Her hand could barely keep up with her thoughts throughout his explanation; she slipped into the same shorthand she used when she was a student and she needed to keep up with the lectures. For a moment, she lamented that she’d never been very much of a genre fan. He was throwing around familiar words, but she felt like she needed Raj to give her context and flesh out her questions. When she heard well-known names connected to completely foreign concepts, it felt like quicksand, but she told herself that if she didn’t dwell on it too much she might not get caught in it. “Wait, so… how old is Xander? You make it sound like he’s an original founder. What exactly is a fairy? And I’ve been to the museum; I haven’t seen anything about that.” Alex was focused on where she could learn more, but a second later, her thoughts turned abruptly back to what he said about the Carvers. “What do they hunt?” Her voice was distracted, but her gaze a second later was clear as a shot.
Alex’s pen glided across the paper, but when he said that the McKenna’s were panthers, the tip pressed hard enough to break the page. She took a steadying breath. “Shifters who were born that way… so is the whole ‘bite of a werewolf’ myth true? How do you turn someone? Does that happen often? And what do you mean you age slower? How much slower?” There was a sharp edge that cut through her tone at her last two questions; it almost tilted into personal concern, until she course corrected. “And when you say bad for you, is it more like an allergy or a poison? Is there any antidote?”
The notebook was braced against her forearm and Alex was tapping the pen against her chin; her eyes were tracing the names that she’d written down. With everything else, she was trying to wrap her head around a city filled with normal humans who didn’t know who they were living with. Alex had only been there a couple of months; she couldn’t imagine a lifetime of not knowing. Her pen stilled when she heard Seth say Jesse’s name, though. The Youngs and the Mckennas could be taken as a group, but when Jesse came up, it cut a little deeper. It hurt a little more that Seth didn’t say it like it would. “It’s because Jesse’s a sunshine person.” It was a silly sentiment; it didn’t really explain anything, but Alex’s voice didn’t leave any space for an argument. That was all that she had to say to Seth about it. “What other vampires have I met that you know of? Levi, Jesse…”
A moment passed and then Alex tucked the pen behind her ear. “How long has your dad known? Has Abbie told Gabe? Is Gabe…?”