Black Tattoo

Lying

I can't believe it. Are they...? No way! My body tenses. I try to hear what they are saying. It is hard because they are quite far away.

"...be there! I doubt there hear, I mean, look at it! Nobody can live there." Said the dark skinned guy. He is getting agitated, signaling to something far away to my left.

"It doesn't hurt to check." Says the red haired woman.

"Your right, now let's get going." Says the oldest one. "It's going to get dark soon." They start walking away. I wait until they are far away from ear shot to walk out to the van. I want to see what they are talking about. I look in the distance.

I see my old house, my burned down old house.

They are looking for us.

They are looking for Mich and me. 

I run back where I came from, as fast as I can. My thoughts are like wildfire.

How? Why? Do they want to hurt us? What do they want from us? Why are they looking for us? Who are they?

I'm not paying much attention to my surroundings and  stumble on a huge tree root. I fall head first, but it's like a wake up call. I finally stop thinking. I take a deep breath to calm my nerves, it doesn't help much.

They don't know where we are, that's good. They could come to check the cabin and if they come I don't want them near Mich.

I stand up slowly and start running again. I am closer to the cabin than I thought because I could already see it. I walk out of the line of trees. I can see Mich doing body training. He is holding two vases, one in every hand. He is standing with his legs stretched out from under him, it looks like a V.

Seeing him there I remembered that he isn't a kid anymore. In two weeks he is going to turn 14. Then the tattoo will appear.

"Kara!" Mich calls me over. He is about to drop the vases.

"Mich! Do not lose your concentration!" Sokaku yells at him. He turns to look at me, he can see how agitated I am. I hope he thinks it is because of training.

"So how is it?" I ask.

"So horrible! It hurts so much!" Mich makes a crying face. I just start laughing. 

"It's okay." Sokaku says. He smiles a reassuring smile at me, I guess he notices something's up. It makes me kind of happy that he noticed.

"I'll make diner." I walk back inside. I start preparing something quick from the food we brought from the mansion.

I couple of minutes later I am done, it's something simple. A chicken stew.

"Something smells good." Sokaku says as he walks in. Mich is behind him. They take a seat at the table, I do too.

I smile when they say it's good, this reminded me of home, being here with Mich and Sokaku having diner makes me feel safe. It's been a while I since I felt that.

Mich goes take a nap after we finish eating, he's really tired. Sokaku stays and helps me clean the dishes. I am washing and he is putting them away. We do it in silence, I comfortable silence.

The silence lasted a little longer before Sokaku says. "Today you came out of the woods, you looked nervous."

He did notice.

"Yeah." I'm thinking if I should tell him or not. Is it a good idea to tell him that there's maybe a group of people that are looking for Mich and me?

"What happened?" Sokaku asks.

"Nothi-." He interrupts me.

"Don't lie to me Kara." He grabs my hand to make me stop. I put the plate in the sink and turn to look at him, I am very aware that his hand is holding my arm.

"I am not lying." I say. I can't look at those beautiful black eyes he has. He takes a step closer to me. He takes another until we are a few inches apart, I cam feel his body heat. It is intoxicating.

"Look at me." He whispers in my ear and I can't stop myself.

I turn, I see those black eyes looking at me. My heart skips a beat.

"Kara." The way he says my name makes me feel like there's butterflies in my stomach. "What happened?" He asks.

I want to tell him, I want to tell him everything that happened to me after my parents died. I want to tell him about the people I saw in the woods today. Even if, I want to tell him I can't just tell him everything. My heart says tell him but my head says don't. 

"Nothing happened." I pull my arm away and walk away. I'm going with my head on this. I can feel Sokaku's eyes on the back of my head, following me up the stairs.

Once in my room I open the window, breathing in the cold air. I stay there for who knows how long.

I will have to tell him eventually.

On Mich's 14 birthday I will wait and see if the tattoo appears. If it does, I will explain it to the both of them. But only if it appears.