New Life, New Smile

Chapter 7

A few days had gone by since the full moon. Isaac was now hiding out, and also permanently staying, with Derek down in the subway train. He was getting in some extra training hours while he was there too, just like Derek did with Maddie when he could get her. Her dad hadn't been happy with her when she finally came home. To say that he had been mad, would have been a big understatement. If it wasn't for her new healing powers, she knew that she would have still been covered in bruises right now. He checked in on her room in the middle of the night now, and not because he was looking out for her. Of course he wasn't doing it because there was a new killer out there. No, because that would be a fatherly thing of him to do, but because he wanted to make sure that she was still locked up tight.

Derek had to grab her when he could, and that was mostly during the late afternoons inside of her room while her dad was at work since there was nowhere else, and no other time, that he could get to her. She had her emotions under control, for the most part, now. She could also control her shifting too. If only she could test the other new tricks that she had learned somewhere outside of her house. Even while doing a project for school, she couldn't even get out of this stupid house. Her partner, Matt, had insisted that they go to her house to work on the new project that they had been partnered up for. "So what's your phobia?" Matt asked her, returning her from her thoughts. She blinked back to reality and gave him a puzzled expression, not knowing what he had just asked her. "What are you afraid of, I mean. Like spiders, water, homework, that kind of stuff." he repeated with a chuckle at his own little attempt at a joke.

She gave him a small forced smile and really thought about his question. What was she afraid of? Hunters. Being killed by a hunter by being cut in two. Being alone. All of those things would count, but she didn't want to tell him any of those. She had to tell him something, though, and it had to be good. She needed a good grade on this. She bit her lip, trying to think of something else that she could tell him. "Love. I'm afraid of love." she finally told him. Now it was his turn to be confused. She sighed, knowing that she would have to explain. "I'm afraid of love because it only hurts me in the end. Books and movies make it seem like it's this wonderful and magically thing that'll solve everything, but it won't. It makes you weak and it only gets you hurt. When you're in love, you're blind to everything else, and when you loose that love? You're gone right with it. You loose sense of reality, and you hurt the ones that you're suppose to love too. So why should I like love at all? It only hurts." she went on to explain to him her fear.

Silence fell over them for a few minutes then. Maddie wiped her eyes, not realizing that it would have affected her like that. She got reseated on the far end of the couch and hugged her knees to her chest, resting her chin on top of them. "I'm deathly afraid of water." he blurted out to her, hoping that he could make things a little less awkward for her. "Had a bad experience as a little kid, and now the only water I go near is in the shower. I won't even take tubs, only showers." he confessed to her, now hoping to at least get a smile out of her. She looked over at him with a surprised look.

"Seriously?" she asked him.

He nodded his head, repeating her with a 'seriously' of his own. She cracked a small smile, even managing a small giggle. She knew that it shouldn't have been funny, but she couldn't help herself. Just the idea of someone not being able to take a tub because they were too afraid of the water made her laugh. He cracked a smile with her before twisting around to grab something. He caught her off guard when he suddenly took a picture of her. "There, now I can say I have proof that I got Maddie Carson to laugh." he said out as he lowered his camera and rested it on his lap now.

Maddie looked at him puzzled now, but she still let a small little laugh leave her lips. There was something off about Matt, but she couldn't tell if it was good or bad yet. Their laughter was cut off from the sound of the front door shutting. Her eyes widened as she went stiff in her spot on the couch. She twisted around to see her dad walking into the room. He was still dressed in his deputy's uniform, she noticed. She tried to act normal, like she was suppose to when she had guest over when her dad was home. "Hi, daddy. This is Matt, we got partnered up on a project together for school. We're wrapping up in a few minutes. We just have to finish up some notes first." she explained to him.