Page 28 of Violet Spark
I wrinkled my nose. “If the cops find Brayden and whatever he took, they’ll get the reward.”
“There’s a reward?”
“Well, not exactly,” I hedged. “But Dane and Alling were both really eager to find him, the kind of eager that can pay for a lot of PT appointments and pork shoulder.”
Her gusting sigh drifted through the phone. “Mo, this just sounds like too much. You’ve got to go to the police.”
I gritted my teeth, but of course she couldn’t see it. “My life has been…too much for a while now. Honestly, this just seems like more of the same to me.”
“But this time, you got hurt, and now someone is missing. This is real life, Imogen, not one of your games.”
She was only saying what I’d already thought. Best friends did that. But it pissed me off.
“If I have the chance to make something good out of this, I have to do it. You just can’t understand because you—” I swallowed theeverything comes easy for youthat came after. Because it wasn’t true. I knew that. She just made everything look effortless.
She let my half-statement hang there a moment. “Because I what?”
I’d been dumb a lot the last few days, but I’d never risk my friendship with Swann, not over some pointless jealousy. “You’re a good person who would never dump your troubles on someone else,” I told her. “No, more importantly, you’re the kind of person who could get a cheap strip mall mani-pedi, no basecoat, no topcoat, and still smack down a stupid idea without a single chip.”
“True enough,” she answered finally. “So you should do what I say: Go to the police and let them handle it. This Dane person broke into your house. And that Alling guy tried to give you candy. I mean, what kind of creeper move is that?”
“Cookies,” I said absently. And he didn’t just try, he succeeded. “Maybe you’re right about the cops.”
“Maybe?” she prodded.
“Definitely,” I said with a laugh.
But just because she was right didn’t mean I would do what she said.
“I gotta go,” I told her. “I left Mom kind of freaking out.”
She tsked. “You’re good at that. Call me after you talk to the cops, okay?”
“Definitely,” I said again.
After a few love-yous, we disconnected. Minutes passed as I sat in the car, staring down at my silent phone. I wanted to turn it all over to the cops and walk away. There was a lot of stuff I wished I could walk away from lately. But I’d had enough wishes blow up in my hands or go missing that it was basically impossible for me to not take this chance, no matter how crazy it might seem.
But I couldn’t tell Swann any more about it, since she—rightly—didn’t approve. And I couldn’t tell my mom, of course. Couldn’t tell Alling or Dane until I had something worth a shit. Who would help me on this quest? Not Shirleen or my clueless coworkers. Not any of my former classmates still pursuing their dreams. None of the people in the handful of places I frequented between home and work.
Which left my online world, with my scant hundred new followers, most of whom were just waiting for my inevitable porn tape. And Arjun, who would need to check in with his babysitter probably. How sad that there was no one else in my life I could turn to…
I’d been idly scrolling through my Legendelirium contact list when I stalled halfway down.
SirJacksalot.
With a derisive snort, I kept scrolling to the bottom of the alphabet. But there was no one I could call.
I scrolled back up halfway through the letters and paused at J.
SirLancelot and Brayden had campaigned together a lot. Jacksalot probably knew him better than I did. And Jacksalot wouldn’t care if I was getting into something dangerous. And as much as I thought he was an asshole, I knew he was smart. Maybe smart enough to figure out what was going on with a certain missing MageLord.
With a groan—it had been a day of bad decisions so why stop now?—I queued up the Legendelirium chatboard. Since my EldWitch was dead, I couldn’t get into the game itself until I created a new character, and I didn’t have time for that.
I created a new avatar for the chat, a MasterBlader like SirLancelot. Might as well play up to his ego if I wanted his help.
New side quest,I messaged in the subject line.Experts only
There. That should get his egotistical attention.
