by Mary Martel
Tyson headed towards the refrigerator as I moved towards the little half bath that was off of the kitchen. I rarely used this bathroom, preferring to use the one upstairs. It just seemed uncomfortable to me to be using a bathroom that opened up into the kitchen. What if someone heard me while I peed? No thank you.
I ducked my head in around the door as I flipped the switch, turning on the overhead lights. The lights flickered on and I took a look around the small space.
It may have been small, but it was clean and tidy. A burnt orange rug lay atop the white ceramic tiles, curved around the toilet. Hand towels that matched the rug in color hung off of a towel rack that was mounted to the wall above the toilet. The sink was beside the toilet, and there was a black framed mirror hanging above the sink. There was a small, round garbage can inside the storage compartment under the sink, and that about summed it up for what was in the bathroom.
There was no Binx to be seen, not even in the sink or curled up on the soft, fuzzy rug. I forgot to mention he liked rugs. I backed out of the bathroom, flipped the switch down to off and closed the door.
"Damn," I muttered unhappily. "He's not in there. I'm going to go and check out the rest of the rooms down here for him real quick. If I don't find him then I'm going to run upstairs and check out the bathroom and Dash's room."
"He's outside, girl." Tyson said while he was bent over and had his head in the refrigerator. "I let him out when I got here. He was at the front door making all kinds of noise and scratching at the door. As soon as I opened the door he bolted outside."
I gasped and cried out, "But, he's an indoor cat! How could you have let him go outside? Oh my god, I have to go outside and find him."
Tyson stood up straight and backed away from the fridge. He held a packet of lunch meat and slices of American cheese in his hands.
"If I can find some bread I will fry up this ham and make us some grilled ham and cheese sandwiches," he said in a calm voice as if he'd missed my freak out entirely.
"You can't eat a sandwich right now," I yelled at him semi-hysterically. "How can you even think about food at a time like this? We need to call the rest of the guys and mount a search party! We need to go outside and start looking for him right now. Ty, put down the cheese and meat and let's go!"
His eyes grew wider and wider with each word that came out of my mouth. When I was done shouting he looked like a bug-eyed cartoon character whose eyes were about to pop right out of his face. He tossed the packet of lunch meat and the cheese slices towards the countertop where they landed with a plop and slid a little before staying put.
"Girl," he said in a calm voice despite his current bug-eyed status. "You need to calm down. There's no need for shouting. And, there's also no need to gather everyone around and send out a search party like we're missing our new born baby or our toddler or something. We are not going out into the woods in the fucking dark to search for a cat. A cat, I might add, that goes outside all the fucking time."
He could not be serious. I had lived here for weeks now and the cat hadn't gone outside once that I was aware of. And, I would think that with me being his new roommate and all, Dash would have told me if Binx went outside and that it was okay. Dash had said nothing to me of the sort.
"I'm going outside to look for him," I grumbled while turning away and heading towards the dining room. Tyson could make his sandwich, eat it, and enjoy himself for all I cared. I was going to find Dash's cat no matter it meant I would have to go outside in the dark… wait a minute.
I whipped back around and glared at Tyson. "Did you say it was dark outside?" I asked him skeptically. I looked out the window and confirmed for myself that it was indeed dark outside. "What the hell? I slept the entire day away. How is that even possible? Why did no one wake me up? Where did Dash go?"
I shook my head. None of those things even mattered. So, what, I slept the entire day away. Maybe I needed the sleep. Dash hadn't been lying when he'd said I hadn't been sleeping enough lately. Maybe it had finally caught up with me after all.
"You're not going outside, Ariel," Tyson snapped at me. "Because, yeah, it’s fucking dark out, and if you go outside, I will have to go out with you, and I am not going out to wander the fucking woods around here looking for a fucking cat that knows these woods and his way around them. When he's ready to come back he will. I swear to you, girl, he goes outside all the fucking time." He threw his arms up in exasperation as he stalked closer to me. "For fucks sake, Ariel, why won't you just believe me and drop this!"
I opened my mouth and immediately snapped it closed again. Why was I being so persistent with this? I had already proved I trusted Ty without question, and I honestly believed him, if he said Binx went outside often, then why was I arguing with him and insisting we need to go and search for him?
I thought about it, really thought about it, and I was grateful I had taken the time to think it through. It wasn't that he was outside that bothered me. It was that he'd been making all kinds of noise and scratching at the door, begging to be let outside, that bothered me. It was eerily similar to what Dash had described Binx doing the night before when the kitty had been trying to get to me while I'd been sleeping. It sounded like he'd acted exactly the same way when Tyson arrived that he'd been acting before, and it wasn't normal behavior for him. Now he was outside, all alone and off doing who knew what. It wasn't his normal behavior, even Dash had thought so, and that concerned me. It made me feel like we shouldn't be standing around in the kitchen having a conversation, but out there in the dark looking for him and looking for whatever it was he had had so eagerly wanted outside to find. I was almost sure that whatever it was was important.
When I didn't say anything, Tyson stopped glaring at me and his face grew speculative. "You've thought of something," he said quietly. "What did you think of? What's brought that look to your face?"
I told him about what Dash had told me happened with Binx the night before. I told him all of it, and I told him about my concerns as well. My chest lightened just by sharing out loud my concerns with Tyson.
By the end of my little speech, Tyson's face had paled, and his hands were balled into fists at his sides.
"What the fuck," he muttered angrily. "That should not have been happening to you, girl. I am so fucking sorry, and I have no idea what's going on or why that would have happened. I put everything into those spells and I didn't slack off on them, I did my research and I even had Uncle Quint look it over for me before I marked up your dream catcher. Nothing, not one fucking thing should be able to touch you while you are sleeping underneath it. My magic isn't faulty, my spells weren't faulty; I have no idea what the fuck went wrong."
His dark eyes were wild as they flicked around the brightly lit kitchen, searching for some hidden enemy to strike out at.
The problem was, there was no enemy hidden away in Dash's kitchen for him to strike out at. There was no easy target for his anger. I didn't care about Tyson's anger. I mean, I'm sure I would care about it later, but for now, I only cared about going outside and finding Binx before he found himself in trouble. I felt like whatever had been trying to get to me in my sleep, or that I'd been trying to get away from, was now outside with the cat, and I didn't think anything good would come from it.
"Go on upstairs," he said, "and get some boots to put on. Ones that go above the ankles. I don't need you traipsing through the woods in flip flops, your feet will get cut up. And grab your cell and a hoodie, too. It can get chilly at night now, and you'll want your phone in case something bad happens while we're out there and we need to call for help. I'll find the flashlights while you're grabbing your stuff."
I headed back up the stairs without complaint. Almost all of it sounded reasonable to me except for one part. I didn't think we should wait until something went wrong to call for help. I thought we needed to call for backup before going outside, so that way we knew they were on their way and if we did, for some unforeseen reason, get into any trouble, they would already
be on their way, and would get here a whole lot quicker.
What was up with Tyson's sudden need to handle everything all on his own? Did he think he had something to prove all of a sudden? And did it have anything to do with Annabell and her sudden reappearance into his life? I had a feeling this bitch was going to be a disruption for all of us, and I wasn't looking forward to it.
I found my cellphone on the dresser in my bedroom where I always left it. Usually, my car keys got tossed beside the phone, but they were absent because Tyson had my keys. I dug a pair of boots out of my coffin closet, and a pair of black, fuzzy socks out of the top dresser drawer. The boots were black, laced up the front, and went to mid-calf. The laces were black with flecks of silver in them. They had been something Julian and Damien had gotten for me. The two of them had taken it upon themselves to outfit me with a whole brand spanking new wardrobe with accessories and the like. More like, Damien had gotten me all that stuff while Julian had supervised to keep Damien from going crazy and buying me everything he wanted to, which would have been a whole lot of crap I had no freaking desire to wear, ever. They had gotten me so much stuff they’d had to get an antique trunk and dresser out of Quint’s storage unit for my room so I’d have places to put everything. I had tried to protest the outrageous spending and what I had thought of at the time as a serious waste, but no one had listened to me. And I was glad for it because when I’d been left alone with my new belongings, and had the chance to go through them without someone watching me do it, I realized that I actually liked the things they’d gotten for me. Damien had a good eye; he’d nailed my style down and, thanks to Julian getting my sizes down before going shopping, everything fit me perfectly.
I sat down on the side of the bed, not far from where Tyson had tried to drag me off the bed, to be exact. I looked down at my bare legs and laughed softly. Tyson hadn't worried about my legs, but he'd told me to grab a hoodie and not wear flip flops. I couldn't go hiking through the woods in my pajama shorts because he was right, it had been getting cold out at night lately, and I didn't want to freeze or have my legs get cut up by trees or bushes or whatever else that was out there.
I dropped my boots on to the rug and sat my fuzzy socks on the bed. I got back up and made walked over to the dresser my phone had been on. I opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a pair of black leggings and closed the drawer again. I slipped my shorts off and put the leggings on before heading back to the bed. I put the shorts down on the bed and picked up the socks. I put the socks on and slid my feet into the boots. It took me a good five minutes just to do up the laces on those things, but they looked nice on my feet and calves, so I thought it was worth it.
I got a zip up hoodie out of the coffin closet that was black and had cat ears on top of the hood. I put it on and zipped it up. It fit me snugly, and I immediately liked it; this was the first time I'd worn it, and I wondered who had picked it out, Jules or Damien. I stuffed the phone in the right front pocket of the hoodie before picking the shorts up off of the bed and heading out the door. I dropped the shorts off in the hamper in the closet in the bathroom before going back down the stairs.
Tyson was waiting for me in the dining room. He'd put his black combat boots and a black zip up hoodie similar to my own on, only I was betting his didn't come with animal ears up top. When I got up next to him, he handed me a long, heavy duty, black flash light that weighed way more than it looked like it should. It had Maglite written in small, white letters around the rim of the light. Tyson held a matching one in his hand. There was a smaller purple one that looked to be about half the size of the one he'd handed me sticking out of one of his hoodie pockets. What did we need an extra light for?
"You ready?" Ty grunted.
Now wasn't that a good question?
Was I ready? Was I?
No, I absolutely did not think I was ready to go on a little nighttime journey through the forest to look for a cat that wasn't mine and might not even want to be looked for. He was probably chasing mice and other little rodents, and torturing them for the fun of it, and I was going to come along and ruin his time. There was probably nothing scary out there at all, and I likely didn't need to worry about the three of us (yes, I was counting Binx in with Ty and myself) being eaten alive by some scary uber monster who had been fucking around with me and trying to get into my dreams.
Nope, none of that was going to happen.
We'd be perfectly fine.
I clutched my heavy-duty flashlight to my chest and held on to it for dear life. If it came down to it, the thing would always make a good weapon for braining someone else with.
"Ariel," Tyson said as he looked back at me over his shoulder. "Are you coming?"
I was, but only because it had been my suggestion and I was worried about the damn cat. I tried to tell myself that I wasn't afraid of the dark as I followed behind Tyson out the front door.
I also called myself a big, fat, stupid liar.
Chapter Eight
In the time I’d been living with Dash, I had never actually seen his backyard. It had simply never occurred to me to follow the stone path around the side of the house to check out what lay behind the cottage. Come to think of it, I hadn’t really looked out the windows in the kitchen that faced the backyard, either. I had never pulled the light gray curtains aside to peak out the sliding glass door that faced the backyard head on. I had always assumed there were trees, trees and more trees back there.
I now knew I had been wrong in my assumption.
There was a flower garden back there, an iron bench with bright orange pillows covering the seat, a fancy round table with two matching chairs. Further back in the yard, away from the flowers and the pretty table, there was a massive fire pit in the ground that was surrounded by red bricks. Orange, wooden Adirondack chairs formed a loose circle around the fire pit. It looked like a well-used space, and I wondered why no one had used it since I'd moved in. Binx was nowhere to be seen in the back yard, which is where we looked after doing a quick scan of the almost non-existent front yard and checking under my Rover, which was the only vehicle parked out front.
I followed behind Ty as he walked the tree line in the backyard. I had my phone in my left hand, and the heavy flashlight in my right hand. The flashlight wasn't on yet because I didn't need it. We'd left all of the lights on the main level of the cottage on, and they illuminated the backyard in a soft glow.
Tyson kept calling out Binx's name loudly and making weird kissy noises as we searched. I didn't call out, and I made no such ridiculous noises. Instead, I walked behind him in silence as I scanned the ground and the tree line, looking for any movement, and caught sight of none. We made it to the very edge of the backyard where we lost sight of the light from the kitchen and darkness crept in around the edges of the grass. Tyson stopped walking, and I was so focused on scanning the ground that I almost walked right into his back when he stopped. I raised the hand holding the phone and pressed it into the small of his back, stopping myself from crashing into him. I peeked around his side and peered into the dark woods.
"Where's the moon tonight?" I murmured quietly.
I really wanted to burrow into Ty's back and wrap my arms around his middle, clinging to him like a baby monkey clings to its momma. To make sure I didn't do just that, I pushed off of him with a gentle shove and stepped to the side. I moved up beside him as I stuck the phone back into my hoodie pocket. It really was doing me no good in my hand, even if I did feel better simply holding on to it.
Tyson switched his hold on the flashlight from his right hand to his left. Blindly, he reached out with his right hand and took hold of my left one. My entire body warmed with just the one touch.
"The new moon just started," he told me quietly. "There's not much to it yet." He lifted our joined hands and pointed towards the darkness in front of us. "Do you see that trail out there?" He asked in that quiet voice.
He lowered our hands, and I looked out into the dark where he'd been pointing. Hon
estly, the dark was so dark, the trees so thick, that I didn't see much of anything besides black.
"Maybe this isn't such a good idea," I muttered uneasily. "Maybe you were right from the beginning, and Binx is just out here for a little stroll through the dark, and he'll be back after he takes a poop in a bush or whatever it is that cats do when they go outside."
I shrugged, and it was wasted on Tyson, because he couldn't see the movement in the dark. Not when his eyes were busy scanning what lay ahead.
Tyson chuckled. "Since when did you become a wimp?" He asked me.
Since always, I almost said, but didn't. It might have even been true, but I was working really hard to change it.
"I'm not a wuss," I said hotly.
"Oh yeah?" he shot back. "Then why don't you head on down the trail first."
He let go of my hand suddenly and raised his, pointing towards the supposed trail in front of us. The trail I had yet to see. "By all means," he said cheerfully as he waved invitingly towards the darkness in front of us. "After you."
What an A-hole. If he thought I was going first into the woods simply to prove something to him then he had another thing coming. I was at least going to try and talk my way out of it first.
"He might not even be back here," I replied snottily. "What's to say he didn't follow whatever creepiness that lured him out of the house down the driveway, huh? He probably never even came back here. Maybe we should-"
"Fuck it," he muttered under his breath and I was almost positive I wasn't meant to over hear that.
He grabbed ahold of my hand once again and stepped into the darkness. His hand wrapped around mine, added slight pressure, and he gave a tug. I stepped into the darkness with him, and we were side by side once again.