Page 37 of Fate, Interrupted

“Apparently,” Penny says, turning her mug once between her fingers, “the half that was there included someone who caught your attention.”

I take a sip of my coffee.

It has cooled more than it should have.

“We were short on team members,” I say. “I recruited. We won. It was a very productive evening.”

Penny watches me with the expression that means she heard everything I said and is more interested in what I didn’t say. She sets her mug down without drinking from it. When Penny stops drinking her coffee mid-conversation it means she’s decided the conversation is more important than the coffee. Never a good sign.

“He’s a wolf,” she says.

I keep my face neutral.

The word sits between us.

I don’t react to it, or I try not to. “There were four people at the table,” I say. “Jewell was there. And we tag teamed with some women from a table nearby who were surprisingly good at geography.”

“They’re not who I’m concerned about.”

“It was trivia,” I say. “Nobody submits documentation before they sit down.”

Penny doesn’t smile. “Norah.”

“Penny.”

She exhales through her nose, not quite a sigh. “You know how people feel about them.”

“I know how some people feel about them. That’s different from how I feel about them.”

She squirms in her chair, and I can almost see her searching for a way to say this without sounding prejudiced. Penny isn’t cruel. She grew up hearing the same warnings about wolves that I did and never had much reason to question them.

Most people don’t examine things too carefully when the thing being taught is the ambient noise of their entire social environment. That doesn’t make it right. It makes it understandable.

“They keep to themselves,” she says. “They have their own neighborhoods. Their own businesses. Their own...”

“Rules?” I say.

She points at me. “Yes.”

“They follow the same city ordinances we do,” I say. “The same laws. They pay the same taxes. They use the same streets.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

She looks at the window for a moment, then back at me. “They’re different, Norah.”

“Different how?” I keep my voice even because I’m genuinely asking, not debating. “Different in how they look? Different in how they move? Different in what they’re capable of?”

Penny’s jaw tightens slightly. “All of it.”

“Okay,” I say. “So, what you mean is that they’re too different from us.”

I’m almost sympathetic. Penny has never had to explain this before because most people we know simply agree with her.

“Yes.”

“And that’s the problem.”