Was he blinking back tears? Had she made the poor kid cry or was he already bound and determined to do that before she’d even found him on the beach? She kept her face carefully neutral. Overt displays of emotion had always made her a bit uncomfortable, but she hid it well. There had been more than one occasion in her past when she’d had to play the part of the concerned friend, family member…sometimes even lover. They didn’t usually know it was her, of course. They just assumed she was still the person they loved, but that hardly mattered. Humans saw what they wanted to see most of the time.
“Yeah,” she said with confidence. “Met a kid who said his Dad had been here for awhile, and got sent back. He didn’t seem overly happy about that, but at least it’s something, right?” she said with false optimism. She didn’t add that this “kid” was also the creature she was hiding from. That would be a rather complicated conversation and would undermine what she was trying to do. Besides, she still wasn’t even sure if he was telling the truth, though she found herself oddly accepting of it. Particularly since it had been corroborated by her doppelganger. “If he can get sent back, any one of us can, too.” She grimaced before she could control her features. What if she did get sent back, but got sent back alone? Or what if when she finally made it back to the safe house, the Impala was no longer there?