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21 - Seeking Approval

"So," Norm Spellman asked, sitting closer to the camera, "will you tell me what's wrong, or will I have to guess?"

Sabrina sighed, rolling her eyes to the side, avoiding her dad's stare through the computer.

It was two in the morning when she called him, at first eager to tell Norm all about her life, but since he said "hi" and asked how she was doing, Sabrina lost all her bravery. She rambled about the news of Spider and how she wanted to do something, but there was nothing to do.

She shouldn't have called her father at that hour — he was bound to know something was wrong other than Spider's location. But she had nothing to do, and she couldn't get back to sleep without Neteyam around and not after dreaming with Spider again.

Sabrina wasn't used to lively dreams, but the second night in a roll, she had the human boy visiting and tormenting her. This time, he had been alone, with no sight of his demon sire. But he still didn't look great — his eyes were heavy with tears, and he kept asking Sabrina to save him. She couldn't — she felt like a spirit in her dream. She wasn't even sure if Spider knew she was there.

"I need you, Bree," he kept crying, screaming at the walls. He seemed to be in an iron bed, not so uncomfortable because of the mattress, but something told Sabrina the place wasn't comfortable either.

It could have been Spider's cell; if that was correct, Sabrina wanted to cry for his safety too.

When she woke up in sweat and tears, Neteyam was already gone. She breathed hard, trying to keep herself down. Sabrina had never slept beside someone other than her dad before, but for some reason, waking up alone hit her like a ton of bricks. It felt wrong.

In a spiral of anxious thinking, she got to the computer and called her dad. Unsurprisingly, he picked up — Norm Spellman wasn't much of a sleeper. His schedule was crazy, and his daughter always wondered how he managed, but that dawn, she was glad for it.

"So?" Norm asked eagerly again.

Sabrina returned her gaze to her dad.

"How mad would you be if I told you I kissed someone?" she decided to lay it out as a question. Then, perhaps if Norm said he would be mad, she could deny having done it.

Norm returned his back to his chair, and he gulped slowly, taking in the information depicted as a question. He wasn't dumb.

"You kissed Neteyam," he said softly, not asking her but neither wanting to hurt her feelings. Norm wasn't mad or surprised, but he tried to understand why his daughter seemed so sad about it. "Or did he kiss you?" he reformulated it, thinking his little girl could look bleak because the boy forced her.

However, he stayed nonchalant because he doubted Netyeam would have done something against Sabrina's wishes.

Sabrina bit her inner cheek before answering. "I kissed him. He kissed me. We both kissed," she shrugged, sensing she had been incoherent. "It doesn't matter."

"It seems it does."

She sighed.

"I love him, dad," she said, placing a hand over her eyes. She was embarrassed but not as much as any other daughter would be. Sabrina loved Norm and trusted him. If she wanted him to be her supporter, Norm would jump into it. "But we can't be together."

Norm bit his lip, feeling sad for not being able to pull his daughter into a tight hug. He wanted to comfort her as he had done many times before. Norm knew Sabrina had a hard time with boys — first Spider, now Neteyam — but those things didn't tend to get better with time.

"He doesn't want to be with you, Lil' Brina?"

"Oh, dad," Sabrina breathed out. "He loves me. Oel ngati kameie, he said that." She almost cried just thinking about it. If Sabrina tried hard enough, she could visualise Netyeam in front of her, repeatedly telling everything. "But I'm not naive. He's the Omaticaya prince, and I'm a human scientist slash fighter. Highlight the human, please."