"Nah, it's fine. I mean, if we're going to make this work, I'd prefer to air things out, xereis?" Even if she holds back the whole... supernatural stuff topic at bay for now. She's not entirely sure how to breach that one. 'Hey babe, so about this not having a reflection/shadow thing.' It's not vampirism, though, cause she walks around in broad daylight and she's warm - nothing like the guy impaled in Alice's basement.

"To leave a story short... the guy who married and impregnated my mom with me molested me when I was 8. He asked me to be quiet, but I watched those PSAs on TV. I watched that episode of Sonic the hedgehog. So I went to my mom. It got him arrested, deported, and jailed.

"It also let my mom meet my real dad, who is awesome, so it had a silver lining. I've done therapy and my successes at the university have let me move past it. But even healed scars itch, especially then. Still, he's being looked out for Greece-wide, so I doubt he'll make it far." ...then again, having psychic powers might give him an annoying edge.

It might be a bit blunt, but between the stress regarding that guy being on the lam but now with super powers, the whole vampire thing in Alice's basement, and the constant need to monitor herself so she doesn't send her computer flying out the window, it's easy to be a bit grating.

"I'm... stressed, I'll give you that. Don't think I'm scared yet." Not since she's found out she can throw shit at him, though now that she knows he can throw it right back... She'll have to out-train him, or something. "Sorry, I probably should have used more subtlety with that." She gives her a light smile. "But, I don't have a delicate touch when I'm stressed."

"I will be okay, though," she assures and squeezes her hand. Even puts a bit of warmth into Renee's hand with spare mind juice, to dispel the illusion of being scared (warm people aren't scared!) "Educational career, the stars, my family, my friends, my therapeutic contact net. You." She winks at her. "That I have those is always a huge help. Kinda like a safety net I can fall back into."

Which makes looking like she means the words and to look like she's a cool biscuit a little difficult. It's not like 'move stuff with your mind' is something you can do subtly, apparently, and energy just builds up and she has to bite down on her tongue and try to get her brain under control.

Sometimes it even works...

G96BAd9g4d10
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...luckily.4d10

Big bonus of being Leah's girlfriend is that she has plenty of breast to lay one's head on, and certainly not something she minds sharing. Were it only a better moment for it. She takes a deep breath and lets it out through her nose, eyes watching the strange... shadow. The shadows in Alice's basement imply they're ghosts. But Renee is well and fully alive - she has a pulse and everything. So... is that the ghost of someone else? Or is there something else going on? Soul detachment?

Fuck. What are you? she wants to ask, but... She's being all warm and cuddly and comforting, and that'd really screw things up to ask. Leah honestly doubts she'd know.

"You're right. I could use some fresh air. And something cold." She closes the laptop and draws an arm about the redhead's waist. "How about we pick up some frozen yoghurt off campus?"

Leah looks at her phone quietly. Isn't that the girl who Renée's shadow ogled? That's... that's a bit too scary to be a coincidence, innit? Did it do something? And Renée ran off to grab her phone, did... Renée do something? Far as Leah can tell, this is like an unwitting haunting, since there's zero evidence of the redhead being aware of it, or acting oddly.

She frowns, then turns down the hall and back towards that area near the library. Maybe there'll be a clue...

Pointing fingers that she did it is not right, and going into a meeting expecting her to be the culprit isn't a good idea. Not without proof.

That said, if her shadow is to blame... she might be an unwitting vector to some other being or ...something. She can ask her about it - maybe she saw or heard something when she went to grab her phone and she can work off of that.

Either way, she'll have to look further into it. She's not much of a detective like Alice, but least she can do is give it a shot and see what she can find. Far as she knows, she's the only one in Cambridge who knows about the supernatural who isn't behind bars.

Leah favours chicken herself. Crushed walnuts with bell peppers tossed in balsamic is pretty good. Sadly, the lunch is a little bit marred by the fact that there's ...ghosts? spirits? ... hanging around, and one of them haunting her hot, freckled girlfriend (no sex yet, but she's seen her topless,) may have killed someone. She tries to burn up some heat and lessen the effect, but there's only so much she can do about it. The psychic brain apparently sees whatever the fuck it wants to see.

...

...she might have to drop by the prison and ask one of the cultists how the fuck they cope. Though given what they tried to do, they probably don't.

"Did you get that notification about that Smith girl?" she wonders during a lull in the conversation. "I think we passed her by yesterday, by the library."

"That's what I wanted to ask, if you saw her and if you saw anything weird about her."

_{Wits 2, Empathy 1 Willpower 3.}
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_{5 succ. The inner empath wants to come out!}6d10·1d10·1d10·1d10

Well... ... ....shit. She'd very much like to blame her paranoia, but for this moment she feels like she's seeing with crystal clarity, and Renee is hiding something from her. Hiding something from her. Either she knows what happened to Melissa, doesn't care all that much, and thinks Leah can't handle supernatural knowledge, or she had something to do with it.

Not that she has any proof, but something's up. What is that fucking thing? And those? Are the thin, somewhat amorphous ghosts what happens when someone's super-shadow becomes separated from their bodies, and Renee's own when it's still attached? Or what? Is it at Renee's beck and call, is it the one influencing her? Does she know that she's being a little callous in her reactions, or is the ghost thing kind of stamping that down?

This feels like pretty important things to know for this relationship to work, whether she's dating a victim or a perpetrator. ...she sets her phone to the side and jots down a trip to the local prison. Seems talking to the surviving crazed cultists is on the priority list now.

"Well, weird in general, but yeah. Just one of those 'civic duties' thing - since we saw her alive and well just yesterday. If we'd have seen someone harass her or something, then we'd speak up and maybe help the cops find her, wherever she ended up. No luck, though. That sucks."

"Yeah... Yeah. You're right."

That's the part that confuses Leah, see. She's thinking logically to help Smith, so if she's responsible, wouldn't that increase the risk of getting caught? Even if it's to get some non-supernatural nose in her business. So that implies she didn't do it. _{Or that she can hide herself easily or left no evidence.} If she knows what's up but isn't responsible, then the logical thing is the out without involving ghosts? _Or... This is all bullocks. She's making way too many assumptions. Research. Magic is like weird science, it's study-able.

She does shoot campus police an email about seeing Melissa Smith in the hallway next to the library, and that she was still there a couple minutes later, but that they don't know what happened after that.

"Hopefully it helps, anyway. I feel like Cambridge is turning into a dangerous circus, between this and the football field incident."

Her girlfriend is either a sociopath, a veteran of the supernatural, or otherwise confident enough to laugh in magic danger's face.

The latter two would be really hot, if she didn't suspect her of, like, possibly having killed a girl. Hopefully not. Prefer being turned on than off.

... at least she's wanted? That's worth something.

"Will work through it somehow." She prefer if it didn't lead to a break up, though.

--

"Hello, Leonard." She eases down to a seat and crosses one leg over the other. "Really? Cause I feel kinda like crap after you and yours' stunt." She sets her elbow on the table and settles her chin in her hand.

"I'll go right out and point out that I'm here only because I'm hurting for choices, just so you know. But given this has been going on..." She opens her hand slightly, enough to show that she's not really holding the phone but floating it by her head - even though the cameras don't see it. "... I have some questions, and I felt you might just choose to humor me."

"I have questions, but no, I'm not looking to be mentored. Certainly not by you. And holy shit, luckily, I am a different kind of psychic. Haven't found the need to, uh... feed, as you call it. My battery works differently." She blinks slowly, then shrugs. "I'm, the, uh... red savina pepper and watermelon drink kind."

...then again, it's less a battery and more like a generator with no off switch.

She leans back into her own chair. "Beyond feeling, like... everything around me, though, I'd want to hear what you know about the shadow people all over the place. That is, if you can see them too."

She glances up at his eyepatch, quirking a brow. That... must be uncomfortable to do, but she can't really discount that it sounds pretty handy. So long as you survive an encounter and don't get dragged to hell...

"...fine, then. I won't pursue any further than what I already have. I will defend me and mine if you or yours show up, though. And yeah, you'll leave her alone." She mulls over the extra cost. "Call it a legal, minor favor as the extra, unless you have some other cost in mind."

Like she'd allow anything lewd. Sooner snap the glass and shove the whole thing into his face. Once he does begin to explain, though, she puts that thought aside and focuses on the explanation. So a person's shadow without anyone around is either there on a mission for themselves, or is a piece of soul left behind somehow."

She shakes her head. "I can't say I've had the opportunity to, or know what it is." She frowns. "What would give someone the, uh... the power to control their shadow? Or to make it act? If we're psychic, what does that make them?" Her head tilts. "All of those I've seen thus far are these static, downtrodden leftovers. That's why I thought they were ghosts."