At three on the dot, Ian strolled in to the KwikPlace. Despite his The Killers shirt shirt being heavily worn, she noted the French tuck in to his dark jeans. Violet had finished cleaning and restocking from the lunch time rush and was playing on her phone behind the register. "Hey," she hollered, and waved him over. "Research?" he asked. "Yup, mostly about Jon's Snow's parentage."

"But everybody knows now!"

She laughed. "Yeah, but because the book hasn't came out yet, some people are still convinced it's Ashara Dayne, and I have to know exactly why they are wrong."

She pulled out another folding chair at set in next to her behind the register. Ian looked around the empty gas station. "Is there anyone else even here?"

"Marco's manning the hot food counter, but odds are he's just baking himself now in the back. Supervisor's...out? Who the hell knows."

Ian took that as permission to take the seat. Violet grabbed a couple of coffees from the dispensers and offered Ian one. He took a cautious sip as she pulled out a notebook and let out a yawn. "So at this point I'd suspect it's something to do with a friend or family member. Have you talked to your family in awhile?"

He shrugged. "Kinda? I'm an only child, and my parents got fed up with my inability to go to college classes. They finally gave up and retired to North Carolina. I'm supposed to go visit them in a couple of months for Mom's birthday, provided I can save up for the plane ticket money."

Violet wrote Parents - nope. "Alright, who do you live with?"

"Louis and his girlfriend - well, fiancee. Who knows when they're getting married. There's both pretty happy people honestly. Louis's a waiter and Kelly's an RN. Our only real beef is when Louis forgets to put a sock on the door."

Roomies - Louis: service, Kelly: healthcare Risks: shitheel customers

"Is this like a therapist's notebook, can I read it?"

She shrugged. "It's quite literally your life, so I don't see why not. What about the rest of the band? Trevor and Eric? Manny?"

"They're all renting a house together. Trevor and Manny are freelance audio editors, met through some message board. Manny's been awesome helping us get set up in some of the...less outfitted venues around town. He's a good dude, he's helping his little sister save up money to the university here - she's in San Juan. So's the rest of the family. Trevor's a bit...hipster? I mean he's got a specific way that he likes stuff done and like a Chemex and some shit. Manny just goes with it, but Eric likes to screw with him. Eric's not the most organized, but he's a goddam lyricist if there is one in this town. Trevor's our main songwriter and somehow they make it work."

Manny - family in P.R., easy-going

Trevor - type A, irritated by Eric

Eric - archetypal artist

She drew a triangle next to their names. "Alright, maybe something there. What about romantic partners? Hookups, partners?"

He looked in to his cup. "Only two. Last year I dated a girl who designed our new logo. That...ended poorly. But she's studying abroad in Germany now."

"You drove her out of the country? Geez man."

"Neither of us were in a good place!"

She laughed. "I'm kidding. The other?"

"For most of high school I...I dated Eric."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

She circled Eric's name furiously.

"What?" He said defensively, "Hey, that actually ended well. After he graduated it just became very apparent to both of us that we make better music than...well you know."

"No no, I'm not saying that's the problem, that might just explain why I'm seeing shit so vividly. Ya'lls lives are all intermingled. I mean we still need to look at your work, but -"

A loud crash sounded, something towards the back of the gas station.

"Come on." She said, dropping the notebook and hustling outside.

Glass was scattered near the back wall, a baseball bat lay in the middle of the shards. A bewildered, panicking little boy was frozen right in front of the destruction he caused. A surge of pity shot through her. The poor boy.

"Sammy" She said softly. His head snapped to awareness, a tear ran down his face.

"Sammy, come here. Let's talk." He obeyed. She looked back to Ian and whispered, "Watch his eyes."

"I'm sorry!" Sammy howled. said through his sobbing. “I didn't mean to, I don't know how it happened! I was walking back from practice because mom was late, and I don't remember coming back here! I'll pay to repair it, I swear! Mom has been putting me to work so I can get an allowance to pay for everything I've broke!" He buried his face in his hands. "I'll clean it up! I'll do whatever you want! I'm so sorry." His words were garbled by his sobbing.

She knelt down to Sammy's level and looked over his shoulder. A black, monkey-shaped figure was trying to kick a can near the dumpster. Violet knew this one was a repeat offender, and she glared at it.

She turned her attention back to Sammy and gave him a warm smile. "It's okay, Sammy. It's just a window. Are you okay?" The boy looked at me, puzzled. "Did any of the glass hurt you?" He unburied his face and shook his head. "Good. Windows are easy to fix, kids less so." He stared at me, wide-eyed. "This isn't the first time something's broken here at the gas station. Actual vandals, but also birds, rocks from passing cars, the garbage person not getting the dumpster down right, all kinds of stuff. There's no reason for my manager to know it was anything else."

The shadow-monkey started crawling closer to them, curious by the lack of anger.

She continued, “I don't want you going anywhere near that mess, you could get hurt."

"You're not mad?"

"Nah. Plus, you're one of our best customers - a swirl cone every Friday."

He nervously laughed. It grew to a genuine chuckle. Soon his care-free face shifted to one of curiosity, bewilderment. Like that of a monkey.

The shadow had crawled on to the boy, wrapped himself around the boy’s waist, and slowly dissolved in to an indefinite mass of smoke, then into the boy. His eyes became wide, the sea of green being obstructed by wisps of black floating, shifting, flickering. There we go you body-snatching troublemaker.

She gritted her teeth and lowered her voice. "Listen to me; I'm sick of you taking over this little boy’s body. He is a good kid and you perpetually get him in to deep trouble, just so you can have your little fun and not take the rap for it. You thrive on his misery and punishment. You're nothing but a leech. You have nothing but your perverse sense of enjoyment. You're a sadist, you know that? You think you're better than everyone else just because you think you can do whatever you want. You think that you're some sort of god because you think you can't be seen. Well, guess what? You can be seen. By me. And I will hold you accountable for your actions. You have no idea what I can do. If I can see you, what do you think I can do to you? This better not happen again, or else I will make sure this can't happen again, get it?"

He nodded, stiffly, the smoke whipping rapidly.

"Have you heard what happened to the German Sheppard shadow that used to screw with Danny Venkman down at 1347 Maple Street?"

He shook his head.

"There's a reason they don't like to talk about it."

His eyes grew wide. The wisps left his eyes suddenly, and the monkey quickly re-materialized. It lept off the child, and ran away, shrunken and misshapen. Sammy blinked. "Let's go get that cone, I think I've got a quarter for you." Violet said, holding out her hand. Sammy took it.

It turned out she had three quarters, so she got one for Ian as well. Sammy was giving Ian critiques on his batting stance while Violet was making herself a cone. Marco appeared next to her, "Did I hear you yelling at that kid earlier?" Violet raised an eyebrow. "Do I smell you not sharing your stash?" He put his hands up innocently. Violet continued, "The back window's broke again, can you clean up the glass while I file a report?"

When Sammy left, Ian looked at me with big eyes. "Okay, I've been doing everything in my power to keep from freaking out but geez."

"Yeah, the black smoke is pretty disconcerting when you can't tell what's going on, but I've noticed some people can see it when I'm near."

He shook his head. "I'm mean yes, but your eyes! They were going bonkers with the gold, I could have swore they were glowing."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess I didn't think of that."

He backed up a bit. "But it was pretty cool, too. Like top ten for supernatural eye stuff that's also not sex stuff."

She scoffed. "You can list nine others?"

He opened his mouth, closed it, and pursed his lips together. He held up a finger. "Give me a minute, I got this."