“Get any sleep last night?” he asks. “Because I could have sworn I drove by and saw you unloading a truck at two this morning.”
“Mom drove across two states to get all the quality materials Dad needed. I didn’t want anything getting rained on.”
“When do you sleep?” he asks as I stand and head out, coffee in my hand, daily plan in my head, and a list of tasks to delegate to the massive team assembling for the morning meeting.
I don’t answer Jerome, because the answer is unbelievable. I’ll take a long nap when I’m done.
Shera stops me just as I reach the lobby. “The guy I hired to track down your roots sent over a lot of stuff.”
“Why are you still researching your family trees? I think by this point that’d be considered a fruitless endeavor, since you know everything there is to know,” Anna says from my side, and then snorts. “Get it? Fruitless endeavor?”
When I pointedly ignore her, she snorts again, and then she bursts out laughing.
“Maybe I’ll start a traveling comedy act only certain gypsy bloodlines can see,” she states through her laughter.
“Stick to your day job,” I mutter.
“Excuse me?” Shera asks, since…she can’t see Anna.
“Thanks, Shera,” I tell her instead of answering, as I head to my makeshift office.
“Can I ask what you’re looking for?” she asks with some hesitance, trailing me.
One look into Bobo’s innocent, pure, genuine eyes, and I had a whole lot of questions.
“Answers to questions I never thought to ask before now,” is the reply that absently tumbles from my lips, as I push through the rickety door.
Papers are spread out all over the barely-stable desk inside, and I go to start examining them.
“You know you’re a Portocale-slash-Neopry monster, which shouldn’t be possible but is. I’m not sure how many answers one can gather about something that’s never happened before,” she tells me. “You were a freak born to raise the Neoprys from their graves. Are you saying there’s more?”
Everyone else seems so distracted by Idun that an impossible monster is barely a blip on the radar. Call me arrogant, but I’m more interested in my existence than Idun’s games.
“I’ve spent my whole life searching for answers without knowing where to look or what to look for,” I remind her. “The questions don’t stop, because with answers comes even more questions. That’s life. It’s smart to be curious.”
“Curiosity killed the cat,” Anna chirps as she hops up on the table, giving me a mischievous grin. “You don’t particularly like cats or any other animal. Aside from wolves. Think it’s because Idun makes animal shifters? Is it your natural instinct to fear all things that could relate to Idun?”
I glare at her.
Although, she does have a point, now that I think about it.
“That would make Idun a problem for you after all,” she says, her grin growing darker. “What are you going to do about it, Violet?”
We have a staring contest for a few minutes.
“Can I ask what you’re staring at?” Shera asks in a dry, unimpressed tone.
Ignoring her, I continue glaring at Anna.
“Are you just going to let her step in and captivate your delicious harem, while you build a home for her family? Are you that pathetic?” Anna goads, her grin slowly getting larger as she taunts me.
Without any farther provoking, I toss salt at her, and her smile spreads all the wider just before she disappears.
Idun’s not my fucking problem.
Anna, however, is starting to scare me a little bit.
***
Month three…
“I’m saying a ghost doesn’t come back from a final decay without some divine intervention, Violet. She needs to explain herself to me. Not to you. And the dead should not influence the living. You know this,” Mom is saying in her arguing-talk voice from behind me.
“Anna isn’t here to influence, just to help. No worries,” I assure her.
The Neoprys working on the dining room are dancing, and I turn up the music to drown Mom out, as I dance alongside them on my way through.
Then I dart into a closet, listening as Mom curses.
“Very mature, Violet,” I hear her saying as she paces, presumably searching for me.
She finally walks off, and I exhale in relief, as I push open the door…and run right into a very devilish looking vampire. Arion immediately pushes me back into the closet, and I grin as his lips come down on mine.
I feel his grin forming to mimic mine, as my fingers tangle in his hair. I jump up to wind my legs around his waist, kissing him harder.
“Arion! Get up here. She’s about to have an impromptu family meeting about the boundaries between your border and hers,” Emit calls very loudly from somewhere.
Arion groans into my mouth like he’s actually about to walk out of here and leave me hanging.
“Sorry, love. That’s unfortunately a very important matter,” he murmurs against my mouth, nipping my lower lip, before leaving me bereft, just a whisper of wind in his wake.
He’s gone so fast that I don’t even see him leave.
“What is happening right now?” I ask incredulously, adjusting my skirt.
Hell, I’ve even started wearing dresses and skirts to make it easier for them, and still get left hanging.
“The chase is over, and so they’re over it,” Anna supplies as she pops in next to me. “And by it I mean you. Obviously.”
“Thanks for clearing that up,” I state dryly.
“So that means I do influence the living after all. I’ve been a naughty girl. Let me possess you so they’ll spank me,” she adds very seriously.
“You have no excuse to be this ridiculous anymore,” I inform her as I walk out of the closet.
“Says the girl with her skirt still flipped up in the back. Newsflash, he ran away because of the granny panties you’re wearing right now,” Anna says very loudly.
Seriously? This day blows.
“Oh, you look like a dog chasing its tail right now,” Anna says, laughter belting out of her, while I turn a circle, trying to see if I’ve fixed my damn skirt.
“You’re exhausting,” I groan, wondering how many consecutive days someone can stay awake and still be considered sane.
“At this rate, you’re going to start spending time kissing your hand in the closet instead of real boys, if you don’t fight for them a little,” she says a little more seriously.
“Why compete with a woman they supposedly hate, Anna?” I ask just as seriously. “I have to know exactly what I’m fighting for, because there’s something a lot bigger that needs my attention.” I pause for a second. “And who the hell kisses the back of their hand?”
“Apparently every kid from the nineties, according to movies,” she deadpans.
Rolling my eyes, I turn and trip over the stack of wood that seems to just be randomly lying in the hallway, and my head slaps the wall hard enough to make my ears ring because I don’t get my hands up to catch myself in time.
“This, ladies and gentleman, is the future of your species,” Anna says as she mocks a clap.
“Har,” I groan as I push away.
Then I hear a hoarse, broken whisper through the wall that stops me.
“You’re losing them,” the wall whisperer tells me in her barely audible rasp. “You need them.”
I put my hand on the wall, about to speak, when my heartbeat drops as my knees wobble, and I fall forward again.
My head spins as the air around me thins. Dizzied, I glance around, seeing lightning flashing outside of a dark castle. I’m only confused for a second when I see Idun dragging a familiar girl down a hallway full of agonized screams.
Idun just smirks, as Caroline writhes, begging for mercy in a language I don’t understand, but the terror in her screams gives it away. My heart sinks as Idun drags her into a cell.
Bile rises to my throat when I see
her patches of hair are few, and Idun tosses another handful of it away, as Caroline sobs, getting strapped down to a familiar metal chair.
Her skull has been cracked and lifted, and some sort of metal contraption keeps it there so you can see through to her brain. My jaw grinds when I hear Idun humming merrily, just before she jabs a metal rod directly into Caroline’s brain.
Caroline barely whimpers in pain, as though her tolerance is so high that it’s not even enough to cause her to cry out.
A man shoves Caroline’s feet into a pan of water, and then picks a piece of lint from his trench coat, as if this is all grown monotonous and boring. That’s Idun’s father—Clive.
I hear the thunder crackle a warning, and Idun continues humming, as she rips open Caroline’s shirt. Nausea sweeps over me when I see her heart beating, another metal contraption holding her skin and bones back so Idun has a clear view.
Idun says something to her father, and they both back away. I try to look away, but I’m stuck in a death window for a girl who can’t die, as lightning pours through the window and filters into the metal rod.
Caroline’s screams wreck me, and my heart feels like it’s being dragged out, as a putrid scent fills the air. The stench is so heavy, it almost seems to cast a filmy layer of oil into the air.
Caroline’s body seizes as her eyes freeze open, and Idun casually speaks in a foreign language with her father, gesturing to Caroline’s heart and brain so coldly, as Caroline suffers in raw, tormenting agony.
Then it hits me like a hammer—all that unbridled, sickening pain.
I’m on the ground and heaving for air in the next instant, praying for a breath that doesn’t smell like that, and hear distant sawing echoing through my ears, as I choke back tears.
Rocking forward on my hands, I hear someone scurrying away from the wall, as I try to stop the spinning in the room by staring at my hands on the ground.
“That must have been one nasty death window,” Anna concludes, as her head slides between my arms, because now she’s lying under me and staring up into my eyes.
“Deep breaths, Violet. Big girl panties right now, remember?” Shera says as she pats my back on her way by.
I just stare at Anna, waiting for a second, before I turn my gaze toward the wall, my heart crumbling like the pieces are already broken and just holding on by thin threads.
“Do you know how a death window forms for someone who can’t die?” I ask Anna very quietly. Before she can even muster an answer, I give her my theory. “They pray for death so sincerely in that moment, that they know they’ve been damned when they wake up still alive for all eternity.”
With that, I clumsily push back up to my feet, my legs still trembling, and I push into my office.
The hotel is just one thing I’m working on. My family tree is just one thing I’m researching. I made a really crazy plan, and every time I see a new death window, my determination grows and my plan gets even crazier.
My eyes move back to thethick stack of research on my family, and I take a seat. I need to know everything before I finalize my plans. I only have two months left.
***
Month four…
“It’s getting time to start being a boss. You’d better not get me killed,” Shera says in a flippant tone as she wheels in the cart full of the blue-leather-bound books.
“Good job to you too,” I tell her as we leave the padded room after barely getting the monstar quad to pause Idun TV for long enough to half-ass sign some major legal documents.
I kick the door shut when Arion tries calling for me to come back in, and I keep walking. Shera doesn’t bat an eye as she pushes the books into my bedroom next door.
“Jerome said he had to take an early flight, but he’ll be back next month to see how it all turned out and wants to know if you can get coffee. I’d say he was an idiot, but I said that four months ago, and they never killed him,” she deadpans. “What should I tell him?”
“Coffee’s fine,” I say distractedly as I peer inside the wall for Ingrid, spotting her giving me her daily wave from the end, smiling as she starts chasing after someone else.
I shut the hidden entrance panel and carry on, smiling a little to myself, as I look around at all the progress.
“I mean it, Violet Carmine. You’d better be the badass I’ve taught you to pretend to be, or all this was for nothing,” Shera tells me again as she glances over the edge.
“Avery’s warned me of everything that could come at me, and he’ll continue to walk me through what’s happening next. I’m good, Shera. I can take what’s coming next.”
“They’re going to lose their minds when they realize what they signed,” she dutifully points out.
“I told them to read it. You heard me.”
“I did hear you,” she agrees. “And I filmed it too.”
“Maybe they can watch it when Idun sleeps if they need a reminder,” I state, sounding just a little petty.
“I don’t even know which way I want to judge you right now, so I’ll save my insults for a more decisive moment,” Shera says as she walks off.
The bells start ringing, scaring the living shit out of me, but surprisingly, none of my fellow omegas shriek. I glare straight up at the bell tower I’m under, through the glass floor, and see Luis swinging on the rope.
“Sanctuary!” he shouts. “Sanctuary!”
“That’s just too real,” Anna says from beside me.
I shake my head and turn to walk away, because I still have miles to go before I sleep. So many miles to go before I sleep.
And I’m already a little crazy with the constant death windows every time Caroline stalks me through the walls.
I almost think she’s trying to warn me.
I pause, my eyes scanning a line on a mislabeled document, and I slowly lower myself to my chair. My heartbeat kicks against my chest, and my eyes slowly lift to meet Anna’s, as the wheels of my mind turn.
“Who are you, Anna?” I ask, my eyes meeting hers.
She grins at me. “I’m Casper the friendly fucking ghost,” she assures me, her smile spreading larger. “Who do you think I am, Violet?”
“You’re someone who left table salt behind, along with a good-bye letter, even though ghosts leave behind a silvery tint with their salt. It’s their soul stains, I’ve learned.”
“Maybe my soul wasn’t stained,” she argues, leaning forward as her grin stays fixed.
My mouth opens and closes, and I narrow my eyes on her.
“Stop playing games.”
She crosses her legs, sitting taller, still fucking smiling. “But I love games. Play with me, Violet. Let’s play with Idun together. It’ll be fun.”
“I’m not playing with Idun, but unless you want me turning my mother loose on you, you’re going to explain who you are.”
Her smile turns more devious in the next instant.
“Fair enough. I hope you’re rather open-minded, my favorite-ever person.”
CHAPTER 7
VIOLET
“The final touches are coming together really quickly,” Shera says like she’s actually surprised, as I collapse to the ground and groan.
So, so close to getting to sleep. Tonight I get to sleep. In a bed. For hours and hours and hours. It’s my reward for giving it up for so long. But all the other Simpletons did it with ease, and I didn’t want to be the one dragging my feet when this was my idea.
I thought my work ethic was stellar until meeting them.
“Almost five solid months of around-the-clock labor is not coming together quickly,” I point out, admittedly a little bit cranky.
She rolls her eyes. “You’re just impatient.”
I smile to myself, just as Anna pops out. Shera, despite her gypsy blood, can’t see her. She hates that she can’t see her.
“The guys are watching Idun TV. I vote you walk through the room naked to remind them you’re their girlfriend,” Anna unhelpfully suggests.
Want to know
what Anna has been doing for almost five straight months while my hands are full and I don’t have time to deal with her theatrics? She’s been doing this—trying to make Idun my problem. Just like everyone else.
However, she scares me less. Sort of. She’s still…sort of scary, if I’m honest.
“I thought you got me,” I tell Anna in mock disappointment.
“Got you what?” Shera asks distractedly, as she does something on her phone. But she forgets she’s even talking to me as she adds, “All the beds are arriving in a few minutes, and we still don’t have a fully installed elevator.”
“We have plenty of manpower,” Anna tells her primly, following behind a Van Helsing knight and checking out his ass.
She gives it a little ghostly squeeze, and I roll my eyes because she’s a single, resurrected ghost—for all intents and purposes—and just the phantom hand grab is more action than I’ve gotten since last month.
Again, I’m not entirely sure what Anna is. I don’t think Anna knows either, because…she’s still possibly delusional after all. The more sensible answer is she’s a delusional ghost I managed to resurrect and she’s very much crazier than ever.
Idun TV is the newest growing addiction in the immortal community. It sucks to be a girl who doesn’t want Idun to be her problem.
It’s Idun’s idea of true transparency for everyone to see she’s genuinely changed. She’s put herself on around-the-clock video surveillance that shows her every breath, every text, every phone call—name it. It’s all there.
It’s the fast-track solution to the trust issue surrounding her.
And Shera is currently watching the live feed through an app on her phone.
It didn’t take Idun long to catch up to the times.
“You really should watch sometime. Nadine is on here a lot, and—”
“So far, not a single skin walker has even tried to contact me in any capacity since I left them still hydrating in Ireland and took the Simpletons, who were terrified, away from them. Currently, I can find no reason they’d be my problem,” I absently reply, looking over some of the family tree’s key pieces.
Gypsy Rising (All The Pretty Monsters Book 5) Page 10
