After about twenty minutes, Riann woke up, her eyes a electric blue. She rubbed her eye tiredly and they returned to a darker shade. She looked towards Thatcher, studying his hands now that his gloves were off. Everyone seemed to be asleep, so she spoke up. "What's your. . . gift?" Riann asked, looking for the right word.
Thatcher glanced up, slipping his gloves back on. “I wouldn’t really describe it as a gift,” he said slowly. “If I were to touch a living thing with my bare hands, it would cause them to get some sort of terrible sickness, and they would be dead usually no more than threee days. It really just depends on how long I’m touching them, though.”
Riann nodded in understanding. Thatcher's gift was uncontrollable, unless he wore those gloves. "I've scared a lot of people with my shadows. . . all my family thinks I'm a freak." Riann shuddered as she thought of all the things her father had done to her when she had used her powers. Her hand ran over the scar on her arm.
Thatcher glanced at the scar that she touched. He assumed that someone in her family did that to her, but he didn’t know Rainn well enough to think it was appropriate to ask. He nodded slowly. “If it makes any difference, I didn’t have good experiences with my parents either. They would make threats, saying their sick son would infect the person if they weren’t given what they wanted,” he explained, shaking his head in dissapointment.
"They'll never understand what it's like to have these powers." Riann sighed, her hand dropping back to her side. She decided to change the subject. "Your marking is beautiful. . . your red hair."
A smile made its way onto Thatcher’s lips from the compliment. “Thank you, I like it much better than my eyes,” he said, motioning to his completely black eyes, there being no whites of his eyes showing because of it. “But your eyes,” He continued, “are absolutely stunning. They change color, yes?”
Riann smiled and blushed a little from the compliment. "Yes, but everyone's quite scared of them. They tend to change shades of blue all the time."
“I don’t know how they could be scared of something that beautiful,” Thatcher responded with a polite smile.
"If I was a normal girl, then they would find it beautiful. It's because I'm marked that they're scared." She frowned slightly, her blue eyes changing to a stormy grey, blue color. "They all think it's a sign of the Underworld."
Becca sat up tiredly, wincing as she put pressure on her collarbone. She stood up, walking over to the shelves.
“My cousin has naturally off-white hair,” Hayden said quietly from behind them. “Everyone thinks it’s beautiful.”
“Sign from the Underworld,” Thatcher repeated with a scoff, “I don’t believe in all that.” He glanced over at Hayden and arched a brow in question. “And It’s not considered a marking?”
“Hers isn’t a mark,” she said, smiling. “She was born with blonde hair, and it just continued getting paler over the years.”
Thatcher nodded slowly and sighed. “She is extremely lucky, then.”