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What are they saying?
Shhh. I whispered back. I can’t listen in when you’re talking to me.
Dastien was quiet for a second and I heard the mom telling Samantha not to be scared of her gift. To use it for good. It was something I’d heard from my mother time and time again growing up. I almost laughed as the conversation progressed. It was like stepping in a time machine, only not. We clearly had different abilities and were on different paths. But some of it was so familiar…
Then her mom started talking about how she needed friends. How she needed to open up. And Samantha said she had friends—her mom and some priest dude.
Her mom and a priest.
Fuck it. I was siding with her mom on this one. Samantha needed me to help her as much as I needed her help. I knocked three times and the conversation stopped.
“Claudia,” Samantha said as she swung the door open. “I—” She stopped. “Oh. Uh. It’s you. I thought you were going to be—”
“Our cousin?” I shrugged. “Nope. It’s just me.”
“Our cousin?”
“Yup. We’re kind of related.”
Samantha looked back at a woman who had to be her mom. The mom was standing in the kitchen, where she’d been slicing some onions—the scent made my eyes water. The mom shrugged, telling Samantha that she didn’t know who I was.
“Well, my mom and Claudia’s mom are sisters. And—”
“Oh! You’re Gabby’s daughter,” Samantha’s mom said. “We met a long time ago. You were very young, and probably don’t remember me. You girls actually played together.”
“We did?” I smiled because I didn’t know how else to react. “Sorry. I don’t remember.”
She waved it off. “Of course you don’t, but you were having such a tough time with your abilities and so was Sam and… Well, I lost touch with your mom, but now it seems like you’re doing fine.”
“I am.” I shrugged. “Except for the whole needing your daughter’s help if I want to live and stop the apocalypse.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” Samantha asked as she leaned against the door jamb.
“I wish I were.” I really, truly did. “I need your help. Please.”
“Of course Sam’s going to help you. Come on in, honey,” Samantha’s mom said.
Samantha shot her mom a look and then stared at me. Right in the eyes. We stood there like that for a while. She wasn’t a Were but she was something supernatural. I’d thought she was a witch, even if Claudia said she wasn’t, but my eyes started to burn as I waited to see who would look away first. It was my first clue that I had no idea what Samantha really was. Witches didn’t do dominance displays like werewolves, but Samantha wasn’t a werewolf.
As the thought crossed my mind, she raised an eyebrow and moved back from the door. I took my gaze away from hers only as I passed through the entrance to the small apartment.
I hadn’t been sure what to expect from outside, but it was pretty nice inside. Sure the furniture was a little well loved, but it was beyond tidy. The front door opened into a living room. They had a small dining table off to the right, and beyond that was the kitchen. It was an older apartment and except for the cream colored carpeting, it hadn’t been redone at all.
Samantha’s mom cleared her throat. “I’m going to clean up real quick and get you something to drink. You girls get comfortable on the couch.”
I sat, but Samatha kept standing. She looked down at me as if she wasn’t sure what to say, and I wasn’t sure either, but I knew I had to say something. “A few months ago, I never would’ve been able to sit on this couch. I’d touch it and see a million things at once—visions of when it was being made. Flashes of anyone who touched it. Glimpses into their lives. If I touched a person, it was worse. I saw what no one is supposed to see or know except for them. I learned the hard way never to talk about what I saw, and until recently, it seemed like there was no happy ending in my future. I’d always be this freak and never get a second’s peace.”
She stepped closer. “So what happened?”
“Dastien bit me.”
She snorted. “A werewolf bite isn’t going to fix me.”
“I wasn’t saying that. I don’t even know what your ability is, but life can get better. Sometimes in the weirdest ways.”
She sat in an armchair bedside me. “I’ve already hit my low point, so anywhere I go from here? It’s better. But uh… I’m not like you. I’m not a witch.”
“So, what are you? Fey?”
