Page 34 of Missiletoe
To my surprise, there were hundreds of them all within meters of me. When I stretched my consciousness out a little more, there were thousands.
“I did it!”
:Of course you did, Paris. And don’t forget to keep petting me, you’ve forgotten all about my left side.: Trixie said, like paying attention to her was equally as important as learning how to control my power.
I suppose to an animal, it was.
I went back to Trixie’s belly, making sure to give her left side proper attention.
I’d lost my momentum in my task, so I had to start all over again. Once I’d regained contact with the neighborhood mice, I sent them an image of Vix’s house, only I made sure to show it to them from a mouse point of view. It was a good thing I’d gotten a look at it when I’d been sprawled out on the lawn earlier.
I tried to convey my needs through images and feelings since I doubted they understood human speech.
“Hey, Trix, how do you speak English so well?”
:How do you?:
“Oh. I guess that was a dumb question.”
:Nothing you say or do is dumb, my human. I’ve known you long enough to know that. Now stop getting distracted, or you won’t be able to get to Vix.:
I realized I’d lost my mice again and had to start from scratch once more. At least it was getting easier after doing it a couple of times.
Trixie was right. I had to stop losing my focus, otherwise, I’d be there all night, and that wasn’t an option. Not with the memory of my bunny’s panicked cry cutting off abruptly still clawing away at my heart.
I had to see him before I did something crazy. Like try to summon a family of mooses to attack his house or something.
Chapter7
Vix
Iwoke up in Gareth’s office, and for once I wasn’t happy about it. I sat up like I’d been spring launched and flopped back over because damn, having a sleep attack three times in a row was disorienting as fuck.
“Slow down, man.”
That was from Baz, who’d caught me before I’d fallen off my couch and hit the ground. It was an excellent incentive for me to get a dog bed for every room in the house ASAP, since it was impossible to fall off something that was already on the floor.
And if I was going to keep having extra sleep attacks, I needed to make provisions for it.
“Where is he? Is he okay?” I asked, pushing Baz aside and sitting up even though he tried to push me back down again. My head was swimmy, but I’d be okay as long as I didn’t try to stand up.
“Which he?” Baz asked innocently.
“Don’t fuck with me, Baz. Is Paris okay? Did he get away? Vale didn’t do anything to him after I fell asleep, did he?”
Love, the house AI, had shown us that Paris had gotten off the porch before it went live, but I’d keeled over right after that and had no clue what had happened next.
I’d created enough defenses for our home over the years that Vale could have killed Paris ten times over before he managed to escape the yard.
“No, he didn’t hurt your precious boyfriend. Vale might have gotten him a little dirty on his way out the door, but otherwise, he’s unharmed.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and thanked my lucky stars that Vale hadn’t killed Paris.
I know it sounds like I was being overly dramatic about Vale, but I had good reason to be worried. The guy has zero morals. Like none, period. He fits in with my family because he’s apathetic as fuck, has no desire to go out of his way to do harm, and is willing to go with the house status quo, but if he gets rubbed the wrong way at the wrong time, Vale has been known to kill his way through a problematic situation without batting an eye.
Gareth is his moral compass, and Vale respects him for some reason, so Gareth is the one in charge of keeping Vale under control.
So why hadn’t Gareth stopped Vale? I don’t think Gareth would have let Vale do anything if he’d known Vale was going to try to fry Paris, but still…letting Vale use Apple, a member of our family, like that?
