Page 66 of Catastrophe

He scoffed and sneered. “And I was foolish enough to think you were just a cat.”

I shrugged. “It happens more often than you think.”

“If you overheard everything, then you know that doesn’t happen to me. I always know.” His eyes bore into me. “So you might as well kill me, because if the others find out I let in a shifter, they’ll do it for you.”

“Kill you?” I flinched. “That’s dramatic. I will not kill you, and I’m not planning on letting anyone else know I was here.”

“You’re going to sneak around a hunter complex, and no one is going to notice?” His eyebrows were high, and his voice incredulous.

I rolled my eyes, and I must have done it too hard because I suddenly fell into a vision. It was so fast that I was confused when I blinked away the dizziness to see a young boy with green eyes staring sadly into my soul.

A hand reached through me to pinch at the boy’s ear, and I twisted out of the way to see a woman with a cruel sneer. She growled, “Michael, tell me. Who is it? Who is the supernatural? I’ll make sure they never hurt you again.”

“I—I don’t want to tell you.” Michael stuttered, and his eyes watered. He swallowed and, with his breaking voice, whimpered, “You’ll hurt her. She’s my friend.”

“She hurt you with magic. She is not your friend, stupid boy.” She scoffed and pushed Michael against the sunshine-yellow bedroom wall. He fell to the floor, shaking as she continued her rant. “We don’t make friends with supernaturals. We destroy them. We ensure their power never harms the innocent humans ignorant of this plague.”

“But Mom, I don’t want to hurt anyone.” He sobbed, and I just wanted to hug him. “Alani is my friend. We were playing, and it was an accident.”

“Alani.” His mother hissed and then called out into the hallway, “Thomas, let’s go. We have a name.”

She stormed out of the room and stomped down the stairs, leaving Michael to crawl after her shouting, “No, Mom! No. Please. Please. Leave her alone. She’s my friend. Please.”

“Quit crying, boy,” she called. I followed Michael as he scrambled down the stairs and clutched at her coat, pulling her away from the front door. She tugged herself free without even looking at her hysterical child while a man, presumably Thomas and, from the look of his green eyes, Michael’s father, opened the door and said, “This is for the best. We’ll wipe out another of those monsters, and you’ll never be hurt again.”

“I don’t want that. I don’t want it,” he cried, but they closed the door behind them, leaving him alone in the darkened entryway. He tried to open it, pull at it, but the telltale snick of the lock turning into place made him despondent. With his head against the door, he whispered, “Come back. Come back. I’m sorry, Alani. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to tell.”

Tears spilled from my eyes and rolled down my face as I blinked back into the room. Micheal, the adult, was poking me with his foot and calling out, “Hey, lady. Hey. What the fuck?”

“What happened to Alani?” I blurted. “Did your parents kill her?”

His face drained of all color, and he went limp. “How to the fuck do you know about that?”

“Because I saw it. Just now. You wanted to be friends with the supernaturals you came across. You probably felt a kinship with them. But your parents used you to hunt them and kill them. They made you their reason for harming children. I saw you begging for forgiveness behind a locked door.”

His expression flashed from horror to disbelief and settled on anger. “You didn’t see anything. I feel nothing but disgust for supernaturals. They are a plague on this realm, and I hate them,” he declared with his teeth bared, but his eyes were panicked, and his chest heaved.

“But that’s not true, is it?” I said softly, and his lips pressed into a thin line. “Something in your soul connected with them, and you recognized your gift to recognize supernaturals isn’t too different from their own magic.”

“Shut up. Shut your lying, filthy mouth. That’s not true,” he snarled and heaved his body up, wracking the handcuffs against the bed frame like a caged animal and trying to kick me. I moved off the bed to stare pitifully down at him.

The vision told me he was good as a child, but he’d grown up in a place that had tried to rid him of that goodness. The real question was, did they succeed? My gut said no, but I needed more proof before I decided whether to tell him the truth.

“You don’t have to lie to me. I saw it. I know.”

“I was a child. Anything I might have felt then is gone. I know the truth about supernaturals, and I won’t listen to this anymore.” He opened his mouth to scream, and I quickly smothered it.

I won’t get him to admit his honest beliefs to a stranger. I need a new plan and fast.

“If I can’t appeal to your supernatural sympathies, then maybe I can appeal to your hunter sympathies,” I rushed out. “You’re concerned about the new man, Darren, and his leading of the hunters. You’re right to be concerned. You’re right not to trust that no one will let you near him. He’s supernatural. He’s the dragon.”

His eyes burned with rage, but he didn’t scream against my hand or try to wriggle out of the cuffs. I took it as a good sign and continued, “I know this is hard to believe, but listen, because I’m only saying this once. Darren’s real name is Fafnir. He’s a dragon from Norse legend. He rose from the dead weeks ago, along with a witch who can control portals. Fafnir is working with hunters to capture supernaturals because he feeds on magic. You think you are defeating supernaturals, but you are actually making one of the most feared and evil supernaturals more powerful.”

When I pulled my hand away again, he scoffed. “You expect me to believe that?”

I sighed and combed my hair behind my ears. “You can lead a horse to water,” I muttered before standing and searching the room for something heavy.

“What are you doing?” he asked, watching me with wary eyes.

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