I was shaking. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Simon turn pale; Tori was staring at me open-mouthed with an expression of horror on her face. I couldn't blame them, they should be frightened. I know I was.

Derek snorted. "Please. Can anyone see Chloe torturing someone? Or raising an undead army? I don't think so. Yeah, she needs to learn how to control her powers, and she will. She's only had them for a month! And besides, it's not like you people have any right to judge- two of you are half-demons. Your dads are getting flame-broiled with Hitler in Hell."

Maria sputtered angrily, while Simon laughed so hard the soda he'd been drinking started coming out his nose. Apparently, half-demons don't like being reminded about their fathers' place of residence.

The meeting never really did get back on track. Maria refused to go near Derek, although Tabitha seemed to warm up to him and started asking Derek a series of increasingly embarrassing questions about his dog-like traits (I think he would have preferred to be ignored). In the end, the only thing we accomplished was that Tom would contact his necromancer friend about teaching me how to control my summoning, and that Derek, Tori and I would also get lessons from the group's shaman member on meditation techniques to prevent outbursts of power.

Even after Andrew's friends left, the tense atmosphere remained. Dinner was mostly silent, and I fled to my room as soon as I possibly could. I huddled on my bed, shivering, and kept re-playing Maria's comments about necromancers and seeing Simon and Tori's disgusted faces. A few minutes later, I heard a soft knock on my door.

"Chloe?" Derek said softly, opening the door slowly, "Can I come in?"

I smiled slightly, "Looks like you already are."

He shrugged and made his way towards the foot of my bed before stopping abruptly and looking around. "I just wanted to see how you're doing. That meeting... it was rough. Those people were idiots- you know that, right?"

"Well, they were wrong about you, but they weren't lying about me. What I can do- Derek, I know it's-"

"No, Chloe, what you do is important. Ghosts wander around for decades without anyone seeing them, or hearing them... that must be horrible. You can help them do whatever it is they have to do in order to move on, to cross over. Don't forget that. You'll figure out how to control the whole zombie-raising thing."

He held my gaze steadily, and I saw something I couldn't name in his eyes, although I had a strong suspicion that the same unknown feeling was mirrored in my own eyes as well. My heart started racing, and I felt as though I couldn't catch my breath. Panicked, I dragged my blue eyes away from Derek's green ones. To my relief, I found that I could breathe again.

"Th-th-thanks for the pep-talk," I said shakily.

"Anytime," Derek replied as he headed out the door.

Well, this was my very first FanFic- hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it!