I don’t know how long I stared at Sam with my mouth hanging open, but it had to be several minutes. I could hardly believe what he was telling me was true. How could Starla be pregnant? I knew that Sam wouldn’t have ever slept with me if I wasn’t on birth control. I wanted to ask what sort of contraception they were using, but I didn’t because it seemed too personal, not my business, and a moot point. Instead, I just gaped at him, trying to comprehend what all of this would mean.It made kicking Starla out of the house I’d just made for her a lot more difficult, that was for certain. How could I possibly ask a scared, pregnant teenager to go out into the world and fend for herself? Or go back to the grandfather who’d hit her in the face because he didn’t like her dating Sam? I never would’ve thought I’d think that Mr. Hudson had a point, but I had to as

Things were weird at home, but it was almost Christmas, and that helped to take my mind off of all of the craziness with Starla and Sam. It also helped me not to think about Fionna, even though I got a new message almost every day from someone at the School for Mages who told me something about how insane she was acting. Most of the time, it was Kayla or Lluvia who lit my phone up with, “You’ll never guess what she did today!” but sometimes it was Sean or Liam. I always shared the messages from Liam with Ben so he’d know exactly what we were saying to one another, even though he constantly told me that he trusted me. I knew he was still worried about Liam, that something was going to happen to make me feel like I’d rather be with him than Ben, so I tried to keep my distance from Mr. Finch. It wasn’t that hard since he was on the other side of the ocean. After I told him what Maggie had said and what Brice had added

 Francis Flamingo didn’t look like the deranged tropical bird in a snowstorm she had a few moments ago now that I was hovering above her eye level and she had to look up to see my face. If anything, she looked more like a frightened child. I could certainly see the resemblance between her and Fionna, her own daughter, who had been terrified so many times in my presence, I wasn’t sure what to think of her parents. For all I knew, her off-balance existence might be because her parents were just awful to her.I didn’t have time to dig into the psychosis of the situation at the moment, though. I needed to set something straight. “Listen here, Mrs. Flamingo,” I said, refraining from wagging my finger in her face, but just barely. “You don’t get to threaten me or my pack. I’ve done more for you and your family than anyone else has, maybe ever, unless y

Shopping was so much fun! Even though Ben isn’t much of a shopper and usually doesn’t like this sort of thing, we had a great time picking out the toys for the kids and other items, like warm blankets, for the elderly people on our list. By the time we had collected everything we needed, including a ton of wrapping paper, and got it loaded back into the truck, it was snowing pretty hard outside. I wasn’t worried about us making it home safely because I could make sure that nothing happened to the truck, as I had that one time when Sam and I had almost gotten hit head on going to the jewelry store, but I was concerned for everyone else. I sent them a text telling them to be careful going home, and once we had Raven and Tony loaded up in the truck, we headed out. It would’ve been a tight fit if we hadn’t put everything in the back of the truck secured from the weather beneath a large tarp.

 Ben didn’t say a word about the war I’d started with Francis Flamingo on the way home. Not that I’d struck the first blow, but I was sure he was thinking that what I’d done was unnecessary, and I should've left well enough alone. He might’ve been right. After all, she’d already shown she had no problem attacking my home. Who knew what might come next? If she was half as crazy as her daughter, it would be a problem. I hoped my threat of getting Fionna kicked out of the academy would be taken seriously, but with unstable people it is hard to know what they might be thinking.I answered a few questions about what I’d done when I got home, but most of the pack was preoccupied with present wrapping, so we concentrated on that. Melanie had the great idea of color-coding the gifts by family with different kinds of wrapping paper. Since we had enough varietie