Instinct

21. The Path Closest to the Heart

“How many of them do you reckon there are?” Evan asked.

Daniel looked up from his cup of coffee, eyebrow raised. “What?”

“Werewolves,” Nina clarified.

He just shrugged, taking a sip of the hot drink. Everything had been so much easier when no one knew. “Who cares?”

Evan scoffed. “Are you kidding? Everyone, man. No one can stop talking about it.”

Daniel sighed, silently conceding his point. Up until this point, Diana had been pretty quiet. He knew that she hated this stuff even more than he did. The topic was just tiring for him, mentally exhausting. He had hoped, after all that had happened in his hometown, that his acceptance letter to UVM would mean a fresh start. One without strange looks and questions and condolences.

But he found that, now more than ever, there was more covering up to be done, more lies.

“They’re more trouble than they’re worth,” Diana muttered down into her own drink.

“I think they’re awesome,” Nina said.

“Yeah, right,” snorted Evan. “Right up until you get up close and personal with them and they go for your throat.”

Nina rolled her eyes, and Daniel just shook his head. He hated those misconceptions, but he couldn’t do much about them unless he wanted to explain how he knew so much about it all. People had come out about it since it had become a widespread subject, but Daniel wasn’t so sure that was a good idea.

“You’re an idiot,” Nina said. “What makes you think that they’d immediately try to rip anyone’s throat out?”

“Uh, the fact that they transform into big ass wolves?”

Diana laughed and Daniel had to smile. Evan liked to talk big, but he was definitely the worrier out of the four of them.

“I mean, obviously they’ve been around forever, even if we just know about them now,” Nina surmised. “So they can’t be as bad as everyone says. And have you seen Liam Hall? I wonder if they’re all blessed with those supergenes.”

Evan frowned. “Hey!”

“Oh stop it,” said Nina as she elbowed him in the side. “You know I still like you sometimes.”

Evan quirked an eyebrow, opening his mouth to protest, but before they could go down a well-travelled path, Daniel interrupted.

“I really doubt they all look like supermodels,” Daniel said.

“That’s too bad,” she replied and sounded truly sincere in her disappointment as she stirred her frothy drink. Then her head snapped up again. “Oh, hey, have you heard?”

“About what?” Diana asked.

“About the girl that jumped the barrier the other day. They think that it could be Stephanie Armstrong.”

Diana pursed her lips, eyes darkening. “Oh really?”

Daniel looked down. Since Stephanie had come to his house the other day, he’d been unable to stop thinking about her, what she’d gone through because of him. In her tirade, she’d left a lot of detail out, and it had haunted him to no end that she’d been imprisoned for twenty-one months because of him. Because he’d been a selfish bastard.

“She didn’t look so good in the footage and pictures that people got there. Really thin and stuff.”

That, too, was on Daniel, and he hated that he’d once admitted that he’d had feelings for her and then cast her out to save everyone that he could in his hometown.