"What are you?" He asks me, breaking the silence. I am quite shocked by this question. Mostly because I don't even know how to answer it.
"Werewolf. I think... And you are a vampire," I state. He nods.
"You don't smell like a werewolf." He lifts his...
I'm almost finished with the magazine as I look at a picture of a woman in little clothing and a suggestive pose. My eye drifts over to a short column of text next to the picture, and even though I don't usually want to read the text, something makes me take an extra look. It says something about dressing up as a slutty vampire for Halloween and some other nonsense. However, it makes my eyes lose focus as my mind begins to wander.
I start to think about the vampire clan I'm still officially a part of, even though I haven't communicated with them for almost a year now. I start to wonder if maybe they could help Athena out. It's a big clan, with way over 700 members, and a majority of them live together in the camp. Only a few members wander around like me. How you could be satisfied with spending your entire life living in one place will never become clear to me.
We could go to the camp and seek out the council and ask for sanctuary for Athena. Since I'm still a member, they shouldn't have too many objections. And who can say no to me? I don't see why they wouldn't agree to this. It would protect Athena from whoever tries to kill her, the clan would gain a valuable pawn, and could seek her out as much as I wish, without having to take her with me everywhere. This is simply a win-win-win.
I close the paper together and throw it down on the coffee table before I stand up in a swift motion. I'm about to march back to the room but halt for a second. Maybe bringing her food would make her less mad at me if she is still tired. I seek out the old lady, who is now standing behind a barista table in the midst of cleaning one of the machines. I clear my throat, and she pops her head and looks at me. When she recognizes me, she smiles.
"Oh hello! Didn't hear you coming over here. Did you enjoy your coffee?" she asks sweetly.
"Yes, it was very enjoyable," I say while waving my hand in a motion that signals, that that is not what I want to talk about. "Can I have a cookie or cupcake or something?" I ask her instead.
"Oh yes of course! Let me just go and get that for you!" She says as she turns around and walks through a door into what I assume must be the kitchen. She comes back out with two chocolate chip cookies on a napkin. A slight steam rises from them.
"Here. Be careful, they just exited the oven, so they are very hot." She says and hands them over to me with a smile. I make eye contact with her and say in a monotone voice,
"Thank you, I will not need to pay for the cookies.". I break the eye contact, smile, and wish her a good day before I turn around and head for the room with cookies in hand.
As I reach the room I knock twice, before unlocking the door and entering. I enter the room and put the sunglasses back on the desk and look over at Athena, to see if she is awake. She is lying on her stomach with her one leg wrapped around the duvet cover and her arms under the pillow for extra support. Her shoes lie at the end of the bed, meaning she must have kicked them off after I left. I stand and stare at her for a moment, wondering how it would feel if I were in the duvet's place right now, with Athena's leg wrapped over my body. I quickly shake the thought out of my head and clear my throat.
"Rise and shine, princess," I call for her while pulling open the curtains again. She yawns big as she rubs her eyes and sits up with her back against the headrest. For a moment she seem confused as to where she is. Then she looks around and spots me standing by the side of the bed with the cookies extended to her. She looks confused at the cookies, then up at me. I just lift my eyebrows and extend the cookies a bit further towards her, prompting her to accept them and take them with both hands, one under the napkin and the other hovering over them, to make sure they don't fall. For a second our fingers touch each other and a chill runs over my body and I shudder a bit. I then see, that she herself shudders a bit, but tries to suppress it. When she sees, that I'm still looking at her, she blushes.
"Ahem, thank you for the... cookies," she says, looking a bit doubtfully at me, unsure whether or not to take a bite. I turn around and walk over to the other side of the bed to sit in the armchair.
"While you slept I came up with an idea," I start and throw my head to the side, so I can look at her. She slowly raises one of the cookies, blows a bit on it, and then takes a bite. I then continue, "I was thinking, that maybe the vampire clan, that I'm part of, would grant you shelter and protection.". She seems to have a hard time swallowing after hearing that. I stand and walk to the mini-fridge. I pull out a bottle of water, walk back, open it for her, and extend it to her. She again looks doubtfully up at me. Then she rubs her fingers together over the napkin, to get rid of the crumbs from the cookie, and then extends that hand, to accept the water bottle. She takes a big gulp of water, while I move the armchair and turn it, so I can look directly at her, while she sits in the bed. I then plop down in the armchair again and cross my legs.
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," Athena then mutters. She looks contemplative at me.
"Why not?" I ask. "They would protect you from the other supernaturals."
"But why would they agree to take me in? I would just put them at risk as well, wouldn't I?". I hadn't really wondered too much about that. I just assumed that they wouldn't pass up the chance to have a banshee. Almost no banshees are left since they have all been hunted to near extinction.
"I think they would like to have you. A banshee is a very great tool to have. They are very rare." I answer her simply. She looks at me and takes another bite of the cookie while thinking.
"Why are they rare?" she then asks me, still with food in her mouth, just like the child that she still is.
"Because they are a hunted race, as you might already have realized. When they scream, the scream doesn't discriminate. It eradicates everyone around it, friend just as much as foe. Or even innocent people unlucky enough to be too close. So rarely are they left alive, because no one wants to risk innocent people dying.". As I finish she just looks down at her hands. She starts rubbing her index finger over her thumbnail and swallows the bite of cookie. After some time she looks directly up into my eyes with the first signs of tears.
"Do you think I killed Kai and Hera?"
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