Inject Me Sweetly / Dusk Until Dawn

:Inject Me Sweetly: Chapter Thirty-One

“Emily, Honey, are you going to eat?”

            Jumping slightly in surprise, my eyes shot to Luella, who was staring at me with a concerned expression. Changing my gaze to the food on my plate, I picked up my fork and stabbed a piece of squash, shoving it in my mouth. “Yep! See?”

            “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Vincent said in a belittling tone.

            I glared at him, resisting the urge to show him the chewed up food in my mouth. If it weren’t for the others at the table, I would’ve. Everyone in the Rutherford family was present— Solomon, Luella, Fiona, Sebastian, and Vincent. Joel was there too, but I figured he was included in most family gatherings.

            “You’ll choke,” Vincent finished after a moment, dropping his gaze down to his place.

            Luella’s eyes widened slightly. She mouthed something to her husband that I didn’t catch causing him, and Sebastian who was sitting next to him, to smirk. I cocked my head to the side, gazing at the pair of men with questioning eyes. They both waved me off. I scowled.

            A new silence settled in after that, aside from the scraping of metal forks on the porcelain plates. There was some type of tension in the air, but I couldn’t figure out why. Usually the Rutherfords were pretty calm. They spoke what was on their mind (especially Vincent), so this was a little strange.

I had my own reasons for being unsettled though. It was the second day since Ashton had left me in the forest. Technically second night, actually, which meant that meant there was only four more days before he came back to retrieve me. No one had spoken one word of it over the past two days. It made my mind race with questions: Why weren’t they talking about it? Were they not worried about it? Were they secretly planning without me? Why wouldn’t they tell me?

“Ah, before I forget,” Solomon started, interrupting the quiet dinner room. “Tomorrow we’ll be having a few guests from the court over for dinner. I do believe it would be in our best interests if Emily were out of the house. Fiona, Vincent, I’ll leave that up to you two.”

“What about me?” Joel asked excitedly.

“You need to go to your parents house for dinner,” Solomon told him.

His jaw dropped. “What? No!”

I cocked an eyebrow. It never occurred to me that Joel had parents. Well, no, obviously he had parents, but I’d assumed Solomon and Luella were kind of his adoptive parents.

“They miss you,” Luella added.

“I will die,” he commented dramatically, flopping onto the table. “I can hear them scolding me already…”

Solomon shook his head at Joel before turning to Fiona and Vincent. “So are you guys up for it?”

Fiona beamed happily at him. “No problem! I’d do anything to stay away from the court members!”

“Same,” Vincent grunted. “Those assholes can’t even be polite enough to at least act like they like me.”

“Vivi, language,” Luella scolded him. “Your swearing habit has gotten out of hand lately.”

Solomon laughed. “Don’t say that, Luella, that will just make him do it more.”

She frowned. “That’s no good…”

“Father, will I have to attend this court meeting?” Sebastian inquired, disappointed washed across his face for some reason. The usual twinkle to his eye was gone. Did he not like the court either?