Erica smiled as Derek stepped back and she knelt in front of the cage looking over to Summer. “I’m going to open it now, and I know that we’ve been complete assholes to you by keeping you in here, but will you promise to stick around to explain what being an empath means? The two wolves over there will be a lot nicer when they know exactly what you are. Well, one of them will be.” She corrected as she turned around to glare at Peter.
Peter just lifted his eyebrows. Summer glanced between him and Derek, her breathing ragged, before she looked back to Erica. “I — if they try to hurt me again, I don’t know what will happen,” she whispered. “I’ll try, though.”
“I won’t let them hurt you, okay? They may act like they’re in charge but I can really call the shots around here.” Erica laughed softly, opening the cage and letting Summer out. She waited for her to emerge and looked over to the wolves, whispering at them so Summer wouldn’t hear. “Be nice.”
She crawled out on hands and knees, wishing desperately she could wash, or eat, or clean clothes, or /anything/ really to make her feel more confident. A hairbrush. /Something/. She brushed her hands down her clothes, swallowing hard, then looked up at Derek. He was the one she would have to convince, because Peter had clearly given up.
He was the one that frightened her. Peter used words; he manipulated and probed and slid into the mind. She understood that. But Derek — Derek seemed to operate on his own rules, his own honor, and she didn’t comprehend it. Just that she had somehow to prove she wasn’t the threat they thought she was.
“I’m an empath,” she began, and immediately felt foolish for repeating herself. “I can sense what you feel. It’s like hearing; I can’t really turn it off with just myself, only reduce the input, like covering your ears. I can disregard some input, the way you, um, you overlook familiar sounds. And, um, I can sense from a lot of different people around me.”
She breathed hard, and locked her hands together, trying not to tremble. “And, uh, I can impose emotions on people. I can make them feel what I want, or not feel something. Take it away. I, I — I could have make you feel friendly to me. But I didn’t! I didn’t do that. It’s not … right.”