Hornet's Nest Ch. 10

"Very different," Mum replied. "But similar in a way, I guess."

Then she frowned, and asked a harrowing little question. "Mum, why do so many people hate Darren?"

Mum couldn't really come up with an answer for that, and looked to Dad for input.

"Many people are idiots," he said.

Hanna giggled. "Well, I knew that." Then her face fell. "Is it all over? Is everyone okay?"

"Yes," Mum said.

"Everything's okay?"

"Everything's fine."

"Is Violet okay?"

"Shall I go get her?" I asked.

Hanna gave a shy little nod, so I went upstairs to retrieve my girlfriend and bring her in on the discussion, though there wasn't much more to say. I knew Hanna would be asking questions once it all sunk in and she had time to think, but I'd handle those questions when they happened.

*

There was one more thing. Some sort of physical closure, I guess. Darren took the whole family to the graveyard.

It was a strange thing, like I was going to pay respects to people I'd hardly known, one I hadn't even known was dead. But it needed to be done. And most importantly, it'd help Hanna grasp it.

It was a day where it was warm in the sun, but the breeze was cold. September was approaching. Leaving the house that day in a jacket had a dampening effect on me. Summer ending meant university was coming.

Was I ready to face the world yet? I had to be.

The cemetery was nice, and very well-kept. Multiple doors slammed shut from the three cars as we all got out. We walked in pairs down gravel paths, with Hanna hitching a ride on Wesley's shoulders. There was some chatter from my parents and uncles ahead, but Violet and I walked in a comfortable silence, fingers locked together.

Darren led us to the graves, pointing them out with what was almost a nonchalant gesture and sigh. Then he stood with his hands in his pockets, gazing across the row of granite headstones.

The first two were ever so slightly weather-worn. Arthur and Andrew Sörensen. Died in 2000 and 2001. Next along, Jeremy. Died in 2007. The last two headstones were visibly newer. Marcus and Vincent. Both died in 2018.

Darren stepped up to the middle headstone with an expression of regret, twenty years and still going strong. "This one was all me."

Wesley let Hanna down from his shoulders, and she went over to Darren, tugging at his sleeve since she didn't have access to his hand. "It was an accident. It wasn't your fault."

"I crashed the car."

"It was an accident." She stared up at him with an earnest determination. His eyes creased with an affectionate smile in return. He removed his hand from the pocket and it was grasped in hers in an instant. She might lose her blunt innocence as she aged, but in that moment, it was fully intact. Her eyes moved across the headstones, silently mouthing each name as she went.

It wasn't just Hanna taking it in. Violet's fingers slipped from mine as she stepped forward, pacing down the row, needing a closer look. Stopping at Vincent's headstone, she looked around to Darren like a weight had hit her. "I'm so sorry."

He shrugged. "It's all long done."

She looked back at the graves, crunched a few more steps on the gravel, looked at Darren, looked at me, then back at him. Her expression kept shifting, unsure of what to say or do. She just wasn't happy with what she saw. "Life's been pretty hard on you, huh."

"In some ways. I mean, I've never had money troubles. Lots of inheritance."

Mum snorted behind me.

"And money means nothing," Violet said, searching for eye contact from Darren, which he wasn't giving. Her head turned back to the stones. "Everyone's dead." It was pretty striking to see all the graves in a row like that.

"I have one cousin still living," Darren said. "She moved to Canada after my uncle's death. Haven't heard from her in years."

"She ran away?"

"One way of looking at it."

Violet struggled with it all, like she was expecting more emotion from Darren, and he was being pretty cold. Maybe jaded was a more appropriate word.

His family was dead, yeah. But he still had us. She'd nearly destroyed that, too, and I think that was what hit her. When she apologised again, it wasn't about the fact that two generations of men were in a row six feet under, it was about what she'd done.

Hanna was unsettled by Violet's growing distress, releasing Darren's hand in an attempt to comfort her instead. "It's not your fault."

Violet stared at her. She couldn't know, not yet. Her eyes watered with pain and she looked at me, like I needed to do something about my little sister and save her from this situation. I didn't react fast enough, and when Hanna reached for Violet's hand she pulled away, turned, and walked off.

I followed a few steps after her, but she stopped of her own accord. She gathered her composure, wiped her eyes, and came back over to my family. Facing instead of running. I was proud of her.

If the visit was intended to have some kind of impact, it achieved that.

---

Violet

The second year of university was... hard.

Our first day back in physics labs was interesting. David and I sat together near the rear of the room. The professor came over, as jovial as ever, to start up some friendly chatter, opening with calling us 'lover birds' and commenting about how we were still together, and how it was nice to see, and all that shit.

"How was summer?" he asked.

David leant back in his seat and pulled an expression that said he didn't want to know.

"That bad, huh?" the professor continued. "Did you take her home to meet the parents?"

"Yeah."

He chuckled. "And it was interesting, was it?"

"I'll say."

I was used to having experiences I couldn't talk about, but it was new for David. It's not like anyone would believe you if you did talk about it, anyways.

For weeks I simply felt... weird. I was in a detached, limbo state. The fog of it only really wore off around the start of November, but then the reality was bitter and difficult to handle.

The last text my mum sent me, before her and Dad officially disappeared, had me crying like a baby. Staring at those words on my phone's screen was the final blow in accepting it. And then I threw out that phone, and everything on it from the past four years of my life. And I threw out some clothes that had particular memories attached to them, too.

A fresh start. Sort of.

It was impossible to be fresh because being back at university was being back in an old environment. An environment that had started when I was a different person.

Many things were the same. Social science classes were still fun, physics were still horrible. I still spent far too much time around David and Wesley's flat. A couple of flatmates were different, as Adrian and another girl found somewhere cheaper to stay for their second year, but the rest were the same. Myles and Claire got into a massive argument within a week of being in proximity to each other, just like old times.

Darren's name ended up on TV again, something to do with America. There wasn't the slightest trace, anywhere, about the trouble he'd been in. It'd all been covered up very well. I wasn't sure how I'd feel if something like that had been plastered across media, what with it being so much my doing.

David and I mostly kept our heads down and did our work. We went running and climbing up buildings some nights. Other nights we stayed in bed, and got hot and sweaty in a different way. I tried looking for a job, and couldn't get one. They were some of the quietest months of my life, eventful only through routine.

Zack and Amelia called a few times, and whenever they were done talking to David, the phone was passed to me. They could be an amusing pair, a bit like good cop, bad cop. Amelia cared about my emotional state, Zack cared about the cold practicalities of what I was doing and whether I was slipping up.

I wasn't. Campus acquaintances had to accept that my connections all just disappeared. I didn't talk to Romain, and he never sought me out. My parents promised that they'd keep him, and Harold, and whoever else, off my back.

Zack and Amelia did get some phonecalls about the whole bail situation. Apparently Zack dealt with it - "Oh, that's unfortunate." And hung up.

Everything was mostly smooth sailing, so why did I feel so wrong, right at my very core?

It took me a while to figure out what it was. Analysing everything, trying to see it from a different angle.

We went home for Halloween. We went home for Christmas. I didn't feel out of place around the family. It was more that I felt like I didn't have a... purpose.

It took until spring term until anything started to make any sense.

David was going through something similar to me. It wasn't us. It was... everything else.

I didn't have doubts about him. He was completely devoted to me. We could lay together on his bed, limbs tangled and breathing in sync, perfectly content in one another's company, but so unhappy about what we were doing with our lives.

David got to the root of it faster than me. He came into his room with a towel wrapped around his waist after a long shower. He must have done a marathon of thinking.

"What do you want?" he asked. I looked up from my laptop, momentarily stunned. I didn't know if he had any idea how identical he was to his dad in that moment.

"... Do you mean like, literally?" I replied.

"Yeah, like, what comes to your head?" He sat beside me on the bed and pushed the laptop screen down, just so I understood he really did want to talk and it was important.

"What do I want?" I paused for a moment, looking at the water droplets on his shoulder. "Well... I want some money in my bank account that isn't just from a loan that's gonna completely fuck up my future."

He smirked.

"And I want a motorbike."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, seriously. I got this jacket and it's good for nothing because I never ride one anymore."

"Get some money and you can get a motorbike."

I chuckled. "I need a license."

"Get that first."

"Okay, sure."

"And what else?"

I paused again, trying to think. Things weren't immediately popping to mind. "I dunno. But I can tell you what I don't want. I don't want to do fucking physics."

He grinned. "Neither do I."

"I hate it."

"So do I. And chemistry. And biology, to be honest."

"I don't... I don't want to be here. This university, this town. But we don't have any choice."

"We do. We just have to plan well so we're never pushing that six months."

I studied his face. "What do you mean?"

He fidgeted to sit a bit closer to me. "I, well... It's like, erm."

"Spit it out."

"I just... I've figured out what I want to do."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I want to join the police."

I stared for a second until something Darren said came to mind. "Monkey see, monkey do."

He chuckled and shrugged, with a huge grin on his face.

"You want to be in full body armour, kicking doors in, and shooting the bad guys? That's what you want?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

I chuckled as well. It was surprising, and yet not. "Where do you even start?"

"That's what I have to figure out." His smiled faded. "What about you, though? What do you want to do?"

"I... Well, now you've gone and said that, maybe I can say something and it won't sound so stupid any more."

"What?"

"You remember Lawrence? You remember when I went to talk with him about my parents? Well, we kinda talked about him a bit. About what he does. And the way the conversation went, he basically said I had all the qualities to make a good Detective Inspector."

David grinned again. "Seriously? And you'd want that?"

"I guess. I'm not like, opposed to it..."

"That could be awesome."

"The thing is, I don't really know how serious he was being. He said I should get in contact with him if I ever thought about it. Like he could help me, or something."

"Then maybe he can help me too. It's all about who you know."

There was a pause of silence, then we grinned at each other, like giddy little kids coming up with new life dreams. When I leant over to kiss his handsome face I wasn't intending for it to escalate, but apparently that rush of happiness and excitement needed an outlet.

He was freshly showered. Better get him all sweaty again.

*

We figured out as much as we could, before we announced our plans to his parents. We wanted something tangible and achievable, not something we'd drop out of university for and fail. That spring became very busy.

Our efforts were worth it. When the news came out, Amelia and Zack were skeptical, but grew more supportive when it actually sounded like we knew what we were doing.

Wesley laughed his arse off, but thought it was awesome.

A cheerful Darren put us in contact with Lawrence, who answered all sorts of questions and gave plenty of advice. We were looking at different branches, but were prepared for whatever years of training, exams, and study it might take. It was a real career, for both of us. David's just had a slightly higher chance of getting him killed.

I would study criminal law. David would go through intensive training, so long as he passed the initial exams. I had exams to pass, too. There were applications to make. Plenty of things to sort. It didn't daunt us. We were doing this.

Everything was so exciting, and university suddenly didn't matter any more. We put in just enough effort to get decent grades, before quitting at the end of our second year. Everyone who knew us was sort of surprised, yet not, about our choices. I guess as I was 'the dealer' and David was 'the thug', most hadn't expected us to go down the route of law. Yet it also made sense, in a weirdly logical way.

We were set up for our future. Facing the same direction together.

There was a short period of rest when we went home that summer, before launching ourselves into our new lives.

I played games with Hanna and did my best to take on a big sister role. I talked a lot with Amelia and Zack. I bantered with Wesley and Tyler. And for Darren, I still felt like I owed him so many things. Lawrence was hunting down one last Driscoll - Alan's cousin. If I could qualify to get in on the case, I hoped I could personally contribute to the full closure of a chapter of Darren's life. One I'd stirred up and re-opened. It only seemed right.

I'd have to see how the future went.

There was one of those celebratory dinners where Darren and Tyler came over. With the weather being so nice, we all ended up in the garden after eating. Poking around in the shed produced a football with a decent amount of air in it. A mock football match followed. David and Wesley, versus Tyler and Zack.

It was mostly a chaotic mess of clowning around, but the former team seemed to be winning, if only because David was actually good at football. Nobody could get the ball off him. When Zack had enough of it, he decided they were now playing rugby, and violently tackled his son to the ground.

Tyler shrieked with laughter. Wesley clasped at his head and cried out to Darren on the bench - "Referee!"

He bounced with a chuckle and didn't even attempt to intervene.

A growling wrestle ensued, where perhaps David was most surprised of all when he successfully pinned his dad on the grass with an arm bar. Tyler's laughter got even squeakier when Zack tapped out. The moment David released him, stood up, and turned his back, he swung his leg out and knocked his feet from beneath him.

Zack didn't get to pin David for long. Such dishonourable fighting required Wesley and Tyler to join in. He lost a second time, going limp with a strained guffaw at the bottom of the pile. Amelia cackled in glee and wiped her eyes.

"Oh, goodness, the grass stains."

It was hard to think that it'd been a year already, since everything had happened.

Hanna ventured over once it was safe and they'd stopped giving each other bruises, and I stole her spot on the bench between Amelia and Darren. Life was pretty good. Maybe it'd get better. Hopefully it'd never get worse.

David headed over to me with a beaming smile. I knew not to trust it. He had a stalking posture, and lunged before I could escape. I was thrown over his shoulder, almost kicking Amelia in the face while squawking and swearing. It was my turn to join in.

I was one of them now.

---

David

I knew my dad was concerned about my choices, but it was something I wanted to do.

He'd had that side of him 'harnessed' before, by the wrong people, in the wrong situations. He had plenty of bad experiences. Of course it concerned him.

I didn't want to live a life where I was constantly suppressing and crushing it. It'd wear me down, and I'd screw up somewhere along the line. Maybe Dad had all the discipline and control in the world, and only had a couple of slip-ups once he'd decided enough was enough. But I wasn't him.

It was an unexplored part of me. I guess I wanted to try 'harness' it in my own way. The idea that I could do something good with it.

Maybe it was a terrible idea. An absolute disaster waiting to happen. I wouldn't know until I tried.

Tyler called me a 'dirty little do-gooder with a hero complex'. That's exactly what I was, but I didn't see why that had to be a bad thing. I'd always been like it. I'd always wanted to help people, always had an urge to protect. Always had a gut reaction to witnessing 'injustice'. And then there was the reactive, aggressive streak that always caused problems. Giving it an outlet just seemed to make sense.

A controlled outlet.

I never would've thought of particular events happening, nor them steering me onto a particular path. I wasn't alone in that. I'm sure when Violet first met Lawrence, she had no clue he would become a big part of her life.

She had big ideas about what she was going to do. The Driscoll extinction. Helping to take down the drug gang that'd loomed over her life. There was one thing she didn't mention, but I knew it was there - she hoped to stick her nose into a possible case, about tracking down a certain Eleanor Lewis and John Lloyd.

If the gang was taken down, she'd have to find them at some point, right? I wondered how that would go. Would I be involved in such raids?

There'd been something about Violet that drew me to her in the first place. Maybe she just looked like she needed help. Maybe when you realise someone has a shell, you want to know why. But she'd been the one who initially approached me. I wouldn't be where I was without her, either.

When I'd first laid eyes on her, it'd been difficult to imagine getting close enough for any sort of intimacy. I had no idea what she'd become to me, what role she'd end up taking in the family, or what either of us would end up doing in the world.

She'd support me wherever I headed, and I'd support her. We burnt from the same fuel, and maybe that was the key element to our whole relationship.

Different backgrounds, same goal.

---