At least one of them was being friendly. He turned to Stella and continued, "And Stella, this is Penelope. She is Den's cousin and June's good friend. Though none of us have seen her for quite some time." "And you can stop crouching Penelope, Stella's harmless." he added.
Penelope scoffed as she looked Stella up and down, taking in her small frame and relaxed posture. This little thing sure was confident about herself. "Not unless I'm sure this thing won't attack me." she said, eyeing Stella varily.
Stella rolled her eyes. This woman might be beautiful as hell, but she surely had a shitty personality. This thing?! "'This thing' is a human, and would very much like to be treated like one." Stella said, crossing her arms across her chest, "And rest assured, I have no intention to attack you." She added.
Though Penelope still looked quite sceptical, her posture relaxed a bit, just one tiny bit. "I have absolutely no idea what your intentions are. And you say you're a human, how come you have such strong powers then?" she growled. Stella bit her lip upon hearing this. How she wished she had the answer to that. How and why did she have those powers?
While she was wondering what to answer, Simon's voice rung through the room, very surprised, "You can tell she has powers?" he asked. "Duh." Penelope said, rolling her eyes, "I'm the strongest manipulator I've ever known. Looking into everyone's mind is like so easy. But she . . . . " she turned to Stella as she said this, and Stella was taken aback to see a kind of admiration in the girl's eyes.
"She has been blocking me out ever since she came in. And not to mention the fact that she shattered my barrier like anything." Penelope finished, hating herself for how envious her voice sounded.
"I can assure you Penelope, neither of the two things were intentional. Stella hasn't really . . . . " Simon began, but Stella cut him off before he could say anything further. She didn't want this woman to know she couldn't control her powers, or that she hadn't realized that the weird thing she had sensed around Penelope had been a barrier. She had heard the phrase, 'the strongest manipulator' and wanted to test her power against her.
Plus, Stella was sure she had heard about this woman somewhere before, but couldn't really put her finger on it. And this irritated her to no end.
"And I thought you said you were the best manipulator. How can you lose to a human then?" Stella said, cutting Simon off who turned to look at her with horror filled eyes. This girl was too much of a trouble magnet. Plus she liked to play with fire on top of it.
Penelope turned her head towards Stella upon hearing these words. Her posture was now back to normal and Stella was delighted to see an evil smirk across her lips. "We're going to get along great!!" Stella thought as a devilish smile formed across her own lips.
The next instant, Stella knew that Penelope was trying to get into her mind. She herself was surprised at the realization. She had never been able to tell when someone was trying to get in her mind, usually Alex, she never felt anything.