Losing her entire family was hard enough on Josephine Cohen, but to lose them, upend her life in Boston to live in Beacon Hills, and move in with her infamous cousin Lydia Martin all within a month's time didn't make it any easier.
To make matters w...
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"The what of who?"
"The Beast of Gevaudan!"
Josephine kicked Lydia's shin lightly, sending her cousin a glance that screamed 'be nice' as Allison sat across from them in the cafeteria, telling them about what she had learned about her family after being assigned a project in her and Josie's class dealing with their family ancestry.
"Ignore her, Ali, she's still looped up on the drugs from yesterday," it was Lydia's turn to kick Josie's shin, but all three girls laughed lightly asJosie gestured for their friend to continue telling her story.
"Just list- A quadruped wolf-like monster, prowling the Auvergne and south Dordogne areas of France during the year 1764 to 1767. La Bete killed over a hundred people, becoming so infamous that the King Louis XV sent one of his best hunters to try and kill it,"
Lydia faked a yawn that had Josie rolling her eyes, but Allison continued on anyways.
"Even the Church eventually declared the monster a messenger of Satan. Cryptozoologists believe it may have been a subspecies of hoofed predator, possibly a mesonychid-"
"I think I'm slipping into a coma with how boring this is-" Josie kicked her cousin's shin again, the two girls exchanging meaningless glares as Allison continued on.
"-While others believe it was a powerful sorcerer who could shapeshift into a man-eating monster,"
"That doesn't sound terrifying in the slightest," Josie tacked on, taking a bite of a mouthful of chips as she flipped through her own notebook to find her own notes on the project. "How does this tie into your family?"
"Right here- It is believed that La Bete was finally trapped and killed by a renowned hunter who claimed his wife and four children were the first to fall prey to the creature. His name was Argent,"
Lydia sighed, picking at her nails as she glanced up at Allison.
"So your ancestors killed a big wolf. So what?"
"It wasn't just a big wolf, take a look at this picture; what does it look like to you guys?"
Josie looked up from her own notebook, chips in her hand dropping onto the table and her heart almost stopping right there in her chest. Those glowing red eyes, those same ones that had haunted her the last day and had plagued her dreams. She cleared her throat, looking away from the book and over to Lydia, gently laying her hand on her cousin's arm and giving it a squeeze as Lydia continued to stare at the photo.
"Lyds, you okay?"
"Lydia?" Allison joined in, knocking the Martin girl out of her thoughts finally as she looked between the girls.
