was a semi-plausible explanation to latch onto. A few people were angry, saying Samantha should go to jail - for what, I had no idea. But for the most part, the tweets seemed to all be wondering how anyone had actually believed it.
Then I went to Reddit. A link to the interview had been upvoted enough to be right at the top. The comment thread on that was massive, but again, those who thought werewolves were real had been trolled by the masses. Then, the sound of Samantha's voice made me look up to find her interview playing again on the news.
It was only a clip, but the girl actually looked horrified and ashamed. The tears made me feel so bad for her, and the way her voice cracked when she talked about the shooting was just a little too real. I had a feeling that she'd tell Gabby it was all good acting, but that? No, she'd been terrified. She was also still trying to process that her best friend wasn't human, which probably helped more than it hurt.
"What if she gets bullied at school for this?" I asked over the television.
Pax waved me off while the rest of them listened to every word she said. They were locked onto it like something she said might ruin everything, almost braced for the worst case scenario, but I'd already seen that the public had accepted her story. In a few days, this would all be something to laugh about. Well, for most people.
For Samantha, Gabby, Roman, and the other kids from Wolf's Run, it wouldn't be that easy. That wasn't how teenagers worked. My friends had all gone to a fancy private school, so they wouldn't understand. Where I'd grown up, anything that made us stand out was enough to make us hate life. Kids were either in the popular crowd or they weren't. The popular ones tortured those who didn't make the cut, and all too often, those wounds ended up the kind that never went away.
Because that was the problem with bullying. It was mental damage, not physical, and the "solution" to it was some chant about sticks and stones. Bruises healed, though. Trauma didn't always go away, and Gabby had just put herself and her friends right in the crosshairs of teenaged torture in order to protect the pack.
So, maybe I wouldn't be the one to turn Elena, but this was something I could do for her. Once, long ago in another life, I'd been the boy who got beat in the locker room. I'd been the dork with the smart mouth and the starting position on the cross country roster. I knew what Gabby was about to face, and I could at least listen when she needed someone to talk to.
Maybe I'd make a shit father figure for her, but if I thought about this more like an uncle, it was easier. I would've been fifteen years old when that girl was born - and I'd still been a virgin at that age! I wasn't old enough to act paternal with her, but that didn't really matter. Besides, if she came to me, it was one less thing for Elena to worry about. Not that I'd hide it from her, but I could help with this. No, I would help with this.
I'd prove to Elena that I was a good mate for her, and not just some guy she fucked every so often.
"Seth?" Ian asked, breaking into my thoughts.
"Hm?" I'd completely missed whatever they were talking about.
"Earth to Seth," Trent joked.
"Sorry," I said, finally making my way from the kitchen to the living room. "I was just thinking that those kids are going to get bullied for this. For being on the news and doing something as 'uncool' as making special effects movies."
"Wouldn't that be cool?" Lane asked.
I just laughed. "No, man. It's right up there with cosplay. But it seems to be working." I lifted my phone to show what I meant. "The trend on Twitter is that her story passed the sniff test. Reddit is filled with it, but same thing. Samantha's story and tears were enough to convince the public that this was just kids being kids, and that werewolves don't exist."
"But it's not that easy," Ian realized, reading between the lines.
"For us, it is," I assured him. "For those kids? No, they're about to enter Hell when they go back to school. Gabby was the hero. Roman was the tough guy. Samantha