sure he is aware. The real surprise is that she waited until after she died to act on her curiosity.

"Fuck, Violet," he says, and she's not sure to what he's referring. Her hand has established a steady rhythm of pumping that makes his eyes pinch at the corners, which she assumes is a good thing. His hips begin to clench and thrust slightly into her grip, movements that seem almost involuntary. He lets out a huffing laugh that is practically a gasp. "Did you like it?"

Violet unintentionally echoes his earlier confusion. "What?"

"Did it make you horny?" He pauses to squeeze his eyes closed for a moment, as if overcome with sensation. "Thinking about me jerking off to thoughts of your hand sneaking down your pants at night?"

Yes. Rather than answer aloud, she increases the pace of her pumping hand. A dark, secret part of her acknowledges that she was turned on not only by his supposed sexual fantasies, but also by the apathy and propensity for violence her father's notes described. Tate is twisted and, somehow, that appeals to her. Does that make her equally warped?

Maybe, but as Tate releases a low groan that tweaks her clit like a physical touch, she decides not to care. She has all eternity to consider questions of morality, right? Or, at least, until some enterprising developer like that Persian dude – her mom never did mention what happened to him, but the deal obviously didn't work out – decides to turn the Murder House into a shopping mall or something.

"Love you," Tate breathes, barely audible. It's so cheesy and romantic that Violet can almost mistake them for a normal teenage couple, for whom Romeo and Juliet and Twilight are the closest they'll come to love and death intertwining. Violet has never envied others their normalcy, and she still doesn't. But she likes that Tate makes her feel like their complete abnormality is perfect, is just as it should be. "Only you. Always."

She wants to vocalize the feelings she reciprocates, really. But there's so much she doesn't understand, about Tate and this house. She knows the important things, of course: he likes Kurt Cobain, famous high school dropouts, autumn, and too-big sweaters that smell like must and age; he dislikes pretension, high school, losing at chess, and preppy clothing.

He loves her.

He comes violently, as if to contrast with the sentimentality of his whispered admissions. His hips hitch up against her hand, body straining. The rattle of his teeth biting together is audible in the silence of the room, and he hisses out a gasp. She feels the warm flesh beneath her hand jerk, and it's not a total surprise when his release stains her arms and torso. On impulse, she digs the nails of her left hand lightly into his thigh. Tate's response is immediate and gratifying; his gasp draws out the last of his orgasm as his eyelids flutter and shake.

His entire body seems to soften as Violet releases him. He slackens back against the bed, gaze slightly unfocused. Violet crawls up his body until she's resting on him, enjoying the closeness of her skin pressed to his. With what seems to take great effort, Tate grabs her around the waist, twisting them so they lie on their sides, facing each other. It's a bit sticky, but she doesn't mind. He kisses her lazily, their tongues barely grazing.

"I'm dead," he mumbles against her lips.

"Me too," she whispers back. The words don't seem so damning when they're the feather-soft culmination of a kiss.

"Cool. Wanna go out?"

"Maybe. Where will you take me?"

"Anywhere. Everywhere."

Violet smiles a bit, because she can almost pretend it's possible. She pulls back just enough that the blur of his face resolves into a clear, vivid image. "Do you know what I thought when I first saw you?"

"Um. Why the hell is this freak in my house?"

"Pretty much, yeah. I was like, who does that? Creeping around other people's bathrooms and handing out suicide tips. Not normal."

"And you don't like normal." He says it with a slight smile of certainty that makes the corners of her mouth rise, too.

"Nope."

"Me neither."

They settle against each other, content to cuddle and relish the sensation of sweat cooling on satisfied bodies. Tate's chest presses warm against her back, and she doesn't even care about the scratchiness of his jeans against her bare legs. One of his hands toys with her hair. A few ash-blonde strands fall against Violet's cheek, and he pushes them away with excruciating care. The fingers of his other hand sketch random patterns over her body – the side of her hip, stomach, the raised expanse of her collarbone. His exploration of her skin is comforting and aimless rather than sexual, as if there is novelty in touching someone in such a simple, easy way.

They rest in peace.

Eventually, Violet decides to venture downstairs in search of a cigarette. Tate is content to wait for her upstairs, fiddling on her laptop. Like touching simply for comfort, certain aspects of modern technology are a novelty to him. Facebook, for example, and the limitless marvels of Wikipedia. His cluelessness underscores the subtler limitations of this new existence. Concern for her parents and unborn siblings preoccupies her now, but what about in twenty years? Fifty? A hundred?

Will she fade away like so many of the other ghosts seem to have done? Becoming like the poor child with the red ball, whose existence is composed of dark corners and the occasional playmate. Or perhaps she will lose touch with reality, like the blood-stained nurses who haunt the basement. Tate's reassurances help, but still she fears becoming obsolete in a world that is constantly changing.

But maybe it's only fitting. After all, she has always been a bit stuck in the past.

She finds her dwindling pack of cigarettes and a lighter on the kitchen table. There was a time when she hid such things scrupulously, but not anymore. Ben spends most of his time visiting Vivien, as he is now, though he would only leave after making Violet promise not to allow Tate into the house. He wouldn't tell her what happened, but she's never seen him look so scared – so haunted. She recalls the bright fear in her dad's blue eyes and feels a pinch of guilt, but her feigned agreement was necessary. The secrets she keeps from her parents now are bigger and scarier than her habit of smoking.

She lights a cigarette. Her grip tightens compulsively around the lighter as a mocking voice cuts through the room. "Boohoo. Poor little lost girl all alone in this big bad house."

Fucking ghosts.

"What do you want?" Violet asks, turning to face a girl with long hair a shade redder than Vivien's and harshly lined eyes. She might at one point have been pretty, but the sneer on her face ruins the aesthetic perfection of her features.

"Just to help you," she says, the exaggerated innocence in her voice implying quite the opposite. "We ghosts have to stick together, right?"

"You know I'm dead?"

"Duh." The girl waves a hand through the air, as if to brush aside this meaningless detail. It doesn't surprise Violet as much as it probably should. She's starting to get used to the mysteries of the Murder House, the way all the ghosts seem to have a ubiquitous sense of what occurs within the walls of their prison.

Violet tries to reconcile the girl's appearance with that of the woman in the old photos Tate found, but they clearly don't match. Nor does the girl – dressed in jeans and a t-shirt – have that air of strangeness and age that characterizes the older ghosts, so she must have died recently. "Who are you?"

The girl's eyes widen comically. "You don't know? That's so weird. I feel like I know all about you. Ben just loved to talk about you, you know, his smart little girl."

And it clicks. It doesn't make any sense, but what does anymore? She overheard some of her parents' arguments – Boston and cheating and whatthehellisshedoinghere? – but it's still so much of a shock that Violet simply feels numb.

"Hayden," she says, seeking confirmation. The name is dredged up from some foggy recollection of it being hissed and whispered back and forth in accusatory undertones.

"Mm-hmm. I'm stuck in this damn house now, just like you."

"Great. Seriously. Maybe we can have sleepovers and braid each other's hair when you're not trying to break up my parents' marriage."

"You stupid bitch," Hayden mutters. Her mascara is smudged beneath her eyes, raccoon-like, and Violet wonders if she died crying. "You have no idea about anything, do you?"

Violet eyes her father's whore with disdain, her numbness turned to resentment. "My dad's into old ladies with feather dusters now. Did you know? I guess you turned him off little girls."

Hayden's smile is as quick and cruel as the sharp edge of a knife. "Poor little nightingale, so naive."

Did Hayden heckle Vivien like this? It wouldn't surprise Violet, but at least her mother is away from all this now – safe from the knowledge that her baby girl is nothing more than a rotting corpse and the memory of a person. Violet intends to prolong her parents' obliviousness for as long as possible. It is another irony inherent in her death: the girl who secretly yearned for parental attention would now do almost anything to deflect their notice.

She knows better than anyone that her parents are far from perfect. But she loves her mother's strength and neuroticism – the way she can't sleep without applying lotion to her legs and hates all things artificial. Violet is strong and fearless because Vivien encouraged her to be.

And she loves her father's stubbornness, too, because even though he's an asshole and totally mental most of the time, at least he cares. He wants the best for his family: Harvard for his once-high-achieving daughter and a new baby for the woman whom he has loved and betrayed.

So even though Violet doesn't truly believe her parents would ever abandon her in this house of horrors, she will make every effort to protect them from the devastation of their first-born's death. She will be strong, like Tate tried to be for her.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she snaps, tiring of vagueness and endless equivocations.

Hayden looks Violet up and down, appraising her mussed hair and disheveled clothes. "You should ask your little mooning boyfriend about what happened just before you two lovebirds shacked up."

"You're so full of shit," Violet says scathingly. "If you have something to say, just say it."

"Tch," Hayden scoffs. "What's the fun in that?"

Ben, Violet decides, has terrible taste in mistresses. It's bad enough that he cheated, but did he have to screw a girl who is so obviously bat-shit crazy?

"You're seriously deranged," she says, blowing out a tendril of smoke that is supposed to convey how unaffected she is by Hayden's insinuations. Her expression reflects carefully constructed boredom: mouth loose around her cigarette, gaze aimless, eyebrows neutral.

It is a convincing performance, and Hayden rolls her eyes. "Whatever. Not my problem if you want to be as blind as your knocked-up mother."

A burst of anger sears Violet's lungs, as burning-hot as the lit end of her cigarette. "Go away," she says with steely calm. And then, louder: "go away!"

"Ask him!" Hayden's voice is a screech, sudden and shrill.

The words echo even after Hayden disappears. Violet stares at the cigarette poised between her fingers without ever raising it to her lips. It is shaking slightly, but she doesn't make the logical connection that this is related to the way her hands are trembling.

Eventually, she wanders upstairs, her pace listless. She has nowhere to go, nowhere to be. Her thoughts are a tangled web of things she does and does not yet know, but she has time – an eternity of it – to sort them out.

The door of her bedroom is ajar, though she closed it when she went downstairs. Tate isn't stretched out on the bed where she left him, but her laptop is still poised on one of her flower-embellished pillows.

A quick scan of her room reveals that he's written something on her chalkboard again. Slanting white lines stark against a black background. Violet's vision blurs, and she can't discern the words. A chocked sob catches in her throat. Déjà vu. This, this is her life – afterlife – now. Cards and sex and creaking floors and secrets and bitchy ghosts and tender touches that make her want to die and messages scrawled in chalk.

She wants to curl into herself on her bed, no room for light or air, but she doesn't, she can't.

She'll have to get used to forever eventually.