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My town is very strange.

            In the upper part of New York, you'd find the usual types sprinkled around. Businessmen and women, teenagers and paycheck-to-paycheck families. Doctors, dentists and day-carers... You get the gist.

            But one thing that unites the town and brings them all together is the town meeting. Where, once a month, the town meets together to discuss improvements, events and anything else anyone wants to bring up about our town. It's very Stars Hollow, I suppose.

            That afternoon everyone filed into the town hall, and I shifted uncomfortably against the current of everyone else. A tall man pressed into my back, and two giggling twins were to the left of me. Chloe was pressed on my other side, and I'd lost my parents in the crush of people, though I knew I'd find them later.

            Once we'd squeezed through the gaps and created a space for ourselves, Chloe and I took a seat up the front near the dais, and I saw my parents take a seat in the row behind me, settling into the high-backed plastic chairs, ready for the meeting to begin.

            Up the front people were setting up for the town meeting, and I suppressed a yawn and fanned myself with a novel I'd brought along in case this got boring, the stifling September heat seeming to melt my bones.

            "Looks like you've got the same idea as me."

            I jumped at the unexpected voice and turned to the side, to find an unfamiliar boy sitting next to me. He had hair the color of the dead of night, eyes that resembled melted chocolate, and a chiseled jaw with high cheekbones and bow-shaped red lips. He flashed a tentative grin at me, revealing pearly-white teeth I was infinitely jealous of.

            "Huh?" I asked unintelligibly, feeling like an incomprehensible person in this handsome boy's presence.

            He gestured to the paperback in my hands, and held up one of his own. "I thought if things turned shady I'd pull out a book and read."

            I smiled. "Great minds think alike."

            He laughed, a warm, musical laugh as smooth as velvet. "I suppose so."

            "I haven't seen you around before," I said, squinting at him and trying to make out his features, to know if he was someone I'd come into contact with before. His handsome features were definitely something I should remember, and, though they may have looked even vaguely familiar, he was not someone I'd ever come into proper contact with before. "Are you new to Sterling?"

            He smiled. "Nah, I moved here a year ago to start my freshman year of college. But, believe it or not, I've never dropped into one of these town meetings before. Always been too busy. Nevertheless, I prevailed to make it here tonight."

            I held out a hand, which was decorated in sparkly pink fingernail polish and an array of silver rings—my favorite accessory. "Well, I'm Violet. Violet Rose."

            "Like your eyes," he said, holding out his hand to shake. It was warm, and his palm was rough, his fingers calloused. Guitarist's hands. "I'm Sam Thorne."

            "It's nice to meet you, Sam," I replied politely, smiling at him.

            "You, too, Violet Rose."

            I smiled up at him—his stature stood about half-a-foot taller than mine—just as the runner of these meetings, Birdie Price, stepped up to the microphone and tapped it in a way she always did. Her tangerine-colored lips pulled up into a taut smile, and she began. "Good evening, Sterling residents. Thank you once again for coming up to this meeting, where we will get straight into things. Firstly, we'd like to thank Citros Realty for..."

            "Oh, boy," the mysterious boy beside me, Sam, muttered, picking up his book and flipping to an earmarked page. "This is going to be a long meeting."

            I hid my smile in my hand, and focused on the meeting.

            ~          *          ~

            "So, who was the mystery hottie?" Chloe asked once the meeting had finished an hour later. We were just making it out of the stifling confines of the town hall and into the open area, and I sucked in a lungful of cool air gratefully, glad to be out of the Sahara temperatures.

            "Who?" I asked, watching the twinkling stars in the dark sky. I always loved stars. They were so beautiful and magical, promising adventure and new beginnings.

            "You know, the hot guy who sat next to you?" Chloe said patronizingly slowly, rolling her eyes. "Tall, dark and handsome? Am I ringing any bells yet?"

            My face lit up in recognition. "Oh! I don't know. Apparently he's lived around here for a while. Sam Thorne, I think he said his name was. He's just starting his second year of college."

            "Ooh, a college boy," Chloe said, her green eyes lighting up. "Score for Violet! My little girl's growing up."

            I laughed and headed towards the elm tree on the edge of the curb, checking both sides of the street for any oncoming cars. "I don't even know him, Chlo. He could be a murderer for all we know."

            "Yeah, but a hot one."

            "Is that all your mind sees?"

            "No," Chloe replied, scraping some electric blue nail polish off of her index finger and letting the chipped paint fall to the green grass below. "I also notice brains, brawn and brooding eyes. But the hot factor is a big part of it."

            I snorted and rolled my eyes, bidding her goodnight and making my way home alone. Normally I would've hitched a ride with my parents, but my dad had had an emergency at work halfway through the meeting and had had to leave, my mother going with him. She had asked if it were okay if I walked home alone, and I had agreed. It wasn't dangerous in the suburban New York town of Sterling, and, though it was cold, I'd suffered worse.

            I shoved my hands into my sweater pockets and lowered my head, watching the cracks in the pavement and darting over them. My mind wandered to the Voiceless Stranger, and I briefly wondered what he was up to. Had he been at the town meeting? Did he go to things like that, or were they too mundane for someone as extraordinary as him? He didn't seem like the kind of guy to go to meetings, but I might be wrong about him.

            "A young girl walking home in the dark by herself? Tsk tsk. Seems sketchy, if you ask me," a voice suddenly said, and I jumped and spun to see none other than the boy from the meeting, Sam, walking beside me, hands shoved into his hoodie pockets, his posture nonchalant as he walked cavalierly beside me.

            "Only if there are evil people lurking in the shadows, ready to launch on that girl and scare her half to death," I quipped, recovering from the scare. "In fact, you seem to fit that description quite vividly."

            "Aw, come on, now," he replied, amusement lacing his tone and twinkling in his eyes. "Do I look harmful to you? An angelic face like this?"

            "Innocent looking people always have the darkest hearts," I replied, recalling a poem I'd read one day for sophomore English class that we'd had to analyze.

            He frowned, his dark eyebrows pulling together. "Wow, that took a turn from zero to poetic in sixty seconds."

            I laughed. "What are you doing around here? Sterling campus is the opposite way."

            "I don't live on campus," he replied, shrugging in his bulky jacket. "I live with my cousin in an apartment not far from here."

            "Sounds fair," I acknowledged, nodding along.

            "What about you, huh? I haven't seen you around campus before," he said. "Do you not go to Sterling?"

            I grinned, wondering just how much older I looked. "I'm still in high school, actually. The good old Sterling High."

            He raised an eyebrow—something I'd never been able to do—and let out a long, low whistle. "Wow. I never would've guessed."

            "Thanks," I said, blushing at the compliment and staring down at the concrete pavement.

            "Seventeen, then?" he asked, taking a guess at my age.

            I nodded, and scrutinized his boyish features, calculating mentally his age. "Twenty?"

            "Good work."

            We walked in silence for a while, and I felt the chill of the late September night deep in my bones, as if it were manifesting itself there. The one problem with New York was that, even at the tail end of summer, temperatures still managed to drop to a freezing degree. I crossed my arms over my chest and shivered, trying not to let the cold show. Nevertheless, my teeth began a relentless chatter.

            "Here," Sam said, shrugging out of his zip-up hoodie without even the slightest moment of hesitation. "Take my jacket."

            I scanned over his tight white t-shirt, where his corded biceps bulged out of the sleeves. He was impressively broad and muscular, something Chloe would be drooling over if she were here right now. "No way," I said, shaking my head. "You'll be freezing."

            "I'll be fine," he replied with a small half-smile. "I don't really feel the cold."

            "Are you sure?"

            He nodded. "Absolutely. Go ahead."

            I shrugged on the large hoodie, instantly feeling the warmth his body had created. It smelled of his aftershave, woodsy and masculine, and the shivering stopped, leaving me comfortably warm in the fleece jacket. "Thank you."

            "Don't mention it," he replied easily, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "Want me to walk you home?"

            "Oh, that's no trouble," I said, waving it away easily. "I can get home by myself. We're only a few blocks away, anyway. I don't want to inconvenience you."

            "It's no worries. Seriously, I'll take you home. I don't like the thought of leaving you alone out here."

            "You know, I really shouldn't be letting you walk me home," I contemplated, pursing my lips and assessing his features. "You could be a stalker or a serial killer, for all I know."

            "If I were a stalker, couldn't I just sneakily follow you home and find out where you live, anyway?" he asked with a smirk.

            I bit my lip. "Okay. But still, you're not supposed to let strangers walk you home. It's basically inviting yourself to get brutally murdered, and, as shocking as this might seem, I'm not really in the mood to get murdered."

            "I wouldn't dream of harming a pretty girl such as yourself," he said with a charming grin. "But I'm not gonna let you walk home by yourself. It's a dangerous world. Wouldn't want you winding up kidnapped because I wasn't chivalrous enough to take fifteen minutes out of my time to walk you home."

            "Fine," I said, conceding to his easy grin and warm eyes. "But only because you have a real way with words. Ever considered writing?"

            He laughed, and I lead the way back to my house, only mildly nervous at the fact I was showing a near stranger my home. Surely this went against some code of practice you were taught from a young age. But he seemed harmless, and things like that didn't happen around here.

            Still, the easy grin stayed on his face, making me feel more comfortable, and by the time we wound up at my doorstep, I was laughing hard over the tiny jokes he cracked, setting my mind at ease.

            "Thanks for walking me home," I said, throwing him a grateful smile. "And keeping me away from those big, bad kidnappers."

            "It was my pleasure," he replied with a self-satisfied smirk.

            Remembering his jacket, I went to shrug it off, but his warm arm on my shoulder stopped me, and I looked up into his dark eyes, which were curtained by a layer of long lashes. "Keep it," he said. "I'll be fine."

            "But I don't know when I'll see you again," I replied. I hoped that sentence didn't sound too petulant.

            "Consider it leverage to see me again," he said easily, dropping a sly wink as his lips twisted into a soft smile. "Until next time. Farewell, Miss Rose."

            I bit my lip and shook my head at his antics. "Bye."

            I waited until he was halfway down the driveway before I turned around and unlocked the front door, stepping into the foyer and locking the deadbolt behind me. I slung my scarf over the wooden coatrack and flipped on lights as I went, bathing the house in a warm glow for my parents to come home to, before making my way upstairs and into my room.

            I turned on the lamp beside my table and shrugged off Sam's jacket, laying it over the back of my desk chair. I braided my hair back and walked over to the window to find it open, letting in blasts of freezing air that sent chills down my spine. I frowned. "I could've sworn I closed that," I muttered to myself, fiddling with the latch to see if it were broken. It was in perfect working order, not even a sign of rust on it or a squeak in the hinges.

            I spun around with my hands on my hips and found something I hadn't noticed before, a crisply folded piece of paper on the edge of my coverlet. I walked over slowly and picked it up, revealing a lined piece of paper folded in two. I opened it and scanned the contents with curious eyes.

            Violet –

            Roses are red

            Violet is you

            I desperately need

            To speak with you

            I'll find you soon

            Wait for me

            For the untold future

            Is yours to see

            Sincerely,

            Your Superhero

            I looked around as if I might find the man in question lurking around my room. But, unsurprisingly, he was nowhere in sight, probably having dropped off the note sometime within the ninety minutes I'd been out. A small smile quirked up my lips at his impressive rhyming skills, and my heart warmed a little bit at the words.

            I walked to the window and looked out, to find Colton in the window across from me, lying nonchalantly on his bed, a battered paperback in his hands that he was flicking through. He had on a brown, long-sleeved sweatshirt and jeans, his legs folded at the ankles and one hand behind his head, the other holding up his thin book, which looked like an old classic.

            An idea formed, and I leant further out of the window, calling across the distance between our windows with a cautious voice, so that I didn't disturb his parents. "Psst! Hey, Colt!"

            I saw him jump in his bed in surprise and look around perplexedly, before his blue eyes met mine across the rooftop. He stood up and walked to the window, leaning against it with a small, adorable smile. "Hey, V. What's up?"

            "Did you see anyone come in here?" I asked, biting my lip nervously, aware of how weird this question sounded.

His dark eyebrows pulled together. "Uh, what?" he asked, uncomprehendingly.

"To my room," I clarified, fiddling with the hem of my shirt. "Did you see anyone sneak into my room while I was gone?"

"No," he said slowly, before his jaw tightened and his Arctic eyes lit up. "Why? Is something missing in your room? Is something wrong?"

I shook my head hurriedly. "No, no!" I said, cutting him off. "Nothing like that. It's just... my window is open, and I thought I closed it. It's probably nothing, just me being an idiot," I lied smoothly, not mentioning the mysterious note lying on my comforter.

"Okay," he said slowly, scratching the back of his head. God, could this conversation possibly get any more awkward? "Well, I haven't seen anyone, and I've been here all night. Maybe it popped open, or something."

Or maybe you're crazy, was probably what the next half of that sentence was going to be if Colton wasn't as polite as he was.

"Yeah," I replied, forcing a smile. "Sorry to disturb you."

I went to lean back and shut the window, but his deep, confident voice stopped me, carrying easily over the cold chill of the wind. "Wait, Violet!"

I spun around, staring at him curiously. "Yeah?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Are you okay? You've been acting a little strange lately. Is everything all right with you?"

I thought I'd been doing a good job keeping up a façade that I wasn't having secret meetings with the town's superhero, but maybe I wasn't being as secretive as I thought I had. "I'm okay," I replied, my voice coming out squeakier than I intended it. "I'm totally fine, thanks."

"All right," he replied, letting the subject drop easily. "Night, V."

I gave him a tiny smile. "Night, Colt."

I stepped back into my room and shut the window, checking twice to make sure the window was latched, and then shut the curtain, settling against the window seat and letting out a sigh. So, Colton hadn't seen anyone enter the room. Well, the Voiceless Stranger—Black Phoenix, I reminded myself—was unnaturally fast. Maybe he'd gotten in and out before raising suspicion.

I sighed and settled back down with the note, my eyes catching on the final two words he'd signed off with.

Your superhero.

It was an odd choice of wording, and I puzzled over it for a while, my eyes darting over the scribbled words again and again. What did he mean by my superhero? He wasn't my anything.

            Right?

            ~          *          ~

            The next morning, I made my way into school and towards the newspaper office, where Chloe sat dutifully at her table, sipping what I assumed to be a soy latte from the café.

            "Hey, Violet!" she chirped happily, grinning at me.

            I frowned at her and slowly placed my bag on the table, looking over at her features, which were alight with happiness. "Hi," I said slowly.

            "Have a nice morning so far?" she asked, pushing some of her shiny red locks out of her face.

            "How much caffeine have you had to drink this morning?" I replied, eyeing the cup of coffee on her computer desk warily. It was rare Chloe was in such a chipper mood. And it was killing me as I wondered why.

            "This is my first cup," she replied, holding up the jumbo Styrofoam. "Why?"

            "You seem in an awful chipper mood," I responded, sitting down at my desk and flexing my fingers over the keyboard as I booted the computer to life.

            "Can't I be?" Chloe replied, grinning. "It's a beautiful day, the sun is shining, birds are chirping and I'm still breathing. Is that not a good enough reason to smile?"

            "Not with you, Chloe Morgan," I replied with a smile. "What's really up?"

            She rolled her eyes with a smirk. "Wicked Step Mother's going to be gone for the next week," she said happily.

            My eyes widened. "Seriously?"

            She nodded enthusiastically. "Uh-huh. Apparently Jennifer's going to some stepmother's retreat. Like she's the one who needs the retreat," Chloe snorted. "But she'll be gone from today to the following Sunday, meaning I get my dad to myself—finally."

            I'm still not sure why Chloe loved her father so much, considering the fact he was an absolute douche who preferred his wife to his adoring daughter. But I suppose when it's blood, things like that don't get in the way. I wouldn't know, seeing as I had a loving father who put me before anything else. Maybe that's just how family works. No matter what, through thick and thin, you love them.

            "That's amazing, Chloe!" I replied enthusiastically, wanting to show my friend how happy I was for her. There was nothing worse than being excited for something and having the person you're telling it to act like they don't care. It spirals your mood quicker than a Frisbee.

            "He's even letting me have tomorrow off so we can go out together. A whole daddy-daughter weekend," she said, leaning back in her seat with a content sigh. "God, I'll be so glad to have WSD out of the house."

            I laughed and grabbed a granola bar out of my backpack, before clicking onto a new browser on the computer and researching some more on the Voiceless Stranger. His note had only served to make me even more curious, and I was determined to find out his identity.

            "Hey!" Chloe said to me suddenly, pointing at me with her index finger as she wiped some foam from the coffee off of her face. She swallowed the latte, and stared at me with excited eyes. "I forgot to tell you!"

            "What?" I asked.

            "I pulled in a favor with my friend Javier," she said, her green eyes brimming with excitement.

            "You have a friend named Javier?" I replied with a dubious eyebrow cocked.

            She rolled her eyes. "Fine, his name is Dave, but how boring is that? Leave me to my Latino boy fantasies."

            "Chloe, you're going off-topic." I sing-songed the reminder to get her back on track.

            She sighed. "Anyway, he's the editor of the newspaper at Hearst High. I asked him to do some digging about our resident mystery man, and he discovered something."

            "What is it?" I replied, my interest successfully piqued. Chloe was nothing if not a good storyteller, and she knew how to get me hooked.

            "Well, apparently he went online and did some research for me, and he found out something." She handed me a printed sheet of paper with a blurry photo of a man. "Apparently there was this crazy dude, like, ten years ago, or something. The story is still kinda sketchy, but I'm working off of the basics. Anyway, story goes that this guy was, like, psycho. Did all of these genetic tests and accidentally poisoned his son with the thing. Died soon after, and the mother went loco. Claimed her son was 'diseased and 'impure.' Even tried to murder the poor kid. She got admitted to a mental institution and left him alone. Left the kid with no one."

            "Do you know the kid's name? What happened to him?" I asked.

            She shook her head with a grim look. "According to legend, he fell off the grid. No one knows where he went or what happened. But, like I said, it's a myth. Apparently the dude was a Doctor Stone, but there are no records much on him other than the standard pathology lab tags and awards. No one even knows the kid's name. But I'm betting if the story's true, then the Voiceless Stranger is this guy. I mean, we all know people don't just gain superpowers. His dad was a biochemical pathologist. He had the means and probably the power. By the sounds of it, his dad was working on something big. And dangerous. The wrong kinds of people tried to get their hands on it, and Doctor Stone destroyed all evidence. But not before he gave his son a dose of the crazy cocktail."

            "But no one knows the kid's name?" I replied.

            She shook her head. "Nope, no one. Birth records were protected, and no one knows what happened once Mommy Dearest went postal. But who knows? Maybe ten or eleven years later he shows up in New York to protect the world from evil. Could happen."

            "Wow," I whispered, staring in shock at the picture of his father. He had dark, dark eyes and hair that fell in chocolate waves. He was quite handsome, with a face that looked like it belonged on an oil painting. "So how did you know this?"

            "Some newspaper back in Chicago where the scientist and his crazy wife and kid lived published an article on it. Even had direct quotes from the mother and everything."

            "I don't understand how the kid could just disappear," I whispered, staring at the man.

            She shrugged. "Vi, he could fly and had super-strength, not to mention the fact he's invincible as far as we can tell. I'm pretty sure he could handle himself in the big, bad world."

"Did you do research for anyone with the last name 'Stone' in New York?" I asked.

"Yep. Returned one hundred and eighteen results. None are around the age range, though. Well, there is one. They don't have the last name Stone, but they're around the range and did the commute from Chicago to New York."

"And?"

"A twenty-one year-old girl named Elisha and her whacked-out brother, Samuel. Migrated here two and a half years ago. But that's probably coincidence. I have a feeling our supervillain's been around here a little longer than that. Believe it or not, I don't think that's who we're looking for."

            "What about the mother's moniker?"

            "Last name was Richards. As you can imagine in central New York, there were hundreds of results that Dave and I had to sift through. That also turned up no good results."

            "So, we've got nothing?" I replied.

            Chloe looked offended. "I wouldn't call it nothing," she replied peevishly, and I regretted my words instantly. "We have a backstory, an age range, a past and names to go off. It's considerably more than we had yesterday."

            I flashed her a smile. "You're right. Sorry, Chlo. Thank you for helping."

            She sighed contently. "No worries. It was a waste of time, but it got me a date with Dave, so..." she shrugged.

            I raised an eyebrow. Chloe Morgan, ever the flirt. "Dating a guy from our rival's newspaper? Sneaky, sneaky."

            "Think of me as an infiltrator," Chloe replied. "I'm sneaking around, catching information from our rivals. I'm taking one for the team."

            "And I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact hat Dave is hot," I replied, closing down the computer as the bell rang overhead.

            "Nope," she chirped. "Pure human sacrifice. Hey, I've been meaning to ask you," she said, dumping her latte in the bin. "I saw you and Sam go off together last night. What happened?"

            I shrugged and slung my backpack over my shoulder, eager to get to homeroom before I received a tardy. "Nothing. He walked me home. End of story."

            "All right," she replied, dropping it. "Ooh, one last thing. Have you seen the Voiceless Stranger lately? Any unprecedented visits I should know about?"

            I debated telling her about the note left on my bed last night, but something about it seemed overtly personal. Like it was meant for me and me only. I mean, it was only one note, right? What did it matter in the grand scheme of things if I neglected to tell her that I'd received a note from him? It didn't mean anything, anyway. It was just a poem.

            "Nope," I lied breezily, before parting ways with her. "Nothing."

            ~          *          ~

            I think this is my favorite chapter so far of this book. Dialogue between Chloe and Vi just seems to flow really easily for some reason, and I love writing about Chloe :)

            And what did you guys think of Sam?

            Also, what do you think of The Voiceless Stranger's past? Do you think it's real, or do you think maybe it was a lie? Do you think that's even our mystery man?

            Comment down below and let me know what you think! :D

            Thanks for reading!

            xXx