She watched him disappear into the gloom. Anna stood and scooped her phone from the counter. She glanced around to check who might be watching her. When it looked like no one was, she quickly followed Marcus. She quickened her pace as she lost sight of him in the swirling mist at the back of the club’s main room. Marcus disappeared.

When she reached where she’d last seen him a shiver spiked up her back. The mist was freezing cold, the air thick with potent. Anna turned away as a weird fear gripped her. She practically ran back to the bar, weaving through the groups of patrons, and muttering, “Sorry,” as she knocked into one, splashed the drink from the glass of another, until she stood in front of Ethan.

His gaze mesmerized her. She wasn’t even sure she actually heard his voice, but somehow he soothed her.

“Anna, it’s time you went home now. You want to go home. You have work to do transcribing the interview with the band. Everything’s fine.”

She smiled at him. “I’m off now. Thank you for answering my questions. Thank Marcus for me. He left.” She gestured toward where she’d run from. A flutter of fear rose in her stomach and then Ethan was leaning forward, his blue eyes capturing her so that she dreamily froze to soak up his low voiced words.

“Goodnight, Anna.”

She left the club happily, a faraway feeling carrying her along …

©Elodie Parkes Hot Ink Press 2016

I’m a writer who is in love with happy endings. Currently based in the UK but thinking about joining the next flock of birds I see heading south for the winter.

I love: music, art, flowers, trees, the ocean…

I work with antiques by day and words by night.

Like a vampire, darkness is my friend, that’s when the silence is only broken by an occasional hoot of owls in the woodlands opposite my current home, and I write.