Secrecy (Hosie)

Part 90: Dread

Happy Valentine's Day;) <3
Here's a little gift from me to you...

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Hope makes her way back to the Salvatore School grounds a few hours later, after running in her wolf form following her departure from the hospital.

It's late, so no students are up. Campus looks so quiet and peaceful at this hour, and Hope enjoys the light breeze against her skin, making her way through the trees and toward the dock, wanting to soak up ever bit of what her usual senses allow her, before everything soon changes.

She knows it'll all feel different once she activated her vampire side, but she hopes her appreciation for nature and it's beauty never changes. She hopes the calming affect it has on her never goes away...

She should've known one brunette in particular would know her well enough to be a step ahead of her, waiting at the edge of the dock for her arrival.

Hope sighs as she makes her way over, silently taking a seat next to Josie, looking out over the still water as the girl turns her gaze toward her, then turning back toward the water herself.

Josie breaks the silence after a moment, her voice softly cutting through the night air, "I knew that for as long as I could still hear your howling, you were okay..." She admits. Every time she'd hear a howl, she'd be relieved, but then a beat would pass with no more commotion, and panic would set in, assuming the worst had happened. The silence for her was anything but peaceful.

Hope glances downward, "I'm sorry I kept you waiting." Josie glances down at her own hands, nodding a single time and accepting the apology, but she can't bring herself to say anything else. She waits for Hope to either confirm or disregard her earlier resolution.

Hope continues when she realizes Josie doesn't intend to respond, "There's um..There's something I want to talk to you about...But earlier, before all of the chaos ensued, you said there was something you needed to talk about?"

Right. Josie had forgotten about that. She was so worried about Hope that it slipped her mind that she's also in danger, for a reason unrelated to the Tribrid.

Josie sighs. Hope deserves to know the truth. But she's also gone through so much, Josie doesn't want to add any more hurt. But does she have a choice?

Josie nods, tugging her lip between her teeth. There's no easy way to say it. And she hadn't thought about how she would do this.

"Yeah, there's..." She sighs again. This is a lot harder than she could've ever imagined, "My family—the Gemini coven...they have this generational curse bestowed upon twins...When Lizzie and I turn twenty-two, we have to perform a ritual called the Merge."

Hope tries to sift through all of the information in her brain that she's studied about witches and ancestral magic and rituals. There's so much, and the Merge doesn't ring any bells. Josie sees her confusion when she glances over at the girl, hoping she wouldn't have to explain further, but she does, glancing back at the water to muster up the courage to tell Hope the truth, "In order to see which of us will be the next leader of the Gemini coven, we have to merge our power, and the strongest twin will inherit that power and continue the bloodline."

Hope's eyebrows furrow, "What about the other twin?"

Hope watches as Josie glances downward at her hands nervously, opening and closing her mouth, searching for the right words, the magical words that'll make this all easier for the Tribrid to bear.

"Jo," Hope reaches for her hand, "What about the other twin?" She has a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach now. If Josie can't even get the words out, it must be pretty bad.