“We’re preternaturals,” Micah said.
“That’s not what I mean.” He still looked sullen, but there was something in his face beside it. He was looking at us as if we’d done something interesting, or at least something unexpected. He looked at me finally. “I’m sorry I stared and that it was creepy. I didn’t mean to be creepy.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Were you able to lift as much after your arm got better as you did before?”
“More,” I said.
He gave me those suspicious eyes again.
“I could lift more because I worked harder in the gym than I ever had before, so I got better and stronger than ever before.”
He nodded then, eyes thoughtful. “I get that.”
“If I’d just given up, then my arm wouldn’t be working, and I wouldn’t have all these muscles, and I would have stopped hunting vampires about eight years ago.”
“Anita would never have met either of us,” Nathaniel said.
Tomas looked at him then. “What do you mean?”
“Anita met us through her connections with Jean-Claude. She had just met him when she got attacked, and if she’d given up hunting vampires, she might never have seen him again. If she’d never dated him, she’d have never met us.”
“Are you saying that if I do all the stuff my doctors want me to do, I’ll find true love?” He rolled his eyes and was suddenly very much a thirteen-year-old boy in his reaction, as if “true love” meant girl cooties.
“Are you saying you don’t want to be as happy as Mama and Papa?” Mercedes asked, one hand on her hip and her face matching the serious attitude.
He rolled eyes at her, too. “Everyone wants to be as happy as they are.”
“Everyone, but not you?” Micah asked.
“It’s embarrassing the way they’re all over each other like they’re my sisters’ age.”
“Everyone should be blessed with parents who behave like teenagers on a prom date,” I said.
He scowled at me. “You try it sometime and see how you like it.”