Promises

Chatper 7

"What's going on?" I ask my mom. She is looking out the window. Is she afraid of something? Someone?

"It's a long story," She tells me. "We don't have time to talk about it now."

"Mom, you told me we wouldn't keep things from each other. That's a two way street. I can't just be all open with you and you just shut me out and lie to me!" She owes me answers, and I'm getting them.

"Laurel, not now! We can talk tomorrow. Where were you?"

Oh crap. So now she's being a real mom.

I sigh. "At a party," She spins around to look at me. Her eyes are wide with shock. "I was at a party." I finish.

She turns her attention back to looking out the window. "She was right." She says so softly, I almost can't hear her.

"What do you mean? Who is that lady?" I can't help myself. I need answers.

"Laurel, I promise I'll tell you all of that tomorrow. Right now you need to go to bed, and don't leave your room." Her voice is still soft, her face is still painted with fear. I decide to listen to her like I have all my life, and wait for answers tomorrow.

***

I awake blinded by the morining light. I look over to see I hadn't closed my blinds last night. I sigh.

I roll over and out of bed then go to my bathroom to wash up. I fix my hair up into a ponytail. Simple, easy, less time consuming. When I walk out of my room, my mom is sitting on the couch reading. She looks up for a fraction of a second then turns her attention back to her book.

"Morning," She says. Her voice shows no emotion.

I sigh. "Mom, you owe me answers—"

"Sit down Laurel. Just sit down."

I take a seat on the couch across from her. "Mom, you've never kept things from me. I just want to know what's going on right now."

She looks up from me and sets her book aside. The look in her eyes makes me feel something... Like maybe she has kept things from me before... Would she?

"I'm going to explain it to you. Please don't interupt me. You can ask your questions at the end." She sounded like a fifth grade teacher right now, but I just noded and waited for her to begin talking.

"As you know, there are many others like us. Boys and girls. Each one different, each one possess a different power. In order to sustain our kinds way of life, and to keep it a secret from the humans, we chose leaders. We call them the Pathfinders. Ever since we knew we were different, the Pathfinders have built up our way of life. They've helped up keep our kind a secret.

"The lady who came by last night was a Pathfinder. Her name is Ember. She came to... Make sure I remembered the rules." She finishes.

"The rules?" I ask.

She sighs. "We can't get too emotionally attatched to humans."

"Why not?" I can't help myself from asking. I need to know.

"In 1863, the first of our kind were discovered. A woman who became vulnerable to her husband was taken into a laboratory. Her husband was scientist, and when she told him she'd discovered she had powers, he didn't hesitate before taking her in to do experiments on her. They did cruel things to her, and in less than a week, the news was all over America.

"After a while, the public saw they had no real proof of this so called "Mutant Woman". The news died down, and her husband was known as another psycho scientist. The pathfinders decided it would be best for them to not know about us. Our worlds weren't ment to be entwinded."

I take a minute to take all the information in."Alright, one more thing. Why would she need to remind you of this?" I ask.

She takes a deep breath before answering. "Ember can see the future. She..." She looked down, and for a moment I was sure she wasn't going to finish. But then she looked up, and said, "She saw you falling in love with a human boy."

She finally looked up, her eyes meeting with mine. "You can't Laurel. It's... It's too dangerous."

I don't need to ask why. Now I know why.