NINETEEN: Suspicion

IT WAS DINNER time, and Cornelia was at the dinner table, sitting next to Jerry as they ate in silence. She was moving her pasta around the plate, every now and then she would steal a glance at him. She really wanted to approach the topic of the rumor with him, but she wasn't sure how to.

She didn't want to believe that what was being said about him was true. She didn't want to believe that her own father, the only family she had left, would be okay in using her like that. However, doubt was eating at her heart; she had heard it more than once already.

"Dad." She called him softly and once she saw his eyes on her she said, "There's something I'd like to talk to you about."

Jerry left his fork and say straighter, paying her full attention. "Sure sweetheart, you can talk to me about anything."

She nibbled on her lower lip while fidgeting in her seat. "There's a rumor around town, it's been going on for a while now."

He hummed, "Isn't that the case in Formid Root all the time? It's always one gossip or the other."

He said it lightly, way too lightly, like he hadn't heard anything. For a second she wondered if she should keep her mouth shut and handle the whole thing on her own.

"What's the matter, sweetheart? Is anyone bothering you?" Jerry asked with concern lacing his tone.

He doesn't know anything. She decided to herself.

Plastering a smile on her face, Cornelia shook her head. "No, it's nothing. I was just grabbing a conversation." She told him with a small chuckle at the end.

Jerry nodded his head, "Well then, as long as you're okay."

The conversation died there. He didn't ask her if anything further nor did he try to investigate her behavior. It made Cornelia wonder if she had turned into such a good actress that her own father couldn't notice her misery.

After dinner, she washed the dishes and headed straight to her room. She had tried to finish her homework, and study a little, but it was all to no avail. Her mind kept drifting into everything that had been happening.

Once more the image of the black wolf flashed before her eyes as it saved her from the rousette one. She remembered how it looked, glorious in a way that at that moment she hadn't noticed, but when she visited it with her memory she saw it vividly.

Cornelia opened her laptop and looked up giant wolves, a desperate attempt at trying to figure out what was happening. Among the many results she had gotten, one thing seemed to stuck out to her. She saw the word werewolf and she instantly clicked it.

It was a loop of different information about them. Some said they turn at well, while others said that they were slaves to the moon. Some said they were similar in size to the normal wolves while others said they were bigger.

She was lost in it all. However, one thing she recalled from that terrible and unexplainable night, and it was the full moon. It was a crazy possibility, but not crazier than what had happened to her. Cornelia wasn't sure if she had been really sleepwalking or not. But she recalled being conscious as she left her house; it was like being compelled to leave, like she was nothing but a mere pupper, and her puppeteer demanded her departure from the warmth of her home and into the cold, dark night.

She heaved a sigh, and put her hand over her head. She wanted to look up sleepwalking, to see if her symptoms would fit it. What she had gathered from that search was that, when it happened to adults it usually indicated an underlying condition. But if she was sleepwalking, then she shouldn't have remembered what happened to begin with.

What kind of mess did I get into? She asked herself and got off her seat, walking to her vanity and staring at her reflection. She noticed how she had become paler over the days. Her eyes were more sunken and dull than their usual vibrant color and her face held all the signs of exhaustion she felt.

Cornelia was scared, petrified even. It felt like everything was going against her, and an overwhelming desire to leave it all behind and runaway came over her. She just wanted to escape the hell that had become her life.

She went to bed, closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind of everything. But there was a knot in her stomach, and the unrhymed beats if her heart acted as a sign of her rising anxiety. She would have to wake up tomorrow and face people again. She would have to walk around with being branded as some common whore.

She had ways believed that women are free to do what they wish with their bodies. The people who talked about her said they believed int he same thing. She remembered when everyone knew about Jessica Crawford giving a blowjob to Jackson Morbis in their junior year and how Jessica had been so nonchalant about the whole thing.

"Boy likes girl, girl likes boy, sex." Jessica had said it like it was a fact of life, one that people had no right to argue over.

Cornelia remembered a time, not so long ago but felt like another lifetime, when Jessica and Lana tried to be in her good grace. They had played extra nice with her, did their very best to be in her crowd. But back then, Cornelia wore the crown, she was the queen and not only of the school but of the entire town.

She sighed again, the thoughts wouldn't stop. She knew she wouldn't be getting much sleep, and she gave up on the idea of stopping her mind from working itself to exhaustion.

After hours of lying awake, her eyes finally closed and she could feel sleep taking over her brain. Her last thought was Lucien and the kind of role he would play in her life later.

Will he ask about me tomorrow?

...

Lucien was pacing his room back and forth. He couldn't sleep, he couldn't eat, and the effect of the full moon was still fresh in his mind. The thought of Cornelia didn't leave his mind. He remembered how she lied unconscious on the ground of the forest with Luke trying to steal her life. He remembered how she looked fragile in his arms after he had turned back to his human form in the morning.

Lucien remembered it all, but he couldn't find any explanation. He had been alive for the past three centuries, and he had had his fair share of women. He loved and he lost. However, none of them affected him the way Cornelia did.

"Lucien." He heard his name being called softly after his door was opened without a knock. He knew that it was Daniel, the only one with the right to intrude on his private time.

"What do you want, Daniel?" Lucien said without facing him, his eyes remained on the night's sky through the glass of his closed window.

"How long are you going to keep Luke in the cell?"

Lucien turned to him, anger burning in his brown eyes. "Until he confesses why he had done such a thing!"

Daniel shook his head, "Lucien, I really believe that he wasn't in control. I really believe that he didn't mean to do it." Daniel serious, a look of concern passed his eyes as a suggestion left his mouth. "What if he was under a certain influence?"

Lucien contemplated the words for a second, his eyebrows knitted, "You mean someone made him attack her?"