-16th June 2022, Cologne

I quietly unlocked our front door and snuck into our bedroom. Daniel was at a friend's house and neither of us had work to do today, it was now or never.

Claire was rummaging through our box of medications, probably searching for painkillers or her allergy medication. We always had a pack of painkillers at home, albeit weak ones, due to some restrictions.

I dropped onto the bed as she took one of the painkillers, badly startling her because of the squeaky springs in our mattress. I had been meaning to get a new one for a while.

She jumped and whipped around, scolding me “Kurt, don’t sneak up on me like that!”

The bags under her eyes had only worsened over the week and she looked almost undead. I wasn’t sure how much of that was due to her allergies.

“Why,” I asked, “expecting someone else?”

“Uhmm,” she fumbled, pushing the box back into the shelf. “No, why would I?”

I sighed and patted the bed next to me, waiting for her to sit down. I always preferred doing this kind of thing while sitting down.

She did but looked at me suspiciously, asking “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Have you noticed anything weird lately?” I inquired. I had to make sure she knew what I was talking about, but I also didn’t want to risk revealing everything to her.

“Weird how?” she asked but I stayed silent, counting on her trying to fill it to avoid awkwardness. Most people abhor silence, and sought to fill it however they could, and she was no exception. She continued after a few moments of awkward fidgeting “Yes.”

“God damn it,” I muttered, putting my face in my hands. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

She looked at me in shock with her mouth agape. It took her a few seconds to find herself, but she eventually spoke up. “How did you know?”

“I am similar to you,” I said, grabbing her hand. “I can replay the time shortly before and after a wound is inflicted by connecting with the blood. And you lost some when you killed Harvey. It felt familiar, like you.”

“Fuck,” she simply said, tightening her grip on my hand. “How many like us are there?”

"We are uncommon and very few people are fully aware that we exist. The majority of people think we are either fairy tales, grossly blown out of proportion, or conspiracy theories. The spirits keep it that way because it’s easiest," I explained, trying to reassure her.

She asked, "What now?"

I groaned in annoyance, already dreading the amount of work I'd have to do if I actually went through with this. "You'll have to explain to me how this happened and then I’ll have a very difficult decision to make."

"I was on my way to Meredith's, but started to feel lightheaded. Once I arrived at her place I’d developed a migraine, and when I leaned against her mirror and asked for some water, I just…" she stopped, looking for the right expression, "fell in. These tendrils sprouted from my body and dragged Meredith into the mirror, when I tried to leave it. She screamed in agony and pleaded with me, but I was… so hungry, even as her body vanished."

"Did you encounter anyone weird shortly before the event, or remember any childhood stories that you thought were just your overactive imagination?" I asked, covering my bases. It might have just been a dormant gift or some sort of experiment gone wrong.

"No. But I had a weirdly lucid dream a few weeks ago," she said. "It was just a ton of eyes and… tentacles talking about food. That might have been the… thing."

"Why did you kill Harvey?" I asked. I wanted -no, needed- to know why she’d thought killing a wildly successful businessman would be a good idea.

She bit her lip as I felt something poke my arm. A handful of tendrils had sprouted from her back, ignoring her shirt and idly roaming around. I assumed that they reacted to her subconsciousness, or something. "He deserved it."

"Go on," I encouraged her. I knew he’d had done some shady deals, but I didn’t think she’d kill someone intentionally, no matter the reason.

"I was… slipping, almost insane, because of the hunger,” she explained, hugging herself with her tendrils. She looked so terribly vulnerable that I had to remind myself that she had killed an Alpha without much trouble. “I figured that I would kill and eat someone who deserved it, maybe do some good while keeping it sated. I’ve… been given his name dozens of times. He abused his protection company to coerce over two dozen people into giving false testimonies and used it to make himself ridiculously rich. I mean, have you seen his room? It's full of priceless historical artefacts!"

She was beginning to get worked up, so I tried to hug her tight and slip my hand between one of the tendrils and her back but they were immovable so I just put it around her shoulders.

"I've been in his room, but you can't just kill someone because of that," I argued. I hadn't thought that I'd ever have to say that.

One of her tendrils coiled around my waist and pulled me close as she answered, "I know."

"We'll figure something out," I reassured her. "But you can't keep eating people."

"Don't you think I know that?!" She snapped, squeezing me with her tendril. "You have no idea how I felt!"

I squirmed out from under it and stood up. "I am on your side!"

"I know, sorry, " she said, slapping one of her tendrils away that bunched against her own belly. It looked uncomfortable, almost like she couldn’t fully control it.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

She mustered me before quietly asking, “and?”

I ran a hand through my hair and stood in front of her, debating whether or not to make a joke but I decided against it. “There is only one real choice for me,” I said.

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-23rd June 2022, Cologne

I looked down at the report I had to give, reading over it one last time before sliding it over. "Yeah, that's all."

Sergeant Micheals, a member of the Department of Esoteric Defence, put it in his folder. "Thank you for your cooperation. We will take the case."

They did tell me to add every detail I could think of but I hoped I had done everything correctly. "Is there a number I can call if I remember anything, or where I could ask for updates?"

"You've been working with us for ten years at this point, so we'll keep your captain updated as a courtesy. He can inform you, or you could seek him out," he said. I doubted that they'd actually keep me up to date, but an empty promise was better than nothing.

He dismissed me and called for the next suspect.

This was a high-profile case and they were interrogating everyone involved with it, using the fey just outside the room as a living lie detector, even if Claire could have done the same. She would have probably have been better at it as well.

Seeing as they were leading her into the room next, she was probably just as much of a suspect as me.

I made my way home, having no other open cases at the moment and wanting to get as far away from the D.E.D. as possible.

I grabbed my keys from my desk and stopped by my captain's office.

I caught his attention by knocking on the door frame of his office. "Going home, take a personal day."

He looked up from his laptop and mustered me over the edge of his glasses. "Going home to the wife, huh? Don't take it personally, everyone loses some cases."

I made a non-committal noise and took my leave.

Being able to think freely without a mind-reading fey nearby, my thoughts kept circling as I drove home.

I couldn't believe what was happening. No one had ever developed a gift this late nor this powerful. The only comparable case I'd heard of was one of a fey prince whose gift awakened during a duel. But as far as I knew, that story might have been merely that, a story.

Unprecedented events aside, I couldn't fathom what I was supposed to do. We had commendable savings, but I had no idea how long they'd actually last or how well we could acclimate to such a radical change.

I kept thinking through scenarios and discarding them as inevitable disasters until I pulled into my driveway.

I left my bag in the car and walked up the stairs, into our quiet apartment.

I opened the bedroom door and found Rebecca, huddled on the bed with a veritable fortress of blankets and pillows around her.

She looked like hell, with bags under her eyes that rivalled some beloved comic book characters. She had blue hair at this point, having dyed it two days ago. A tub of ice cream was laying on the mattress next to her, mostly eaten.

"It's done," I said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Daniel is at your parent's house and I gave my modified report."

She reached out of her blanket fort and pulled me into a deep hug, one of her tendrils coiling around my back and forcefully shoving me into the blankets with her before she managed to adjust their strength.

"We'll figure something out," I said, reassuring myself just as much as her. Whatever had done this to her surely had to have a reason.

"Why can't things just go to plan?" she asked into my hair, her chill breath playing through it.

"I don't know, " I admitted, wrapping my arms around her. "But we have enough saved up to lay low until this all blows over. Until you figure out how to control… it. Daniel will be able to go to school like nothing ever happened, and you will be able to go back to work."

"Do you promise?" She weakly asked, tightening her hold on me to an uncomfortable degree.

I answered after a few seconds "Yes."

I still couldn't believe what we’d stumbled into, but it didn't matter anymore. I had made a promise and I intended to keep it.

We could make this work, even if it would take us time to recover and figure things out.

Rebecca loosened her embrace, allowing me to breathe more easily again.

My phone buzzed.

I recognised it as the custom ringer I’d set for Claire and quickly shuffled around, so I could pull it out of my pocket and look at it while keeping one arm around Rebecca.

[Claire: This isn't because you think you can't solve the case, is it?]

One of Rebecca's tendrils anxiously squeezed my arm around her waist, coiling up around it towards my hand.

I held her tendril like I would her hand, stroking over it with my thumb to soothe her, while I wrote the response.

[Kurt: What do you mean?]

Her reply didn't even take a second to arrive as she probably had anticipated my question. She knew me too well.

[Claire: You have a hunch and you are afraid to be correct.]

[Claire: You don't think anyone else can solve it, so you’d rather everyone think that you can’t solve it, than succeed and find your hunch to be correct.]

I saw her writing something else but I quickly wrote a response before she could get too wound up.

[Kurt: No, I am taking a vacation. Rebecca got hurt badly and I want to be there for her.]

The little bubble at the bottom that signifies her writing a response vanished, then reappeared before vanishing again.

[Kurt: What did they ask you?]

She took a while to reply, but it didn't seem like she had been choosing her words for it, more like she’d been occupied. She was still at the office, so someone probably wanted her to look something up.

[Claire: They asked me about you and Rebecca.]

Fuck.

Rebecca had grabbed the tub of ice cream while I had been distracted with my phone and was currently eating it, using her tendrils to do so. "What did she tell them?" She asked with a quiver in her voice.

I didn't bother to tell her that I knew just as much as her and typed up her question.

Claire followed up on her prior message before I could even send my question.

[Claire: I told them that even if I didn't like Rebecca, she wouldn't do any of this, nor is she some sort of Spirit in disguise.]

[Claire: I laughed at their question if you could have falsified the report but took a look either way. There were no discernable faults.]

Rebecca and I relaxed after reading that, flopping down on the bed while she kept the ice cream rotated correctly and continued eating it without interruption.

It certainly would have looked ridiculous from the outside. We were laying on a small bed made out of her tendrils that she used to eat ice cream.

We were in the clear. Years of working with her had built trust between us, and Claire covered for me without knowing any details.

I let that message go through my head a few times before typing a quick thank you and switching my phone to mute.

We’d done it. For now.

The investigation wouldn't stop, but we could keep it up. We would have to, I had chosen my path.