It…makes no sense at all.
Sighing, I turn and start climbing up the side of her house, wondering if she’s thought about the attic’s non-working bathroom window, but find an easier-to-access unlocked window on the second floor.
However, when I reach my hand in, it feels like a jolt of electricity shocks me. Wrenching my hand back, I barely bloody stop myself from falling, and I stare in disbelief at the perplexing enigma. Nothing seems to be the cause of whatever that was.
Deciding it was a fluke, I shove my hand into the window again, only to be zapped even harder.
Pain is usually easy to tolerate, but the jolt of this has me reflexively leaping back, and I…fall. Flat on my damn back.
A burst of air is forced out of my lungs, and I groan for a second as the back door opens in front of where I’ve landed.
Toga Violet just stares down at me like she’s not even surprised to find me wallowing on the cold snow outside her door.
“Now is really, really not a good—”
“Violet, who’s here?” the man asks from somewhere behind her.
“Someone picking up a vehicle I borrowed, Dad,” she says with a straight face, arching an eyebrow as if to challenge me.
“Your dad is here? I always wondered what kind of man bedded a fireball, bitter little thing like Marta. Can I meet him?” I ask with a grin. “Invite me in. Introduce—”
She slams the door in my face, and my smile falls. That was rude. Maybe the comment about her mom was a bit too much.
I knock on the door, and she immediately opens it, stepping out and pushing me back, while shutting the door behind her.
“What will it take to make you go away right now?” she hisses, shivering in the cold with nothing on but her toga and some ugly shoes.
Pulling off my jacket, I answer her. “We never had our lunch,” I remind her with a smile, while also putting my jacket over her shoulders.
She may hate me a little, but she’s smart enough to take warmth in all forms.
“You watched me have sex. Consider that your damn lunch, because that’s far more than you’ll ever see again unless you want to get stabbed.”
“I already explained that I thought—”
“What will it take to get you to go away?” she asks again, feigning patience.
“Right now there’s a vampire I really don’t trust, who is already entirely too fascinated and enthralled by you. Remember how wise it would be to have powerful monsters as allies right now, Violet.”
“Now you’re threatening me?” she asks incredulously.
“Hell no,” I say on an exasperated groan. “I’m extending friendship. It seems you keep an open mind with friends, and I really, really enjoy an open mind.”
“So you want friendship after watching me have sex, because you think that will somehow lead to sex with us as well, and you’re extorting me while my father is inside?” she hisses.
She makes this sound like a bad thing…which forces me to pause…for half a second.
“Sex is…much different with me, given the conversation we had…that you forgot…that I made you remember earlier.”
She blinks, seeming confused for a second, and then narrows her eyes. “That’s not an answer to my question.”
“Yes.” I decide to risk it.
“You do realize you are the creepiest person I’ve ever met?” she asks instead of commenting on our current conversation.
“You realize you’re Violent Violet. After all, you keyed my car. We all have our faults,” I point out.
“Don’t ever call me that again.”
She glares at me, but when we hear footsteps approaching from the other side of the door, she gestures wildly at me.
“Just go,” she says in a slight panic.
“Say you’ll leave a window open for me.”
“What?” she whisper-yells.
“Say you’ll leave a window open, and I promise to only watch the non-creepy things.”
“It’s all creepy,” she bites out just as the door knob jiggles, causing her eyes to widen. “I’ll leave a window open,” she quickly agrees.
My smile broadens as I disappear, and her eyes stay glaring at the spot where I was as I step closer, watching as the door opens.
The balding man pokes his head out, frowning as he looks around. “Who you talking to, Violet?” her dad asks.
“Possibly the most infuriating person ever. But he’s gone.”
My own eyes widen when I realize she’s still in my jacket—that has my new mirror and my orange.
Obviously, that means I have no choice but to follow them inside and wait for a chance to retrieve it. Surely she knows that, because she takes a second to shut the door behind her when they go back in, and I slip right inside.
“You had any problems out here?” her dad asks, eyeing the door a few times, as Violet goes back to the tea.
“You keep asking that, and I keep telling you everything is fine. Are you having problems, Dad?” she asks him, sitting down and sipping her tea, still wearing my jacket that does not go well with the toga.
“Your mom may have left this place to you for reasons unbeknownst to me, but she died out here, nonetheless,” he goes on, sighing heavily as he takes a seat.
I take a seat next to Violet, careful not to brush against her and startle her. He’s apparently too callous with his words, because she looks down.
“I can’t find Mom’s death spot, so I don’t know if the cult got inside the town lines or not. And even though I’ve been told it was them—”
“Of course it was them. Who else could it be?” he asks, interrupting her.
Violet gives a small shrug as she covers her yawn with her hand.
“I’ve decided it’s not my place to go searching for killers. But I heard about a Portocale Council—”
“Who told you about them?” he asks, sounding a little angry.
I perk right up to listen better, because why on earth would that council be a bad thing for a Portocale?
“So you know about them?” Violet asks him instead.
I see him sink in his chair, deflating a little. Lips pursing, I almost decide to leave. I can’t learn any big secrets this way, or she’ll really hate me.
However, I decide to stick around in case there’s an issue we should be aware of. At least that’s the excuse I use to justify the decision in my head to ready my argument, in the event I get caught.
Her phone rings, but she silences it and pushes it aside, which is the same as pushing it right in front of me. I glance down, smirking when I see Vance’s name. Doesn’t he know to wait the standard three days before calling about another date?
He just looks needy now.
“Should you get that?” her father asks, seeming dodgy and suspicious.
I wonder if he knows about us…
“It can wait. I’m sure he’s calling to warn me about something that has already been sort of resolved.”
Ah, she’s talking about me. To her father. I knew she secretly liked me. Women these days only tell their fathers about the men they’re seriously considering, after all.
I grin at her, not that she notices, because she clearly and truly can’t see me anymore. Which means…Arion really does have someone who helped her see me.
Who?
How?
Why?
My smile falls, and my jaw grinds, because that’s certainly not good. Tempted to give this information to Vance, I glance around, wondering if I could quietly make it up those creaky stairs without giving myself away.
“You said Mom told you the cult can’t cross town lines?” Violet asks him, circling back, when he never really answers her other question.
She gives up too easily on her quest for answers, as though she’s been conditioned to do so. Marta was certainly a tricky gypsy, and either she was secretly as crazy as Martin, or she had some masterminded plan of some sort.
I’m going with batshit crazy. The woman chased things with a broom down the street on occasion. Not even I could ever see what she was after.