This comment about Cynthia had me rolling laughing when I saw it!
You guys are just tooo much! I loveeee it :)
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A/n: This needed to be by itself. Enjoy.
Chapter 42 – Origins (Samson Conrad POV)Pt.1
After laying Fatima on her bed, I stand looking at the girl. Her wild curls that she somehow fit into the black hair tie earlier now left a few curls escape, framing her face.
"She is a special girl," my grandmother whispers. Only now do I realize that I'm not left alone. "Why would Cynthia even approach Fatima?" I ask in a pouting angry tone.
"I mean it makes very little sense," I whisper back to grandma Bess. In her knowing way, she takes hold of my hand, pulling us out of Fatima's bedroom. Leaving the door ajar before cooing me to one of the two armchairs outside of Fatima's room.
From my spot, I glance out at the path leading up to our house, watching Dad and mom leave, Uncle Trevor's car preceding theirs.
"I didn't imagine your girl would ever hit-"
"She's her own person grandma," I correct almost like an instinctual response. Sure I adored Fatima. But saying she was mine as though I owned her felt wrong. "So you're not her beau?"
The tips of my ears heat and I know there is no use when it creeps right onto my cheeks and Grandma Bess chuckles.
"Ahh..." she laughs, "So much like your father." Rolling my eyes I don't dare meet hers. She'd probably flash some weird grandmother voodoo on me. Try to get me to spill about my feelings for Fatima.
"You are right to be protective of her," Grandma Bess says after neither of us has spoken in the passing minutes. "We – your mother, father, Mary, Antone, Jonah and I – we cannot place her scent."
Did I tell them that Fatima had mentioned when she hears most people it's prefaced with the pray directed to Tezcatlipoca? Again, as though my body knows the answers, a wave of unease sweeps through me when I so much as think to spill the beans.
Instead I go another route. "Why do some of our kinds pray to Tezcatlipoca?" Grandma Bess' head whips in my direction, but my face is pretty much blank.
"I mean," I go to clarify my question. "He's a God of course that the Aztec culture worshipped, I know the basics. But, he had many forms, why do we assume-"
"It is not assumption Samson. We believe that unlike werewolves, we were created because of the many human sacrifices given to Tezcatlipoca – our Creator God. His mother cast a spell to create balance for all the human lives shed and he used his black magic to curse the descendants of the jaguars that destroyed the first Four Suns." I nod, already knowing pieces of what Grandma Bess was saying but it still didn't make sense why Fatima was hearing that? Or why I didn't have to think 'Tezcatlipoca' before she heard me?
"He brought about a lot of bloodshed," I countered, knowing the stories that had been passed down to me. Grandma Bess nodded slowly, "But he was not all merciless, he protected his Jaguar children, he reworded those who lived a just life, punishing the wrongdoers."
"There is always good and bad," I whisper thinking of Fatima, and why exactly Cynthia could have left her? "We are his children, the cursed, but I do not feel cursed Samson," Grandma Bess says pulling my attention away from Fatima.
"We live peacefully, however, there are some of our kind that do not believe in such a lifestyle, that still believe to show gratitude that they must shed blood." I frown, my thoughts going a million miles an hour.
We weren't the only werejaguars alive in the world. My family – extended – was not the only ones that held onto our history. Imogen is most definitely not the only person that has thought of the Nahuatl God, chanted his name, pleading with him. Why did Fatima only hear them?
Our race was slowly being slaughtered, but she should at least have heard the prayers of maybe eight hundred more. Right? So why hasn't she?
Why has Fatima only heard a selected few? More importantly, has she only heard Imogen, Luca and myself? No, she said she heard too many voices when the bridge was blown up– "Are you alright Samson?" Grandma pulls me from my internal reflections.
I blink; though I want to answer my mind is lassoed back with the hardest tug. What if hearing people is Fatima's gift? When I first got my gift, there were minor headaches before I got accustomed to it.
"Samson, dear?" Grandma whispers slowly, her eyes dancing over my face. "I'm – I'm fine, just distracted."
Not exactly lying, I smile kindly returning the gentle hand squeeze she sends.
"Now, don't tell anyone I said this but, Cynthia deserved exactly what was coming to her Samson and I believe that it was only a matter of time before her actions caught up to her. It's just a shame," she shakes her head, "that there are going to be causalities and they will be children who have done nothing to deserve what's happening." I nod thinking over what she was saying.
Within a few seconds though, the easy-going expression on my grandmothers' face, hardens. Not ugly or angry, but it was that look that just meant 'listen up.' "This is a tough position to be in Samson," again I nod.
"Do not let your emotions rule your actions."
"Understand?"
I open my mouth; ready to spit out the very first thought I had in that moment. "What? The person this is hardest on is Fatima. Grandma, you have no idea what she's been through just in the months she's been in Bend! Not to mention the life she's lived! My cousins, Leslie, Lydia and Lia, they look at Cynthia and see a loving woman. Leaving Fatima behind changes nothing in how she treated them. Uncle Danny? He's married to someone that left a child, but he chose to marry her. Cynthia? Surely, you do not think that anyone should consider her feelings before that of Fatima?"
That. All of that was what I wanted to say. It was on repeat in my mind right now, since Fatima had entrusted me with the truth of her past.
No one, not a single one of us can put ourselves in Fatima's shoes. I couldn't imagine living on a mountain, thinking I'm one place, but actually not there. Believing one thing to the point of pain in my chest when loneliness crept in.
But, I close my mouth. Inhale deeply, and let it out.
"Mom, dad and I know how hard this will be on everyone," I nod for good measure, "but like my mom and dad, Fatima is my only concern. No one should make her feel as though her life is what caused this upheaval."
It was as though 'Taylorism' was catching – putting blame where it shouldn't be.
"Cynthia lied. If she's hurting, that's on her," I whispered. The heat inside me remains as the words burning, come out coolly.
So many are wondering if Cynthia is behind the bombing? where she got explosives? Etc. I'll just say that most of your answers are found in earlier chapters. Faith explains from a memory... when she was in the gray room with Cynthia and Andy and they escaped.
Since Faith has began recalling things, I gave clues.
