Paranoia (Zayn Malik) (editing)

Chapter 37: Baby Incubus

LUNA

"How do you feel?" Zoey asks Arabella as we all sit awkwardly at the kitchen island, staring at each other, unsure what to do in a situation of such magnitude. 

Her bright hair is wild and ruffled, her blue eyes flickered to red occasionally and her makeup smudged, her small blue dress being the only thing relatively normal about her.

"I don't know," She pants "I-I don't know what's going on."

I want to offer her some calming sentiment, it'll be OK, the reality is I don't know what's going on either and I don't really believe that whatever is happening will be OK. 

It is selfish that I am grateful for Arabella's intrusion, not solely because I am happy that she's alive, but because she is a distraction from the part of my brain that is swelling and throbbing and begging me to think about what the Zayn that isn't Zayn did to me tonight, and what it all means in the grand scheme of things. If I had it my way, I would trip and fall and bang my head so I couldn't remember any of it, but logically I know that forgetting it would be foolish. 

"Will you just give us a minute, Arabella?" Zoey exchanges niceties, politeness, trying to hide what I think is fear as she walks to the kitchen door. She tugs on my arm as she passes me, gesturing for me to join her out in the hallway. I do.

"What do you think?" I lower my voice to a whisper.

"I think he's turned her." She concludes.

"Can he even do that if she's a witch, I mean... is she still a witch?" 

Zoey's eyes darken "He's made her a hybrid, Luna."

The front door opens bashfully, hitting the wall behind it and swinging on its hinges. A tall man walks through, the man of the hour, Loki. 

He sets his eyes on me, still adorning his black suit "Evening, ladies."

We don't speak as he waltzes in, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it haphazardly on the coat rail next to the door. As he steps forward, both Zoey and I step back, like we're watching a lion that's gotten out of its cage, waiting to see if it will behave more like a kitten or the violent big cat it is so famously known as.

His eyes flicker between the two of us and a knowing smile spread on his face.

"She's back, isn't she?" He cracks his knuckles "I wasn't sure how long it'd take, glad I timed it right. Newborns always find their sires when they wake up, its instinctual." 

"I can't believe you." Zoey breaks our silence, a hissing tone coming out of her tensed jaw "How could you do this to her? You know what this means."

"Please, don't waste your breath." Loki huffs "If I have given the impression that I care about your  opinion, I apologise for leading you astray."

"You are evil." Zoey continues, more venom in her words now "What you have done, not only for Luna's relationship with the witches, but to a young woman and her family, it is fucking evil."

I hadn't thought at all of how this may reflect upon me, and right now I don't have the capacity for it.

"Bingo." Loki holds his hands behind his back, green eyes not red, not narrowed, not clouded, not anything, just as is "I'm not sure why it took you so long to catch up. I am not a good person, Zoey, I never have been." 

"How can you be so nonchalant, you have ruined that girls life!" Zoey doesn't back down, not yet "She had nothing to do with what happened to your wife."

"Cry me a river." He responds calmly "Whatever you are looking for in me right now, you won't find it."

I can feel the heat radiating from Zoey as her hair begins to curl and uncurl itself in an absent wind that only seems to affect her like I've seen it do when she gets worked up. I decide to step in.