Sink Into Me

26: Mouse Hunt & Mouse Traps

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"What were you like when you were younger?"

I sighed. "Well, when I was nine I was the red headed ugly girl." He chuckled. "Don't laugh, I'm serious. No guy ever looked at me until I turned fifteen. My chest blew out a bit, I grew taller, my red hair went silky and wavy and my skin became clear. This made some heads turn."

"I bet you weren't ugly as a child."

I laughed. "If you saw my young photo's you'd understand."

"Then I can't wait to meet your parents and see them." He grinned.

"I am going to force my parents not to show you any photographs if I can help it."

Michael set the bowl of spaghetti bolognese in front of me. He leaned forward toward me on the island and smirked in front of me. "Maybe I'll use my excellent skills of persuasion."

"If you compel my parents so help me--"

He pecked my lips to silence me. "I'm not going to compel your parents, Evie. I'm just going to persuade them because I'm absolutely adorable."

"Says who?" I teased.

He chuckled. "Hurry up and eat your human food so you can get home."

"Trying to get rid of me already?"

He smiled. "Anything but. I want you back before dark. Even though you refuse to listen to me and not come tonight I still want you back before it gets dark."

I nodded and spun my fork into the pasta. "So what's the plan?"

"You'll go home."

I waited for the rest but he turned his back and started washing up. "What else?" I took a mouthful of pasta into my mouth.

"What do you mean what else?"

I narrowed my eyes at his back. "Michael."

"Fine. I'll follow you back but not in my car. I'll take the back way with John. Katherine and Sam are already at the house. You'll go with them and we'll meet you at the end of your road near the forest. If Sam and Kate are right, then the man or woman that has been following you will be somewhere in the forest."

"So by you not coming with me now, they won't suspect us coming into the forest like they did last night?"

"Exactly. We have the element of surprise. However, Sam and Kate may have tipped it off."

"How so?"

"Witches as powerful as them two are easy to spot out of a crowd. Especially Katherine. If these Vampires are older than I suspect, and I hope I'm wrong, then they can pick a witch out of a crowd as easy as taking a brick out of a haystack."

"That was some weird analogy."

He glanced at me and smiled. "My dad used to say it."

I took another mouthful before saying, "What was your dad like?"

There was a very, very long pause and I feared he wouldn't tell me. But then he turned around and said, "I don't remember that much about my father or my mother."

I finished the bowl up quickly as he finished washing the saucepans and spoons when I hesitantly asked, "How did they die?"

There was a flicker off sadness and anger in his eyes and I immediately regretted asking.

"I'm--" I went to apologise but he interrupted.

"Don't be sorry. It's fine. I've told the story a million times before and it was a very long time ago. I'd turned eight September 1907. I remember it being a spectacular birthday... For the oh-hundreds that is." He smiled briefly before frowning. "It was October 15th in Shrewsbury, England. There was a railway crash and eighteen people died. My parents being two of them. They believed the driver dozed off. The driver didn't die though, no. The passengers did."