9

Violet Miller and the Most Epic Blog that Might Ever Exist, Maybe

The world was spinning. Violet waited for what felt like hours before she could move. And even when the iron supplements slowed her mind to a normal speed, she still felt groggy and weak.

She stood to get another glass of water. And some toast. And jam. And three cookies. And a handful of almonds. Everything she could get her hands on, really. The tip of her nose felt numb and prickly. She flicked it, trying to get the feeling back as she scarfed back more food than her body would have been able to handle at a normal snack time.

As she lazily spread jam over her second piece of toast, she grumbled about her blood sugar problems, her iron deficiency problems, her handsome-vampire-aka-Master-of-Doom problems.

When she lifted her eyes, she startled at the sight of someone looking into the house through the garden window. The butterknife slipped from her fingers and clattered over the floor as she tried to decide if she was dizzy and delusional or if there was actually a peeping Tom on her property. But she blinked, and the figure was gone.

Still, she stared at the window, not really seeing the flower-covered fence outside, or the lengthy crack in the glass, or anything. She was sure she’d spotted glittering, metallic-red hair and a set of eyes that looked like… his. The Master of Doom’s.

Violet swallowed and glanced at her toast.

She hadn’t imagined it. Just like she hadn’t imagined anything at the cathedral.

Someone out there had tried to wipe away her memories. Again.

Violet shoved the plate of toast away and headed for the front door. She dragged an old pair of heels out of the closet and threw on a business jacket over her wrinkled, grass-stained, two-days-worn summer dress to try and look somewhat decent. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked this messy so many days in a row.

She wouldn’t go to the police. She couldn’t show her shameful face to any reporters either after what she’d said when she was let go from The Sprinkled Scoop. She could never go back to the cathedral again—she wouldn’t even if someone paid her to. But she couldn’t stay home, either. What if the Master of Doom had the means to track down where she lived? She paused at the front door and glanced back at the kitchen window. Then she turned and jogged back through the house, up the stairs and into her room. She grabbed her laptop. A moment later she pushed out of the house and headed back to the bus stop.

Zorah’s gasp filled the entire hospital waiting room. “Did you bring me a bubble tea?” Her ‘excited voice’ was so loud, Violet cringed. The waiting room was packed today; a mother with a sleeping baby shot a look at Zorah’s back.

“Aren’t I the best niece ever?” Violet held a cool drink toward Zorah, but she had to wait like that as Zorah quickly dragged her contact lenses off her eyeballs in front of the whole room, stuck them in a case, and pulled out her nerdy glasses. She slid the glasses on as she took the bubble tea.

“You know, that might really gross some people out,” Violet said, casting a repulsed look at the contacts’ case.

Zorah waved a hand through the air. “I need to wear contacts when I perform surgeries. And who would be grossed out by contact lenses?”

Violet could think of at least one person.

“Have you eaten lunch?” Zorah asked. “I’m starving.” She took a loud slurp of her bubble tea.

“I was going to go hide out in a café and write an article. We can go together?” Violet looked warily out the hospital windows before they exited. The parking lot was busy. She scanned the nearby faces for anything out of the ordinary. She had, after all, fled a complete hostage situation. Or was it a hostage situation? She’d been grabbed outside the police station, but technically the guy had offered her a job.

Regardless, it was taking every ounce of her self-control not to freak out about it and start yelling the whole story to Zorah. She would wait until Zorah was sitting down before she told her of the horrors.

“Let’s go to the one with the salad bar. I feel like salad and donuts.” Zorah veered onto the sidewalk, chugging her tea until the cup was empty and only the tapioca pearls were left in the bottom. She twisted off the lid and tipped the cup back, clawing the gummies into her mouth with her lips like a horse.

“It’s a miracle people believe you’re thirty-five,” Violet said as she tried not to watch the spectacle. “We should start telling people I’m your aunt instead.”

“Sure.” Zorah tossed the empty cup in a garbage bin outside the café as they reached the entrance. “But no one would believe you’re older than me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Violet tugged the door open, and an air-conditioned gust swept over them from inside.

They found a table and Zorah tossed her purse onto the seat. “I’m going to order. What do you want?” she asked.

“I’m good.” Violet didn’t mention that she’d eaten her way through half the food in their kitchen at home. She set her laptop on the table and filled the screen with a fresh document. She began typing immediately.

Zorah stood there and watched her for a moment. “What are you working on? An article about bad mealtime etiquette when you’re with a friend?”

“I told you I came here to work,” Violet said. “And it’s an article exposing a real-life villain. I’ll let you read it once I’m done.” She shifted in her chair, knowing every word could give Zorah a heart attack. Maybe Violet would wait until Zorah had a full stomach before she told her about the whole hostage thing.

Zorah sighed as she left for the front counter, and Violet took the opportunity to come up with a title for her article.

“The Master of Doom’s Haunted Mansion?” she mumbled to herself. “Creepy Cathedral Office of Death? Vampire Lair of a Thousand Wax Candles?” Nothing felt quite right, but Master of Doom did have a nice ring to it.

Zorah came back a few minutes later with a massive platter of salad and two donuts. She passed a chocolate donut to Violet, then started licking the icing off the top of hers.

“Is this article for The Scoop?” Zorah asked through icing-coated teeth as she sat down. She grabbed a loose lettuce leaf and stuffed it into her mouth.

“Your facts are great, but reading your articles is like reading a bad fiction novel. I’m sorry to tell you this, Violet, but you’re not going to make the cut.”Violet swallowed. Cedric’s opinion would haunt her until the day she died. She wasn’t sure she had the heart to tell Zorah what he’d said word for word.

“No. I’m going to start a blog. I’m going to track down real villains and expose them. I have a gut feeling it’s going to take off and be really popular in this city,” Violet said. She stole a look at Zorah’s salad.

Probably around fifteen more mouthfuls to go. Then she would tell Zorah.

“Do you think there’s any money in that?” Zorah asked, shovelling in another bite.

Fourteen more mouthfuls.

“It doesn’t matter. People need to know the truth, and I’m the only one who will tell it,” she said, thinking of Cedric’s hatred of her storytelling, and the blonde police officer’s betrayal.

Zorah stopped eating for a moment to stare.

Violet looked up from her computer screen at her aunt, then at the salad. At her aunt again. “Keep eating,” she invited. When Zorah didn’t immediately take another bite, Violet nudged the salad a little closer toward her. “Mmm. Looks yummy.”

Zorah dropped her fork to the table and folded her hands. “Something has gotten into you. Out with it. Tell me.”

Violet chewed on her lip. “I thought you were hungry.”

“I’m suddenly feeling very full.”

Everything Violet had been planning to say roared up into her throat and found purchase on the tip of her tongue. But she bit her mouth shut, unable to spit it out now that it was time. She pictured a scenario of Zorah losing her mind in public and talking too loud and everyone turning in their seats and looking at the already humiliated failed journalist a little too hard.

“I’ll tell you when we get home,” Violet decided, ready to kick herself for chickening out a third time. She focused back on her article. She had yet to pick a title, and not a single word had been written of the actual story yet.

Zorah did that thing where she half eye-rolled, half fluttered her lashes. She reluctantly went back to mercilessly inhaling her salad. The thirty-five-year-old woman was too focused on picking out the croutons to notice when Violet looked back up and studied her.

Zorah. The woman who had saved her life.

A full month was how long Violet had stayed in the care of the most prestigious reporters in Toronto. She’d only been thirteen years old. At least, the doctors who appeared alongside her on the talk shows guessed she was probably around that age. Her purple chiffon dress had been washed by the production team, and she’d been told to wear it for all her TV interviews. The Girl in the Purple Dress had been a hot topic for every news station. The nameless anomaly who woke up in a forest with no memories. The girl whose DNA had never promised she belonged to anyone on record.

One month. Violet had been ushered around by the city’s curiosity, taking interviews by both police and reporters and making waves in people’s hearts as Ontarians tried to piece together the history of the mysterious girl, at the protest of child services. That was how long it had taken for someone to show up and claim Violet as their own.

“Her name is Violet Miller, and I’m her aunt. I’ve been looking everywhere for her! Turn off your cameras before I sue you all!”Zorah’s voice had been so authoritative when she’d walked into the interview that day—interrupting it halfway through filming. At the time, Zorah had only been twenty-five. She’d been a thriving medical student who’d seen Violet on TV and had been outraged that a young girl was being put in the spotlight without any concern for her health.

Violet hadn’t been outraged by it though. She’d found a strange home in the news stations, had found a bit of magic in the storytelling of the reporters, and for a while, she’d enjoyed the interviews. People gave her their full attention. She got dolled up to be on camera. Those things had made her feel important. They’d taken away some of the sting when day after day went by, and no one showed up to claim Violet.

That day though, Zorah had pulled Violet out of the spotlight, and had brought her home to her one-bedroom student apartment. It was a different sort of home than the news stations had been. It brought different kinds of comforts. For the first time since Violet had woken up in the forest, she felt like she could breathe.

Zorah had taken Violet to a trusted doctor who ran more tests—in addition to the ones the doctors on TV had already run—and had gotten her iron supplements prescribed for anemia. Dr. Wendal was peculiar, but he claimed there was nothing physically wrong with Violet, though some evidence could have disappeared after a month.

“These iron pills are different than regular iron supplements, Violet Miller.”Dr. Wendal had said her full name when he handed Violet the first bottle. “Don’t ever trade these out for regular supplements. Only take the ones I give you.”

Violet. Because Violet had been wearing a violet dress at the time when Zorah showed up.

Miller. Because that was Zorah’s last name.

In a heartbeat, the girl without a name had become Violet Miller, the niece of a brilliant student who’d lost her sister several years ago and had still earned herself a scholarship for medical school during the heartbreak. Zorah took the spotlight only long enough to explain that Violet was the daughter of that beloved sister, and to threaten the reporters not to come after Violet again. The story had fizzled out after that. There was nothing exciting about Violet anymore after all the questions were answered.

Zorah had admitted to Violet the next day that she wasn’t really her aunt. That she’d never known Violet before she saw her on TV. But she knew what it was like to feel lost and to have to make a way through the world on her own. As an orphan who was raised by her older sister, Zorah had always had to fight for her success a little harder than everybody else. She expected it would be the same for Violet, but Violet’s childhood fame had the opposite effect. When Violet enrolled in high school, everyone wanted to eat lunch with her, give her things, and get her autograph. It seemed her lost memories had given her a life.

At least, it had until the boss at The Sprinkled Scoop decided she wasn’t worth his time. It was the first true, real rejection Violet had felt in the parts of her life she could remember. And it shouldn’t have hurt so much, but it dragged her back to that month when she was a lost, confused girl waiting for someone who loved her to appear and claim her.

Even in the years with Zorah that followed, no one ever came for Violet.

That simple fact was how Violet realized how unloved she must have been, for not a single person to show up and claim her.

It was the driving force behind why she wanted to be the one to make up the stories, to decide the narrative, to figure out who people really were. It was the reason Violet had chased the memory-thief so hard when the first police report had arrived at The Sprinkled Scoop six months ago, claiming someone had woken up in the park with no memories of the day before, yet their brain showed no signs of physical trauma or anything else that would lead the doctors to believe it was really a case of amnesia.

Violet followed Zorah off the bus. They got off a stop early because Zorah said she needed to run into the convenience store for makeup. Violet waited outside the storefront, tapping a finger against her laptop as people passed by. After a minute, Zorah stumbled back out with four full bags hanging off her arms.

Violet raised a brow. “What in the world did you buy? Christmas presents for the whole world?” Violet reached to take half the bags, but she stopped when she saw a shadow move behind the bus shelter across the road. It was bright daylight, and hot, but a person was there wearing a long black coat with a hood up. He leaned back against the poster-covered shelter wall, eating an ice cream cone in the shadow of his hood. His posture seemed way too comfortable after he’d kidnapped Violet at the police station the way he had. Even after all that, here he was, harassing her again.

Violet set her jaw.

She shoved the bags—and her laptop—toward Zorah. “I’ll meet you at home, Zor. I have something to deal with.”

Zorah said something in objection that Violet ignored. Violet took a quick look both ways before crossing the street, thinking only of informing the no-good vampire that she was going to expose him to the whole world by the end of the day if he didn’t leave her alone. But when she set her glare back on the bus shelter, the guy in the coat was gone. She slowed her steps as she came around to the back, eyeing the posters he’d been leaning on. There were a few scattered pedestrians down the sidewalk, and some dark storefronts with rental signs in the windows. She tried to peer into the darkness past the store windows, her nerves getting the best of her. She wondered if she shouldn’t have marched over here.

She turned around and jumped, slapping a hand over her chest in surprise to find him there. She opened her mouth to speak, but he grabbed her shoulder and shoved her backward into the shelter wall—the air escaping her lungs. She pulled at his cold sleeve, her other hand diving into the pocket of her business jacket and clawing for her pen. She tore it out and shoved the pointed end against his pale throat. She almost shouted at him, but she stared at that throat instead.

Pale skin. No tattoos.

Her gaze dragged up to a face that wasn’t the Master of Doom’s.

Lush, metallic-red hair filled his hood, and deep brown eyes with sparkling patches of silver took her in, in a way that made her feel small and very breakable. Her blood heated in her veins. A gold chain necklace fell from the collar of his coat with a bunch of tiny white and red feather-like charms.

He smiled; a slow curve of his lips that was alarmingly beautiful and a little too broad. “Oh dear,” he whispered, his voice fluttering over Violet like a song. “You seem to be all alone.”

Violet felt like she was being pulled toward him by a magnetic force she could only resist by digging her heels into the ground. When she looked into his eyes, a silent voice seemed to call her forward, fluttering her hair with a cool breeze and tickling the insides of her ears. She shook the feeling away.

“W…” She swallowed so she could speak from her dry throat. “Who are you?”

He leaned his tall frame forward to look her right in the eyes like a grownup addressing a child. “His scent is all over you. Either he did that on purpose so I’d come, or you’re an accident waiting to be snatched up. Either way, it’s tantalizing,” he said, ignoring her question.

Violet felt her grip on the pen waver at his throat as he pushed himself closer, unbothered by the stabbing sensation, seeming to invite it. The pen’s tip dug in so hard, Violet panicked and released her hold. The pen tumbled to the ground, bouncing off her high heel and rolling over the asphalt. She looked around to yell for help, but their side of the street had become empty.

The redhead pulled a deep red gem from his pocket and rolled it over his fingers. “Let’s have a little chat,” he invited.

The sky shifted from bright to dim, and Violet found herself in a sudden shadow. She blinked, more startled by the sudden appearance of clouds overhead than the guy speaking to her. The air felt like it had changed in a split second, too—it had been rushing a moment ago, and now it wasn’t.

Violet’s stare fell back to him as she realized he must have asked her a question. But she couldn’t remember him speaking. “I’m going to call the police,” she threatened.

The guy’s smile broadened. He glanced down at her mouth, and Violet shivered, but she went on anyway.

“You’re going to be arrested—”

Before she could stop him, the guy’s lips came against hers, sparking a wild thrashing in her chest. Violet released a muffled sound, but his sound was louder. The guy’s strained, guttural grunt filled the alley as he ripped himself back. His fingers flashed to his lips, his silvery eyes wild. A fresh-looking pink burn mark covered his mouth, and he glared at her. Violet felt a ripple in the air; a strange, cold breeze that fluttered her hair again and stroked her skin like a limb tracing her throat, ready to cut her open with a long, pointed nail. It wasn’t something a human could do, and her heart faltered.

How many of these inhuman beings existed?

Her mind was as dizzy as before, only this time with terror.

The guy dropped his fingers from his swelling lips. “Clever,” he growled in a low voice. Without explaining, he grabbed Violet by her jacket sleeve and threw her down the sidewalk into a passing couple. “Next time,” he promised as Violet slammed into a middle-aged man.

Violet stuttered through an apology and whirled back toward the bus shelter. The couple asked her if she was okay. She didn’t answer. She just stared at the empty sidewalk, her chest tight, hands shaking.

“Did you see a guy there just now?” Violet asked the concerned pair as she pointed toward the bus shelter.

The couple eyed the shelter. “I didn’t see anyone,” the man said. The woman was already shaking her head.

Violet swallowed and hugged her arms to herself as she turned and speedwalked down the sidewalk, looking over her shoulder every few seconds until she cleared the block. She didn’t know what to think anymore. A week ago, she wasn’t even sure that the memory-loss victims had been affected by ancient folklore magic. And a day ago, she’d stood across from another one of these beings who’d been frightening in his own way, but he had at least let her sleep after she’d fainted, and had planned to make her breakfast, and had offered her a job. Though the two beings looked similar, they felt vastly different.

“Either he did that on purpose so I’d come, or you’re an accident waiting to be snatched up.”

Violet was sure one of those two guys was the villain stalking the streets and doing terrible things in the city. She’d accused the Master of Doom without hesitation. But her instincts were telling her she might have just looked straight into the eyes of the real monster.