Violet Ashford's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The notification arrives twelve minutes after she sent her reply. Violet's phone lights up on the dashboard. She reaches for it, her chest tight. The curator has responded. But when the thread loads, Violet sees her own words quoted under someone else's name. A user she doesn't recognize has copied her correction, word for word, and posted it as their own. The curator's reply sits beneath it. Warm. Congratulatory. The kind of recognition Violet has studied for months. Violet sits in the parking lot and reads the exchange three times. The thief has already responded to the curator with gratitude. The curator is asking follow-up questions. The conversation is building without her. She opens the forum's homepage — it's hosted by a collective that operates out of a gallery shaped like a giant mushroom, all neon pink and yellow with pineapple-cut windows. The playful building doesn't match how she feels. Her hands are shaking again, but not from fear this time. She types a reply calling out the theft, her finger hovering over send. Then she stops. The curator will see her as petty. Desperate. Someone who can't let a small slight go. She deletes the draft and gets out of the car. The proof of her expertise just landed perfectly — and someone else is getting credit for it. But she knows something now that she didn't twelve minutes ago. Her insight was good enough to steal. Good enough to impress the curator when she thought it came from someone else. The background didn't matter when the curator couldn't see it. Violet locks her car and walks toward the department store. She doesn't have a plan yet, but the wall she built to protect herself just became the thing keeping her invisible.