If you are born blind, you never miss the light.

Violet has found a cold comfort. She goes to Travis, first, because he's the only one not suffering in that godforsaken house. His handsome, boyish face and lean body doesn't hurt, either. The Boy Dahlia might be gruesome in police photos but in death, he was preserved.

At first it was awkward for her. She'd take off all her clothes and come on to him, but then blush all over her body, down to her breasts and her navel. She couldn't meet his eyes. Travis laughed at her, but not unkindly. He joked with her, smiled at her, and oh his hands, his fingers. He wasn't much for conversation, but he made her laugh. He made her come. He made her forget. For a time, for hours, sometimes days. There was so much to forget, and so much time. She got a lot of practice. She began to move gracefully, languidly, and she was able to hold his gaze. She loved the look he got, that blank, awed look in his eyes right before he came and it was best when she was on top. Best when she could feel that odd sense of power. Afterward, his pillow talk was all jokes and laughter. Being dead had humbled Travis a bit, and Violet genuinely liked him. It wasn't love. It wasn't Tate.

Afterward, she'd always think that, and then she'd remember all over again. The thing about love is that it breaks you over and over again. Loving Tate had been what hurt her when she discovered all the dark, dirty things about him. She couldn't go on loving him and hating him and being incapable of imagining not being with him. He was a killer, a rapist, a liar. She loved him anyway. She'd committed suicide so that she could stop loving Tate. She couldn't be with him. She could never forgive him. It didn't change anything. In a hundred years, she'd still be feeling this way. It was unbearable.

So she escaped.

First with Travis, but sometimes that wasn't enough. Sometimes the anger and hatred boiled up so much Travis couldn't handle it. He was afraid of her when she was like that, shied away from her and made himself scarce. He was all for the sex, but not the pain. Once she was looking for him, raging and screaming down in the basement, and someone clamped a big hand over her mouth, shoved her against the wall. Furious, she looked up and for an instant, she thought it was Tate and her dead heart skipped a beat. Then she took in the hard lines of the face, the shorter, blonder hair. Patrick.

"What do you think you're doing down here, little girl?" He leaned in close, and his breath was minty and sweet, but hot.

"Let me go!" She screamed, but it came out muffled and weak, his hand still crushing her mouth. She tasted sweat, salty and heady.

"The last time I let a woman tell me what to do I was in the third grade. You're angry. You're suffering. Boo hoo. We all are." He let go of her and took a step back. His eyes were ice blue.

She didn't move, staring at him, angry tears spilling over onto her face. Suddenly, Patrick came at her. He put his hand around her throat, hard, enough to hurt. Then, shockingly, he shoved his other hand down her pants.

She gasped, moaned. "What are you doing? You're gay!"

Patrick laughed. "I'm dead."

And so it was. He fucked her, hurt her, cut her, sometimes killed her again. There was no talking afterward, no kisses on the forehead or games of go fish like with Travis. There was just her, bleeding and bruised on the basement floor. Travis and Patrick. Two men so like the two sides of the boy she loved. A sweet, joking boy and a harsh, brutal man. If it is cold comfort she seeks, she has received the coldest.