Rafe directed his gaze to her, his eyebrows lifting. “Fine. If you have to see him again, I don’t want you doing it alone,” he repeated as he faced her. “Better?”

But Sara didn’t seem to be paying attention to either of them. She seemed unaware of them for a moment as she weighed Rafe’s words. “You can go, but if I tell you to step out, you need to listen. Understood?”

Rafe’s eyes narrowed. He shoved his hand in his pocket once more, and Violet waited to see if he was going to argue. But when he spoke, his voice belied the frustration she could see smoldering behind his eyes, and she wondered where it was coming from exactly—what Sara had done, or said, to incite that kind of irritation. “Understood,” he bit out at last.

And then he turned on the heel of his boot and strode toward the door, leaving the rest of them behind.

Chapter 6

SOME DAYS THE RAIN JUST SEEMED TO FIT, AND today felt like one of those days. The morning sky was dark, layered with the kind of thick black clouds that promised showers. Violet didn’t mind; it suited her mood. Despite the weather, she’d gotten up early, needing to clear her head the only way she knew how.

And now, running on what she considered a path, but what was really more of a thinned-out passageway between the trees surrounding her house, she could feel the dense fog in her head lifting. Something even the repeating loops of Dr. Lee’s hypnosis tracks on her iPod hadn’t been able to do.

She didn’t want to think about last night, so she didn’t think at all, just concentrated on her pace as her feet landed heavily against the compacted forest floor. She listened to her breath steady in her ears, hypnotic in its own way, and it helped. She felt less jumbled. Less fuzzy.

She’d barely noticed when the rain finally started. It wasn’t until she was soaked, until tiny rivulets of water trickled into her eyes and she had to blink them away, that she realized it wasn’t just a drizzle that fell from the sky, but a full-on downpour. Yet even that couldn’t sour her improving mood. Instead, she went out of her way to find every puddle on her way home. She felt like a little girl . . . jumping in them just so, sending sprays of muddy water splashing up her legs until her shoes were drenched all the way through, and her rubber soles squeaked with each step she took.

By the time she tumbled through the back door of her house, into her kitchen, Violet was laughing and dripping and filthy. She slipped off her waterlogged shoes and grabbed a sweatshirt from the hook by the door, doing her best to towel off with the thick fleece, but it was a poor substitute for a real towel.

Her dad was sitting at the table, watching her curiously. “You’re in an awfully good mood this morning for someone without a cell phone.”

Violet shrugged. Her parents had been waiting for her when she’d come home last night. They’d gotten the call from the police, just as she’d suspected they would. “I can’t really say I didn’t deserve what I got, I guess.” She tried to smile, to lighten the mood, but he wasn’t buying it.

His fingers tapped against the tabletop, his eyebrows raised as Violet dropped onto the chair, water puddling onto the floor beneath her. “Jay called while you were . . . out,” her dad said, changing the subject. “And Chelsea too. In fact, she’s called three times already this morning. I forgot how exhausting it was before you had your own cell phone.” He shook his head at the receiver sitting in front of him. “Just tell them they don’t have to keep calling. I promise to give you the messages.”

Violet smiled at her father, feeling guilty for putting him in this position. He was supposed to be the good cop in their household, and here he was playing the part of enforcer. Violet knew, just from the strained expression on his face, it wasn’t a role he cared for.

The phone rang again, as if on cue, and he sighed as he glanced at the caller ID.

“I gotta get ready for school,” Violet said, jumping up and patting her dad’s sagging shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell her to stop calling. Maybe we’ll get some walkie-talkies, or learn smoke signals.” She snapped her fingers. “Or, I know, we can tie some cans to a really long string and go old-school.”

“Or maybe,” he drawled impatiently, “you could try staying out of trouble and we’ll give you your phone back.”

Cocking her head to the side, Violet pretended to think about that, and then she winked at him. “Yeah, but how boring is that?” she said, and then caught herself, realizing those were the exact words Rafe had used the night before. “I’m kidding. I’ll behave,” she amended before her dad could say anything. She kissed him on the forehead as he lifted the receiver to his ear, answering it on the third ring. “Cross my heart.”

Getting up early meant Violet made it to school with plenty of time to spare. Slamming her car door and tugging her hood over her head to keep from getting drenched as she raced toward the building, Violet avoided eye contact with everyone around her as much as humanly possible.

Running in the rain had made her feel a little less . . . dazed, but it didn’t change the fact she was in trouble with her parents. Or that she’d gotten caught trespassing by the police the night before.

She really wasn’t in the mood for superficial chitchat, even with her friends, and she kept her head low as she made her way to her locker.

“That bad, huh?”

Violet glanced up to find Jay leaning against the bank of metal lockers, amusement clear in his expression.