Chapter 32: Elodie

It was a trick of the light. My eyes were somehow reflecting in the dark of his. Or I was straight up hallucinating, whether from exhaustion or hereditary madness, it really didn't matter. I was seeing what I wanted to see, not truth. My mind was clearly a cruel and masochistic place.

I tried to turn my face away. It isn't real. None of this is real.

And then his other hand was there, framing my face, wiping more tears.

"Elodie." His soothing voice didn't work this time. "Don't you see? Don't you understand? I'm like you."

"You're not. You don't know - "

"I do know," he insisted. "I am a werewolf. From a very long family line of werewolves. I know exactly what you're going through." His voice had a calm, patient, talk the crazy person off a ledge tone.

Was this a sick joke? Establish some kind of common ground and humor me until he thought he'd talked me down from suicide and could haul me off to the nearest mental ward?