Page 15

This time, Violet nodded and sat up a little straighter. She cleared her throat. “My name is Violet Miller.”

For a police officer, Baker looked young. Young and pretty. And beautifully tattooed. That felt like a triple threat.

“Violet… Miller…” Officer Baker poked the name into the keys of her laptop, but she paused before she finished. She turned in her seat to face Violet. “The girl who can’t remember anything? The one from the TV shows?” she asked, lifting her artful arms to her desk and folding her hands.

“Yeah… That one.” Violet glanced off. For the last ten years, her childhood fame had gotten her far in her high school relationships, with the fresh-out-of-high-school internship, and with her online socials. But after being dumped in the street by The Sprinkled Scoop, Violet wasn’t sure people would still admire her for being ‘the mysterious girl in the purple dress.’ Also, she was terrible at social media, so she’d never really kept up with it.

Officer Baker looked Violet up and down. “I wasn’t sure about you when you first sat down here, to be honest. But I’ve always wondered about your history. Maybe we have a few things in common.”

“My history isn’t why I came in today,” Violet said. “I came in because I went somewhere yesterday afternoon—to a cathedral on…” She rubbed her temples as her choppy memories flickered. Officer Baker gave her a moment to think and turned back to her computer to take notes. “Roll Street,” Violet remembered. “A cathedral on Roll Street.”

Officer Baker’s fingers stilled, hovering just above the keys of her laptop. Her gaze appeared glued to her hands.

“What?” Violet asked. “You stopped typing, and you haven’t even heard what happened to me yet.”

Officer Baker’s gaze fired up in surprise like she forgot Violet was there. “Hmm? Sorry… Go ahead.”

Violet cleared her throat and tried to piece everything together as best she could. “A crime might have happened. And if so, some of my memories may have been erased to hide it. But not all my memories are gone—it’s like only bits and pieces are missing.”

The officer reached slowly for her phone resting on her desk. She pecked at a few buttons as she listened to Violet speak, nodding all the while like she was listening.

“All right. And you’re sure it was the cathedral onRollStreet, right? Why do you think your memories were erased? Did you wake up somewhere with no recollection of how you got there? Sort of like someone was trying to cover their tracks and took only enough of your memory to protect themselves?” she asked, and Violet blinked in surprise.

“Yes!”

“You know what?” Officer Baker looked around the station. “The noise in here is unreal. Do you want to talk outside?”

Violet nodded and stood, relieved since she could hardly hear herself think. She slid out of the chair and squeezed through the officers and complaining juveniles alike to get to the door. When she reached it, she pushed it open and stepped out into the warm summer air, turning to hold the door for Officer Baker.

Officer Baker wasn’t behind her.

Violet leaned to peer back inside, but the officer wasn’t at her desk, either. In fact, Violet couldn’t see her anywhere in the station. She turned back toward the sidewalk and started at the sight of someone there.

A guy stood in a black vampire coat with his hood up, peering at her with silvery brown eyes that glowed in the late afternoon sun.

“Nice to see you awake.” His voice was deep and crisp.

Violet looked both ways, wondering who this weirdo was. “Are you talking to me?” she asked.

He marched across the sidewalk and grabbed her hand. Violet’s grip slipped off the police station door, and in the blink of an eye, the world around her vanished.

7

Violet Miller and the Teleporting Vampire Lord

The sunlight disappeared, the wind ceased to blow, and everything smelled of dust and damp wood in an instant. Violet blinked to adjust her eyes. Her hands were flat on a hardwood floor—she was on her knees…somewhere else. She’d just been at the police station… She’d just been grabbed and taken and…

When she looked up, she saw a wall filled with newspaper clippings and familiar blog articles; articles, she realized,shewrote. She quickly looked around and took inventory of a wooden desk, stacks of newspapers, and a chalk board to her right. A whole network of notes covered the chalkboard; details, dates, names…

Her own news stories came to mind in waves. It seemed like she was in an office of some sort—an office of someone who was as obsessed with the monster roaming the city streets as she was. Unless…

It all pieced together, memories of the day before that she thought she’d lost rushing back and slamming into place. This office. These articles. This cathedral… Violet gasped as she realized she’d come to this conclusion before, and she suddenly knew that all the memories she’d lost from the day prior were somehowback.

She scrambled to her feet and reeled backward—right into someone who nudged her away again. She spun with her fists raised.

A guy.

Theguy.