Meet Amber, a teenage girl struggling with the death of her father, an overstressed mother- and lycanthropy. All she wants is for her life to go back to normal, but a magical corporation has lost a valuable test subject and they believe Amber will b...
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Chapter Nineteen
I half expected Kimberly to be standing right behind the door, where she could hear our conversation, but instead I found her sitting cross-legged on the bed, clutching one of the pillows like a teddy bear.
"Hey," I said gently, closing the door behind me. "How are you feeling?"
"I could hear everything you said," she told me, eyes wide with fear. "You were all the way out there, but I could hear you."
I paused, halfway to the bed, and then sighed. Of course she could hear me and Dex outside. She probably could have heard if Dex dropped a pin in the elevator.
"What did you hear?" I asked, coming to join her. I sat on the foot of the bed, as far away as I could get from her so she wouldn't feel threatened. I had no idea how I should have broken the news to her, but I did know that it needed to come from my own mouth. Hearing two people talk about her like she wasn't there would be the worst possible way to find out.
"He said you were a werewolf," she answered, "and you didn't say no."
I nodded. "Anything else?"
She shook her head. That was a small relief. She had only thought she'd heard everything. I remembered what it was like discovering I had superhuman hearing. I could hear people talking through a concrete wall like they were yelling in my ear, but that didn't mean that was all I could hear. Everything else was amplified too, and more often than not it would distract me from what I was actually trying to listen to. After a while, I learned to tune things out that I didn't want to hear, but Kimberly had been changed less than a week ago. What was being said in the hallway could very well have been drowned out by the sound of her own breathing.
"Well," I said, "do you think I'm a werewolf?"
She scooted further away from me, so that her back was pressed against the headboard, never letting go of the pillow. The look on her face, like she was just waiting for me to pounce on her and eat her, told me everything I needed to know.
"I saw you turn into a monster," she said in a frightened whisper.
A monster. I shivered when I heard the word, but I didn't deny it. I couldn't deny it.
"You're right," I said, my voice hoarse with shame. "I turned into a monster last night. I'm a werewolf."
To my surprise, Kimberly didn't seem any more frightened by this revelation than she had already been- probably because she was already as scared as she could possibly be.
"And there's something else I need to tell you," I went on, but then stopped. How could I explain this to her? It would have been hard enough telling an adult, but to a little kid... Somehow, I didn't think "I'm very sorry, but I accidentally turned you into a monster," would cut it. "Kimberly, you're..."
