Adrian froze. "What do you mean you're going to die?"

Helene shrugged. "Just that. I'm going to die if I go to prom with you."

Adrian scoffed. "That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." He paused. "What if your mother is making it up?"

Helene frowned. "Adrian, why would my mother make up a vision about me dying on prom night?"

"I don't know!" Adrian exclaimed. "Maybe your father told her to. Maybe your parents want to keep us apart because they suspect something is going on!"

"Ah," Helene nodded. "So you think that my parents are plotting against us."

"Yeah," Adrian said. "That's what I think."

"Please," Helene said. "That sounds like something out of a cheesy romance novel. My parents would never do that."

"How do you know?" Adrian asked. "You know your father isn't exactly trusting of me when it comes to you."

"Yeah, well..." Helene shifted uncomfortably. "He has his reasons."

Adrian's eyes widened. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Helene sighed. "Nothing. It's just that he was around your parents for years before you were even born. He knows them well. And he thinks you're a lot like your father, so..." She trailed off.

"So he thinks I'm going to hurt you? Is that it?" Adrian was getting really worked up now. "Well you can just tell him that I would never..."

"I know," Helene said quickly. "And I will. Just...give it time, all right?"

"Why?" Adrian asked. "Are you scared of him?"

"No!" Helene shook her head. "Of course not!"

"Then tell him," Adrian said. Then, he opened the car door and stepped out, yanking her out after him.

Helene struggled to keep up with his long strides. When he reached the front door, he did a strange knock: twice on the upper half of the door, twice on the lower half, and one hard hit in the middle. A little while later, Roxie opened the door and grinned at them. "Hi," she said. "Thank you for doing the knock. I didn't want to have to attack you."

"You're welcome," Adrian said. "Where are Mom and Dad?"

Roxie shrugged. "I dunno."

"Well all right then," Adrian took a purple foil-wrapped chocolate out of his pocket. "Here," he said, handing it to her. "Why don't you go watch cartoons while you eat this?"

Roxie grinned. "Okay! Thank you, Adrian!" Then she scampered away.

Once she was gone, Adrian took a deep breath and turned back to Helene. "So when are you going to tell him?" He asked.

"I will," she said. "But it'll probably take more than that. I mean, my parents want me to be as normal as possible: you know, go to college, get a good job, get married, have kids. They don't want me to get in anything shady."

Adrian shut his eyes and tried to control his breathing. "But didn't you learn anything from my mother's story?" He asked incredulously when he finally was calm enough to look her in the eyes again. "Her family tried to be normal when they weren't and it just didn't work out!"

"Well, it's easier to hide when you're a witch," Helene said. "I could quit using my powers if I wanted to."

"Who's side are you on, anyway?" Adrian asked. "His or mine?"

"I don't want to take sides, Adrian." Helene said severely. "Don't make me."

"Why would I?" Adrian asked. "It's clear what you want to do anyway!"

He began to stomp away when she said "Wait."

He turned. "Make it quick. I don't have much patience left."

Helene strode up to him until they were practically nose to nose. "Do you want to hurt me? Would that make you feel better?" She spread her arms out. "Go ahead. I don't care. You probably deserve a few shots anyway."

He kept his eyes on her and took her wrists. "I don't want to hurt you," he said. "That's the last thing that would make me feel better. Even now."

"Then what do you want from me?" Helene asked quietly.

He put his hands on her shoulders so she couldn't move away. "I want you to tell me you love me," he said. "If you can. If you can't, then I'll let this go, but if you can, I want to hear it."

She swallowed. "I-I love you, Adrian. You know I do. It's just that...I-"

"What?" He shook her a little.

Suddenly, her expression darkened. "Don't you dare," she said. She began muttering under her breath and Adrian began to feel as if his whole body had been set on fire. He let Helene go and was soon rolling around on the floor, and screaming.

This got Roxie's attention and she strode into the entryway. "What's going on?" She said. She looked down at Adrian who was twitching now, tears rolling down his cheeks. "What did you do?" She asked. "He's hurt!"

"Go watch television, Roxie," Helene said. "You don't have to be here."

Instead of doing as Helene asked, Roxie slowly backed away, and then ran at Helene. "You hurt my brother!" She cried. She threw herself at Helene.


Telling everyone the story of her life had made Selina want to to look over her uncle's notes again. She'd dragged them out from under the bed as soon as she'd finished the story. Maybe they would tell her what was going on with Roxie. Maybe there was more than just the inherent mistrust between mother-daughter werewolves. She took out each book and found nothing. But in the last one, she found what she needed. She peered at the notes she'd spent hours retyping so that they were actually legible.

"Various Manifestations of Lycanthropy Based on Sex, Heredity, and Activation". This sounds promising." She turned to the page and began looking it over. Things were more complex than she'd thought. On that page was a chart in three rows: the first was labeled 'sex' and had 'male' and 'female' in the column. The second row read 'Heredity' with 'pure' and 'impure' in the column, and the final row had 'active' and ' inactive' in the column. Underneath the columns were different combinations of werewolf, she supposed.

The combinations that had 'inactive' in them were fairly self explanatory. Males with inactive genes could still show temper, as could females, but they weren't deadly. At least not compared to what was going on in the 'active' section.

She found her category, disregarding vampire part of herself: an unpure female with an active gene. Apparently, unpure just meant that only one of her parents had given her the werewolf gene, not that there was something wrong with her. Her sort were possive, like Enid had told her, but they had the ability to stop themselves from killing and get their jealousy under control if they chose to. Same with males, who were more likely to kill when angered, but it wasn't a guarantee because of their ability to reason if they put effort into it.

She paused. Using the chart's logic, Adrian and Roxie were what it called 'pure werewolves' in a sense, because they were born of parents who each had the gene.

Under Roxie's category, pure female, active gene, she read: "Pure female werewolves with active genes are very fickle. They are even more possessive than their impure counterparts, and are unable to get past any feeling of jealousy that occur about their mates. And it always leads to death of the other woman, the mate himself, or any female children born to each pair. It was this penchant for jealousy that led most male werewolves to seek out human mates and females to take on multiple partners in one lifespan. In some instances, if the female pure werewolf gives birth to another female baby, she will kill her mate, but more often, the child is killed instead so that the mother doesn't have competition for her mate's attention. Thus there is a dangerous imbalance between pure male and female werewolves, making mating with humans a necessity."

She breathed in sharply. "Oh, my god," she whispered. "It's only going to get worse for her."

Klaus came in a short while later, sneaking up behind her and kissing her neck. She looked up at him. "Hi, Nicky," she said wearily.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked. He motioned at her. "Stand up."

Selina stood up with the chart and other papers under her arm. "Why?"

"Because," he said. He took her spot on the chair and sat her down on his lap. "What's the matter?" He ran his hand under her skirt and over her thigh.

She showed him the chart. "According to this chart my uncle made up, Roxie's going to be a psycho if we don't do anything. She's not going to have the capacity to form real relationships or be loved. She'll just hop aimlessly from one man to the next, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake."

"And you think that's wrong?" Klaus asked.

Selina nodded. "Well yes, of course!"

He took the chart from her. She explained it to him and he read Roxie's type. "You obviously forgot a part," he said. "It says that pure female werewolves will form relationships with a few people, usually males, they feel deserve their loyalty. That could be a starting point for her so she won't be entirely alone."

Selina sighed. "But that's still not enough! What if..."

It was then that they heard the crashing. "Oh, my god," Selina stood up. "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know," Klaus said. "Maybe we should go see."

They went downstairs and found Adrian pale and panting next to a goat that was standing near the front door. Helene stood off to the side, her eyes closed.

"Why is there a goat in our house?" Selina asked.

"It's not a goat," Adrian said. "It's Roxie."

"What?" Selina asked. "Why? How?"

Helene opened her eyes. "I did it," she said. "Roxie tried to attack me, and I wasn't expecting it, so I just..." she flailed her arms around a bit. "It was an accident, I swear!"

Selina nodded. "We understand. It's okay. It's what she gets for trying to hurt you."

"So you'll turn her back now, right?" Klaus asked.

"Of course," Helene said. She looked shaken.

"Wait," Selina put a hand on her arm. "Don't do that so quickly. You could probably wait a couple of days without it hurting anything."

"Mom!" Adrian said in surprise.

"Selina," Klaus said warningly.

"What, Nicky?" She asked. "Do you have a problem with Roxie learning a much needed lesson?" She turned to Helene and gave her a hug. "I should have asked you to turn Roxie into a goat weeks ago!"

"It's all right," Helene said confusedly. This wasn't the reaction she'd expected. Then Selina cleared her throat. "So the two of you are all right then?"

Helene and Adrian nodded.

"All right," Selina nodded. "Adrian, would you tie your sister up outside?"

"Okay," he said, watching Roxie the goat nervously.

"I'll come with you," Helene said.

Once they were gone, Selina looked up at Klaus and smiled. "Well, now that things are better, would you want to..."

"No," Klaus shook his head. "I don't think I want to talk to you right now. I'm going out."

Selina rolled her eyes. "Is this because I'm keeping Roxie a goat?"

"Yes," Klaus nodded.

"She's nice to you, so you have no idea what she's capable of," Selina said as he made his way out the door. She turned away from it once it slammed, seething. What was his problem, really? Couldn't he see how evil Roxie really was already and that it was in her best interest to stay a goat for a couple of days? She growled.

She went back to her room and transformed. She needed to get out. She left the house and did away with two people waiting in line for the city bus, and was then distracted by the neon lights of the local mini mart. She transformed back and then strolled inside. It was full of people. Perfect. She picked up three jars of peanut butter and then walked around. She found a guy looking at bread and said to him, "Which one of these peanut butters do you think is best?" She showed him each jar.

"Oh," he said. He was plump with stringy brown hair and a ruddy face. "I'm allergic to peanuts, so I wouldn't know. I'm sorry." As he wheeled his cart away, she grabbed his arm. "How about you try them out for me right now?" She asked, locking eyes with him. He nodded and unscrewed the lid off the first jar of peanut butter and put some on his finger and then licked it off. Almost instantaneously, his face began to swell and he began gasping. He fell to the floor and began rolling around yelling out for air. Selina put more peanut butter on his face and then walked away.

She walked into the frozen food section and found an attractive guy with curly brown hair and twinkly blue eyes stocking shelves. She looked him over, figuring that he was really built underneath his clothes. She compelled him to remove them and when she'd eyed him long enough and run her hands all over his body, told him to go shut himself in the freezer.

Then, she thought about dinner. She picked out some steaks and a bottle of Chateauneuf du-Pape as a way to tell Nicky she was sorry, and made her way back home.


"I got Roxie all tied up," Adrian said as soon as she stepped inside.

She nodded. "Good. Has your father come out?"

Adrian shook his head. "Nope, stil in your room with the door closed."

She nodded and went to their room.

"Hey," she said. Klaus looked up at her. "Oh, it's you," he said, looking at her with distaste.

She held up the bottle. "I brought wine."

He sat up. "Why?"

"What do you mean 'why'?" She asked, putting the bottle down. "I thought we could have an evening, you know?" She began taking off her clothes. "Stop that," Klaus snapped.

She turned to face him. "Don't be such a child. I'm going to turn Roxie back eventually. Just not now. Give it three days."

He frowned. "Have you lost your mind? That's our daughter out there!"

"I know," Selina said. "But you're always saying the kids should get in touch with nature. How is this different?"

"It just is." Klaus snapped.

Selina rolled her eyes and went into the bathroom to undress. When she came back into the room and tucked herself in, he got out. "I'm going to go sleep on the sofa," he said.

"Why?" She asked. "You don't have to. You could stay here with me." He started to pull away, but then hesitated as she began running her hands over his length. He moaned and lay back on the bed. She kissed him. When she pulled away, he muttered, "I hate you," before flipping her over and thrusting into her, her laughter ringing in his ears.


The next morning, Selina woke up before Klaus did, starting when she saw somebody sitting on the window seat. "What do you want?" She whispered.

Vanessa pushed her red hair out of her eyes and grinned. "Heard you've been having some trouble with your daughter. Would you like my help?"