(18) You Again!

"You didn't do anything to stop her! You could have saved me from any ounce of embarrassment that day!"

Violet's voice cut through the tense silence like a blade, low and demanding, her eyes fixed on Samuel with barely concealed fury. Across the table, Baron kept his gaze fixed on his plate, the seven-year-old acutely aware of the storm brewing between his father and stepmother.

He stabbed at his vegetables mechanically, reading the room with the quiet vigilance of a child who had learned too early that adults could not be trusted to keep their mess contained.

"The crew liked it," Samuel responded, his tone infuriatingly calm as he continued eating, refusing to give Violet's grievances the weight she craved. "Even I liked the result. I'm already imagining the highlight of that scene becoming our way to another spotlight."

"Oh my God!" Violet's fists slammed against the mahogany table, rattling the fine china and sending a fork clattering to the floor.

Both Baron and Samuel looked up, the former with barely concealed contempt, the latter with a flicker of annoyance.

"So you liked the part that the newcomer humiliated me? You sat there and watched that nobody made a fool of me, and you enjoyed it?"

"Of course not." Samuel reached across the table, attempting to placate her with a touch that she violently rejected, pulling her hand back as if his skin carried a disease. "But the scene was just too great for another retake. It was amazing, trust me, please?"

Baron watched the exchange with cold detachment, his small fingers curling around the tablet that sat innocently beside his plate. He hadn't even been using it, it was simply there, a silent companion in a household where he had no real allies.

Violet's gaze shifted, her frustration seeking a new target now that Samuel had refused to engage. Her eyes landed on the boy, and Baron felt the familiar weight of her scrutiny settle over him like a shroud.

"Baron, can you stop bringing gadgets on the table?"

He didn't answer. He didn't need to. The tablet was next to him, not in his hands. She was the one causing a scene, projecting her humiliation onto a child who had done nothing but exist in her presence.

"Baron!"

The shout of his name made him flinch, but he held his ground. Violet lunged across the table, her manicured fingers reaching for the device, and Baron's survival instincts kicked in. He grabbed it just before she could claim it, clutching it to his chest like a shield.

"Stop going through my stuff," he said, his voice carrying a threat far beyond his years.

Violet gasped, whirling toward Samuel with outrage. "Did you hear that, Sammy? He didn't even call me mom!"

"Well, you're not literally my mom." Baron scoffed, rising from his chair with the tablet still pressed against his heart. "And besides, you will never be."

He turned to leave, desperate to escape the suffocating tension of the dining room, but he'd miscalculated. Violet's hand shot out, snatching the tablet from his grip before he could fully retreat.

"Hey! Stop!" Baron's voice cracked with panic, his composure shattering as he watched Violet raise the device above her head. "No! Please!"

It was too late.

The tablet flew across the room, sailing through the air in a slow-motion arc that felt eternal to Baron's frozen gaze. It struck the marble floor with a sickening crunch, the screen spider-webbing into a constellation of cracks that seemed to mock him.

Baron turned lifeless in an instant.

Every memory. Every photograph. Every video clip and voice recording of his mother. Every scrap of information he had painstakingly collected over the years, desperate to know the woman who had left him too soon.

It was all there, stored in that fragile device, and Violet had just destroyed it without a second thought.

"I hate you!" The words tore from Baron's throat, raw and bleeding with emotion he rarely allowed himself to show. His small fists clenched at his sides, his entire body trembling with a rage that seemed impossible for a child his age.

"Enough!" Samuel's voice rose above the chaos, finally reaching his breaking point. "Baron, go to your room. You're not allowed to bring anymore devices in the dining room!"

The sheer, staggering unfairness hit Baron like a physical blow. His father was punishing him for defending himself, for reacting to Violet's cruelty. But the fight had drained out of him, replaced by a hollow emptiness that felt more dangerous than anger.

Baron pursed his lips, disappointment and frustration etched across his young face. He walked to the broken tablet, his footsteps heavy with defeat, and picked up the shattered pieces with the care one might reserve for a wounded animal.

He left without looking back at them, the silence of his departure louder than any door slam could have been.

"I really hate how he takes after his mother," Violet remarked after the boy left, her tone dripping with venom. "So self-centered."

Samuel's patience, what little remained of it, evaporated.

"Vi, if you're mad at me, don't scream at the boy like that." He placed his utensils down with deliberate precision, fixing her with a glare that made her pause.

"I screamed at Baron?" She let out a disbelieving laugh, her eyes wide with innocence. "You're the one who shouted at him. Take note, you're the one who said we should keep him to our side so we can take Charity's inheritance from her parents!"

"And I can't be that nice when you're this crazy!"

The words hung in the air between them, sharp and unforgiving. Violet's expression crumbled, her eyes turning teary in an instant as she sniffled dramatically.

"Whatever." She fled the dining room, her footsteps echoing down the hallway.

Samuel massaged his temples, a headache already forming behind his eyes. He rose from his chair, pacing the length of the room as doubt began to creep into the edges of his consciousness.

Why had he chosen Violet? What had possessed him to think she could play the role of stepmother, of partner, without creating chaos?

But then he shook off the uncertainty.

Violet was an amazing woman, difficult, yes, but passionate. She understood the business, the performance, the careful dance of manipulation that kept them relevant. She was his partner in crime, literally, and he couldn't afford to let one bad night unravel everything they'd built.

"Vi?" Samuel called out from the door of their bedroom, his voice softened now with contrition. He could see her form huddled under the covers, a box of tissues strategically placed on the bedside table.

She didn't answer, simply reaching for a tissue and blowing her nose with theatrical misery. Samuel's expression softened, guilt washing over him. He shouldn't have shouted at her.

"I'm sorry, baby. Can you forgive me?" He approached the bed, settling beside her with the careful movements of a man soothing a dangerous animal.

"If you buy me Prada," she said quickly, her tears vanishing as quickly as they appeared.

"Of course. Anything for you." Samuel pinched her cheeks affectionately, relieved that his bribery had worked. "I should go check on Baron too."

"Can you tell him to be nice to me for once?" Violet added, her tone carrying a hint of the old demand.

"Alright." Samuel nodded absently, already moving toward the door.

A kid is easier to comfort than an adult, he thought. Thankfully, he could just buy his way through Violet's moods. Baron would be simpler, a few kind words, maybe a promise of a new toy, and the boy would fall back in line.

He was wrong.

"Baron?" Samuel knocked on the little boy's bedroom door, receiving only silence in response.

He tried again, his voice taking on a more authoritative edge.

"Baron. Your stepmom and I may have been a little too much toward you but... she just wanted you to love her, respect her. Can you forgive what happened? We just had a really bad day, son."

Still no answer.

Samuel squinted, an uneasy feeling settling in his stomach. He tried the doorknob, finding it unlocked as expected. But the moment he peered into the room, all of his assumptions shattered.

"Baron!" He called out louder this time, frantically throwing aside covers and pillows, checking the closet, looking under the bed. The room was empty. There was no sign of the boy anywhere.

---

Baron walked through the dark alleys, his small form nearly invisible in the shadows of the night. He wore his coat and pants, layers that would protect him from the chill, and carried a bag stuffed with random clothes and necessities he'd grabbed from his room.

Most importantly, he clutched his broken tablet protectively against his chest, the cracked screen catching the dim light of distant street lamps.

He sniffled, his nose red and his eyes burning with unshed tears. He missed his mother more than anything else in the world. She was a stranger to him in so many ways, he'd been too young when she died to form real memories of her, but he kept everything about her in that device.

Photographs his father had tried to hide. Old videos. Documents. He'd been trying to learn who she was, what she liked, what kind of person she'd been.

And Violet had just broken it.

He decided to run away that very night, unable to stand another moment in the same house as the woman who wanted to erase his mother's memory. His stepmother had made it perfectly clear that there was no room for Charity's son in her vision of the future.

The boy moved through the streets on high alert, his senses heightened by both fear and adrenaline. He reached a convenience store, its fluorescent lights a beacon in the darkness, and slipped inside. The dinner at home had been unfulfilling, and he'd grabbed his secret stash of cash from his room before leaving.

Baron wandered the aisles, his eyes scanning for something both affordable and filling. He turned down the drink aisle, his gaze landing on a box of chocolate milk that was just out of reach.

He hopped.

He stretched.

He tried again, standing on his tiptoes, but the carton remained tantalizingly beyond his grasp.

Suddenly, a hand reached over him, plucking the drink from the shelf and offering it to him. Baron looked up, and the hood of his jacket slipped off his head, revealing his face.

"You?!"

Both he and Lucas said at the same time, recognition flickering in their eyes. Baron looked at him with pure judgment, the same energy from Lucas.