Hornet's Nest

---

Violet

Being alone in Darren's house was pretty awkward, if I'm honest. And if it was awkward for me, I can only imagine what it was like for him. He knocked repeatedly on my room's door the following morning.

"Violet, erm. Violet."

I didn't immediately respond, and he knocked again.

"Violet."

It wasn't particularly early. I don't know why I took so long to wake up.

"What?" I finally replied, and it came out louder and sharper than I intended.

"Can you get up?"

"Yeah."

"I have information, about the hospital. I'm going soon, I guess you want to come too?"

That cleared up my tired fog much faster. "Yes." I swung my legs over the side of the bed and his footsteps headed down the hallway. I stared at my discarded knickers on the floor. "Darren," I called.

"Yes?" The footsteps came back.

"I really need clean clothes."

"Oh, God." There was a pause. "Are you decent?"

"No."

So we just had this bizarre conversation through the door.

"I, erm," he unhelpfully started.

"Does David leave any spare boxers around by any chance?"

He let out a light chuckle that was more of an amused exhale. "We've not had to keep spare underwear for him for a long time."

"Okay."

"Erm."

I guessed I'd have to borrow something of his.

"Maybe Tyler's smallest boxer briefs would fit you."

Or that.

"Can I just put my stuff in the wash?" I asked.

"Yes, but the hospital hours, um..."

"Just a quick spin."

"Yes, but the tumble dryer-"

"Darren, it's literally just some knickers."

His voice sounded muffled, like he had his hands over his face. "Okay, all right. Hold on." He walked away again, but came back and dropped a bathrobe through the door. I could probably wrap myself up twice in it.

I was hungry again. I was stiff in places that confused me - I didn't remember using those parts for anything specific. My head had a large bruise which only hurt if I touched it. The cut on my face only hurt if I stretched my cheek with expressions. My arms were decorated with marks from the vice grips of the police.

I made myself some toast, repeatedly checking the washing machine for the twenty-minute spin to be over with. Darren was anxious to get to the hospital, and so was I. I didn't know what to say to David, or what he'd say to me, but I needed to see him.

Darren wandered around on the phone. I didn't know what it was about, just kept hearing his voice through the walls. He hung up and came into the kitchen with an expression that said his mind was busy. If he had any sort of a hangover, he did a good job at hiding it. There were only some creases around his brow and eyes to suggest he was working through a headache. He poured himself what might have been his second or third cup of coffee.

There was a distinct lack of noise from the washing machine, so I went out to sort the dryer. Darren was leaning against the counter and looking down at his phone when I came back in. I hesitated before speaking. His eyes flicked up to my presence.

"... Have they found my parents yet?" I asked.

"I'm trying to find out."

I stared at the floor and crossed my arms.

"Lawrence is sticking his nose in for me," Darren continued.

"Who is he?"

"What?"

"Lawrence."

"Someone who's been hunting Driscolls for a long time. I was put in contact with him some years ago."

"Right."

"This was all the kick-off he was waiting for. Had to happen one day."

So Darren was bait on a hook. I came along and bit.

I watched him typing a message on his phone's screen, then looked around the kitchen. I hated everything right then. The situation, what had happened, everything I'd done. I wanted to fix things, make everything better. I was helpless. Everything was in the hands of someone else, the mercy of something else. I dropped the stone and had no power over the ripples.

*

The drive was uneventful. I tagged along behind Darren upon arrival. He seemed to know where he was going and what he was doing.

I was 19 years old, and it was the first time I stepped foot inside a hospital. I had been born in one, but had no memories. When Dad got beaten up and stabbed, he never went to hospital. He 'pulled himself together' and spent a few weeks struggling. When Mum jumped off a moving motorbike in a choreographed crash and broke her arm, she never went to hospital. A friend snapped something back in place and bound it up while she screeched profanities. It got better, but she always complained that she didn't have the same strength in that arm ever again.

The hospital's interior was exactly as I expected it to be, but we slipped through without saying anything to anyone. Darren never went up to a desk. He stopped briefly to check some information on ward names, then continued down the corridor.

When we reached the ward that held David and Tyler, there were police. My stomach instinctively tightened, but Darren sped up. He greeted them with professional tact and showed some ID.

"And her?" one asked.

"My niece."

Well, okay. They let us through. I didn't understand at the time, but they were there in case anyone came into the hospital in an attempt to 'finish off the job'. An unlikely but thoughtful precaution.

We were seeing Tyler first. I fell behind as we approached the door. "Do you want to, err..." I gestured for Darren to go ahead.

He glanced over his shoulder. "He'll want to know what happened. Wouldn't you rather explain it yourself?"

Fair enough. I followed him inside.

We walked into Tyler bickering with who I assumed to be a nurse. His voice cut off mid-sentence and his head snapped to the door. He stared for a second, yelped out a little laugh, then looked back to the woman - "Nevermind." He grinned at us. "Did you suck the police's dicks?"

"Lawrence's," Darren replied.

Another yelp. "Is he doing even half as good a job as Ted?"

"It's not really a fair field to judge."

"Mister Sörensen?" the nurse asked.

Darren straightened at the side of the bed. "Yes?"

She simply nodded in affirmation and looked back to Tyler. "I'll leave you to it."

"Ma'am," Darren started. "Where is Keane?"

She paused with her hand on the door handle. "David Keane?"

"Yes."

"You're not of kin."

"Not officially, no."

Her eyes slid back to Tyler. "He's been explaining to me. David had some lad come in earlier, his brother I think? I'll go check anyways, and let you know." She took her leave.

I stood feeling very much like a third wheel as Darren sat on the side of the bed and seized Tyler in an embrace. Tyler returned it with one arm - his left was in a sling. Darren pulled back and gave it a tug. "What's this?"

"They don't really want me to move my arm while it heals, some shit with my shoulder blade. To be fair," he lifted the elbow level with his chin, "it hurts like a bitch to move it anyways."

They returned to their previous closeness. Darren seemed content with holding him in silence for a short while. Tyler eventually lifted his buried face, rested his chin on Darren's shoulder, and gave me a look. "So, what exactly has been going on?"

I think facing Tyler was, in some ways, the hardest. And I could get it over with first. I didn't know how many times I would be repeating this story.

There wasn't much detail or emotion. I simply relayed events, starting with the phonecall from Harold. I did try to apologise about the whole ringing-up-Tyler-gone-midnight thing. He smirked and I looked away. He watched me the entire time I spoke, but I only made a few glances of eye contact.

I trailed off close to the end, thinking Darren would take over and explain what exactly had gone on involving the police, but he didn't. There was a silence.

The silence stretched. Tyler was waiting for me to look up and make eye contact. I finally did.

"You're a dumb bitch," was his response. To everything. "And a pretty good shot."

I scoffed. "Not good enough."

"Why?"

"I didn't kill him."

"No, then you would've stolen Darren's moment." His eyes finally moved off me. "You enjoyed that, didn't you? Fucking idiot."

Darren's face was obscured behind his hand, but he visibly shook his head. "I lost my shit."

"Yeah, and you know who else lost their shit? The kid."

"Fucking hell." Darren dragged the hand down his jaw. "It's lucky you stopped him when you did."

"Yeah, and I nearly got broken ribs for it. For fuck sake. He's too big now, I can't handle him anymore."

There was another short silence. Tyler's abrasive, joking manner could be equally hard-hitting.

David definitely had lost his shit. A physical eruption. The blurred lines of violence. Perhaps the worst thing, was that nobody was sorry it had happened. None of us knew how things might've gone otherwise. David performed nothing but a necessity that kept the four of us alive.

"If only he did that at the car," Tyler continued.

"They got the jump on you," I quietly replied. "It makes the difference."

He snorted. "You'd know all about that, huh? Like you knew to aim at the torso and not the head?"

I stared at the floor.

"You got a headshot, though. I saw it."

I'd shot people dead, and Tyler was ready to joke about it.

"Can we not talk about this," Darren butted. "Not here, not right now."

Tyler shrugged his right shoulder. "We have to talk at some point."

Darren let out a deep sigh and buried his head again.

"What's going on," Tyler pushed, "what's Lawrence doing?"

"Honestly, I wish I knew."

"Is he gonna find anything out?"

"Actually, I called him up to tell him something."

"What?"

Darren's eyes fixed on me. "This Driscoll talked with Violet, and told her some things."

"Like what?"

"Like, my dad stole Brendan's wife."

Tyler's eyes widened, then he blinked. His mouth became an unimpressed line in his face, that sort of disappeared beneath his beard. "You what."

"Yes."

"For real?"

"Yep."

"So that's what this guy got in a fit about? Your dad fucked his mum?"

"My dad fucked his mum," Darren confirmed.

Tyler's face screwed up, like there was just so much stupidity in the world and he didn't want to think about it, let alone deal with it. "Jesus Christ." They stared at each other for a long moment.

"My dad was a bastard," Darren said. "That's all there is to it."

"Nah," Tyler said, but it went no further. Apparently right then wasn't the time for that conversation.

I was waiting for that nurse to come back. Waiting to see David.

---

David

I entered a withdrawn state. Physically, everything was fine. Or, would be, given a typical recovery period. I didn't know what was going on, I didn't really know where I was, and I didn't know what to do with myself. I stared at walls, stared at the TV in my room, and mostly slept. I was out of it.

Wesley's voice told me that I was allowed visitors. It woke me up and I came to confused as fuck. I felt his hand on my shoulder, and opened my eyes to him staring at my face. His own eyes lit up and came to life with a massive grin. Before I could react he threw his weight across me and his shoulder knocked my chin.

"Wes," I growled. He chuckled and didn't let go.

"Fucking hell, mate. Fucking hell." He shifted, and his arm brushed where I had stitches. I jolted and he pulled back. "Are you okay? You got shot?"

"Fuck." I pushed myself up and rubbed at my eyes, then looked to the door. "Mum and Dad not with you?"

"They want to come, I think they'll be here at some point. Mum's having to deal with the company and Dad's dealing with some shit with the police." His eyes searched my face while I was drowsy and slow. "Dave. I've never shat myself like this before."

"I'm okay, Wes."

"What happened? They wouldn't tell me medical details."

"Apparently it was a 'graze'. Which meant it ripped my side open and I got stitches and stuff."

"... Can I see?"

I paused to give him a look. His lips pursed while holding my gaze, containing a laugh. It was infectious. I felt myself grinning, then showed him, peeling back the tape that held a gauze over my stitches.

"Does it hurt?"

"Only if you fucking touch it."

I slapped his hand away and we both snickered. He was giddy that I was alive, and I soaked it up. He just turned up in that room and suddenly everything felt better. Some things, at least. I had a whole mess in my head to sort through, but one thing at a time.

"Did you drive here?"

"Yeah, shit. I literally just got my license, and already had to deal with London. There's some idiots on the road. Don't tell Mum, aight, but I nearly crashed."

"Why."

"Someone pulled out in front of me."

"Wes."

"I can't do the sat nav and everything at the same time, I can't multi-task for shit, aight?"

I chuckled and thudded my forehead against his shoulder.

"Oh yeah." He reached for a plastic bag at his feet and dropped a chocolate bar on my stomach. "I hear food here is shit."

"They fed me pretty well last night."

"Bet you were high on drugs 'n shit."

I peeled back the wrapper. "Nah, man."

His eyes moved from the chocolate, to my face. "They got police out there guarding you and stuff, you know."

"... Really?"

"Yeah."

"Shit."

The mirth had to sober up eventually. There was a pause where he stared at the door, then looked back to me. "What happened, Dave?"

I didn't know where to begin. My mind was full of images, and trying to put those into words felt impossible. Wesley only knew half the story, and so did I. One of us had to explain our side first, to piece it all together.

"How much do you know?" I asked. At that point, it felt like everybody but me knew what was going on.

"Violet turned up in the middle of the night after she got you and Tyler abducted."

I stewed in silence for a minute, and Wesley was patient. I finally explained, starting with the whole fight with the car. Our conversation was a mess. We jumped on each other's sentences. We cut each other off. Sometimes we fell silent, then both started talking at the same moment.

I tried to recall my conversation with Tyler, with as much detail as possible. Darren's situation was something we'd both been left in the dark about, and we'd both been trying to figure it out, trying to understand it with our shreds of information. Not only that - I told Wes, as bluntly as possible, that Tyler had killed someone.

He went very quiet and stared at the door again.

And more, I told him about Dad. He looked around with a long stare, where his eyes darted across my face. His voice was quiet when he eventually spoke.

"You didn't figure that out?"

"What?"

"I mean, I guessed back when he showed us that gun. I just... Dave. Why do you think he had a gun? For shits and giggles?" He leant his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together.

"It didn't cross my mind," I admitted. "It just didn't."

We both fell silent. My withdrawn state crept back up on me. Wesley was now going through all the motions I was. I couldn't decide whether it was easier or worse for him, being on the outside of the situation.

The fabric of my world was not just torn, but ripped up. There were ways things were supposed to be, and they'd all been shattered. Dad was a murderer. Tyler was a murderer. Violet and Darren were murderers. I'd watched them shoot. Maybe I'd killed someone, too. I didn't even know.

I wanted things to go back to normal, but they never would. Everything would simply be different from there on out.

Violet had done this. It was all her fault. She'd called up Tyler like that, lured him in, given him over to Driscoll. And yet I'd also been there as she shot Driscoll to save him.

She'd changed sides, or something. She was some sort of turncoat. Double agent. Triple agent. I had no idea how I felt about it.

I explained the rest of it to Wesley - everything that followed when Darren showed up. He didn't jump on my sentences, simply listened. His eyebrows rose when I talked about Violet opening fire on the room.

"Holy shit."

"I don't know where she is now, or Darren. The police were angry at both of them, they were fighting."

"Mum said they're out."

"Huh?"

"The police took in Darren and Violet. They got out yesterday."

"Are they okay?"

Wesley gave a massive, full-armed shrug, hands in the air and everything. "I basically don't know shit. I had to take Hanna to Grandma and Granddad's. She's real upset, she knows something's going on, and doesn't understand why nobody will tell her."

We fell into another silence. He sprawled across the bed, across my legs. My mind processed all the new information until the pair of us jumped at the door opening. A nurse came in, whose face I recognised. She'd had a shift at the same time yesterday.

"There's some people here who want to see you," she said. "You're not supposed to have visitors outside of close family right now, but it's Darren Sörensen, you know him, yes?"

"He is family," I replied.

"I've been told about your 'situation'. He has a young lady with him, too."

"Violet?"

"I didn't catch her name, sorry. Would you like to see them? Shall I go get them?"

"Yes."

Wesley perked up and we sat in another silence. It was a painful minute's wait until the door opened again. Darren stepped inside first. He didn't look great, but he could've looked worse. His eyes were always expressive, and in that moment he looked so happy, not only at seeing me, but also Wesley. Wes sprung off the bed and threw his arms around him, and Darren returned it with just as much vigour.

Violet silently slipped in behind them. My gaze fixed on her, and hers on me. Her expression said so much, and so little at the same time. I'd always felt those big blue eyes were guarding something. She had nothing to hide anymore. They were clear as day.

"Where's Tyler?" Wesley asked.

"Right down the corridor," Darren replied.

"Can I see him?"

"I don't see why not."

Wesley tossed a glance over his shoulder. "Give the lover birds some time alone. They need it."

Did we? They both stepped out before I thought of anything to say. The door slowly eased itself closed and clicked shut. Violet crossed her arms and looked to the floor. I waited for her to talk, but she didn't. We were left in a suffocating silence. I finally broke it.

"Come here."

She didn't move.

"Come here," I growled.

She dragged herself over, but didn't look into my eyes. I sat up further, and somehow, while staring down the whole time, she had the perfect aim to thud her forehead against mine.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so fucking sorry."

It had the potential to sound insincere, but it didn't.

"Why did you do it?"

"I don't know." She pulled back a little and met my gaze. "How much do you know?"

"I think I might know the general gist of things."

"Driscoll had my parents. I..."

"That's what the call in the middle of the night was about?"

She frowned at me. "Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know."

"Why did you just walk out on me?"

"I don't

know

."

"I just don't... I just... I don't understand you, Vi. Why wouldn't you talk to me? Why did you do this?"

"Because I'm stupid."

"This is beyond stupid. You... You wanted to use Darren, to save your parents?"

"Pretty much."

"So what changed?"

"I kinda like Darren, and I didn't like Driscoll."

My heart pounded so hard in my chest. She almost made me want to scream. She made no sense. "What the fuck goes on in your head?"

"I wish I could say that there were voices. But that's the problem. There's not. There's nothing. I don't think. I just do things. Stupid things." She edged further away from me. "It seems like a good idea at the time." Her hands clasped at her arms. "If you just... If you want me to go, I get it. I'll go." She stared at the door, like she would bolt.