DESCENDED

OLD MAN

Everyone I know is keeping things from me. Samuel, Sebastian, and my father. And I wish someone would just tell me what I want to know. Granted, I'm sure Samuel would if I asked him. But the problem is I wouldn't know if I could trust anything he says.

"I bet I could get answers from Samuel," I tell Sebastian. He's back at my house under the guise of us studying, but really, we're still trying to unravel the mystery of my lineage.

Cocking his head to the side, he gives me a 'at what cost?' look.

"Of course, Samuel would tell you to spite me. But it wouldn't be in your best interest," he sighs.

I'm suddenly hit with a case of déjà vu, and an overwhelming feeling we've had this conversation before.

"There has to be something you can tell me about what you know."

He thinks long and hard, before he finally says, "I can tell you this... all we were given is a timeframe of when we could find you. But we weren't given many details. Just that you would come from a specific bloodline, and we needed to follow the signs."

"What bloodline?" I ask.

"The Leblanc bloodline. Only, they disappeared off the face of the earth at some point."

"What do you mean? How does an entire bloodline disappear?"

"The Leblanc bloodline was cursed. I imagine the curse caught up with your ancestors in the early nineteen hundreds, and one by one, anyone born to the Leblanc name was hunted and murdered."

"That's why my life is in danger, isn't it?" It dawns on me. "Something is coming for me."

"Yes," he nods. "Your mother was supposed to meet me to hand you over the night she was killed. But she never made it. We found out shortly after her death, that she dropped her baby off on a church doorstep to keep it safe. Only, we didn't know which one. And she never told anyone whether you were a boy or girl. Since the Leblanc's had mostly given birth to boys and very few girls, we assumed we were looking for a boy. And we've been looking for you ever since."

"Wait a minute," I frown. "My mom was supposed to hand me over to you. But you're sixteen."

"Technically, I'm supposed to be seventeen."

Supposed to be...?

"Hypothetically speaking, how old are you then?" I ask. Curious.

"Old enough," he realizes his slip up.

"How old am I? I'm not sixteen, am I?"

"You are in this life. Where we come from, age isn't a factor because it doesn't exist. And your life before coming here is the key to all of this."

Thinking about how old Sebastian might be a giggle escapes my lips. He frowns at me, and it makes me laugh even harder.

"I'm telling you the truth," he assures me.

"I know. And I believe you. That's not why I'm laughing."

"Then what's so funny?"

"You're probably as old as dirt, and you're hanging out with a sixteen-year-old girl. That makes you look like a pedophile," I double over with laughter. Leaning into him to hide my face.

I'm laughing so hard I can barely breathe. And finding my laughter contagious, Sebastian starts laughing too.

Trying to gain my composure, I peer up at him, but suddenly the temperature in the room goes up a million degrees, and the mood shifts. He blinks twice. Battling internally with whether to stay away from me, before losing that battle.