Page 3 of Heir of the Beast

I laugh.

~Ok, Viola, let’s not get on the bus to Crazy Town just yet.~

Let’s list the facts and look at this logically:

*This letter is glowing. ~Seems impossible.~

*This letter is glowing ~and~ sparkling by an unknown source~. Seems supernatural.~

*“The Fairy Godmother” knows things she most definitely should not about my life. ~Very unsettling~.

*I hear clear sounds of sparkles.

*Fairy Godmother Inc. sounds a bit like the Hunger Games—but for the hopelessly romantic.

*I’m a secret lover of the movie ~Anastasia~, tell no one.

*A meeting at midnight to find Mr. Charming might be a red flag for a rapist~.~

I think about this.

If this is a hidden camera show or a scientific study to test dumb and gullible women, then I will be a proud statistic. Maybe they’re offering to counsel us? I might benefit from that.

This could be a study approved by Dr. Phil! I always wanted to get counseling, a hidden desire, actually.

I secretly want the doctors to look at me and tell me if I really am psychotic or if I have been mistreated my whole life, and it’s not my fault, and then we would cry together. I could break down the emotional walls!

I could get sent to a really nice beachfront rehab facility.

Am I doing this then?

Midnight tonight.

Well, Fairy Godmother, you can count on me. I’m just the right amount of messed up to show up and represent. I glance back at the glowing letter and can’t wipe the silly smile off my face.

I have bought a ticket to Crazy Town.

Or a nice bed at a rehab center.

Chapter 2

11:34 p.m.

I should have already left.

Not sure what’s making me delay.

I take a deep breath and glance at my reflection with a sick feeling in my stomach. Do I look mentally stable? I frown and take in my discolored gaze staring back at me in my cracker-box bathroom.

Definitely, probably, not really. Not when you really take a good long look past my cute face and long black hair.

I used to think my oh-so-blessed, exotic looks would get me far in life, but it has produced adverse effects.

Now, before you get the wrong idea of me, I do appreciate them. I do. I thank the mother who left me at the Water Crest nursing home in Houston, Texas, for them.

But, in a way, it has made me lazy in areas I should have been strong in, like common sense. Street smarts.

I would tell my younger self that getting involved with a known drug dealer’s handsome son should be avoided at all costs.

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