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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'sgo!"
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.
