Is This Love?

That'll be a hundred and twelve pounds. Uh, are you sure you want to stay here?" he asks, the last words in a low voice. For some reason I start to feel like there's no problem with these men, so I nod and pull out the money to pay him, "Thanks. Good luck finding your father."

"Thanks to you for the lolly!" I exclaim and I get out of the car, pulling my suitcase and looking towards the men feeling weird, but strangely safe.

"Follow my partner, miss. He'll take you to Lion."

"Okay," I nod and do exactly that. Once I'm inside a truck, I look deeply at the man, "Do you guys know my father or something?"

"Sure," he replies in a casual tone, "He's from the same generation as my brother and I followed his career closely. Good guy."

"Oh, sure, sure," I nod. I have no idea what his career is, "Why can't taxis come in here?"

The man frowns and gives me a funny look.

"How do they do it in your clan? Do they just let any human in?" he asks as if he is judging mehard and his words leave me confused. What the hell does he mean by 'clan' or 'humans'? I know I'm not the most social person in the world, but I also think this isn't very normal.

"Um, yes?" I reply, but it sounds like it's a question. The guard/police/military guy gives me a confused look too, like I'm the weird one. And yes I usually am, but not in this.

The conversation dies down after that and we drive in complete silence, but I don't feel it so much because I look out and my mouth drops open. All the businesses, buildings and houses are big and spacious. Everything looks perfect, like a mini-city. A rather expensive mini-city, in fact. It's making me feel self-conscious about my clothes, my hair and the rest of me.

A few minutes later the truck pulls up in front of a large building.

"That's where Lion lives," he informs me, giving me another deep look and the truck starts to smell of his suspicion. "I'll call Lion later to make sure everything's okay. And if it's not, you'll be in trouble."

"Uh-huh... yeah, okay" I mutter. I get out of the truck with an uncomfortable smile and close the door once I put my suitcase down. Was he really just threatening me? Does he think I'm going to rob Lion or something? I don't know, but he drives away and leaves me all alone.

I stand outside the building for a couple of minutes not daring to go in and ask for my father, because this is silly... maybe it's not too late to call my grandmother and apologize because I did something stupid and now I'm in London to meet a man I don't know anything about besides his name.

But the idea is ridiculous because my grandmother doesn't have a phone and neither do I so I can't call anyone, let alone her. Or my other ally, the taxi driver.

And I'm already here, what have I got to lose?Besides my life if my father turns out to be a murderer, which is only 65% likely, considering the annual murder rate in the UK.

"What can I help you with?" a thin, ginger boy asks me when I finally dare to enter the building, looking up from the couch where he's sitting, fiddling with a phone, "Are you looking for someone?"

"Yes. I'm looking for Lionel Kendrick Vosse, I think he lives here. I'm... I'm his relative," I say and the boy stares at my eyes for quite a while, completely unapologetic, "He lives here, right?"

"Ah, Lion. Sure," he nods, moving his gaze to my breasts now, "He lives in 12B, but no one's here right now. Angie usually gets here at this time, but she's not here yet, and Lion's at his gym. It's about five blocks away, you can go get him."

"Angie?" I ask, my eyes going wide. Oh, damn. I hadn't considered that maybe he already had a family, "Is he married?"

"No," he looks at me funny, "Angie is his sister. Didn't you say you were his relative? I think you should know that."

"I am, but I don't know anything about him," I take a breath and exhale slowly, "Do you know what time he'll be back from the gym?"

"He's usually here around seven, if he's not out somewhere or running late. I recommend you come by at that time, Angie will probably have arrived by then."

"Can I leave my suitcase here for the meantime?" I ask. I could stay and wait in this place, but this ginger guy doesn't look very friendly or smell happy with my presence. Besides, he didn't offer and I don't want to impose. The ginger shrugs and tells me I can leave it behind the reception, "Thank you very much, I'll be back in a bit."

"Okay," he shrugs once more and turns his attention back to his phone. I walk out of the building and look around my surroundings, thinking about where I can go for a few hours until Lion returns.

There is nothing near this place, just other residential buildings and long, clean, green parks. It's an incredibly uppity area just like the rest of the town, I hope that means Lionel can give me some money to find a place to live.

After walking around for a short while, I find a nice cafe on the corner. It's big and there are quite a few people sitting inside and outside, so I guess it's good.

I try to ignore the rude looks from certain people as I enter the cafe even though they make me feel more out of place than I already felt and opt to focus on the cafe's decor. I was afraid I would get an instant headache as I always do when I walk into a poorly decorated place, but it doesn't happen this time.

The colors are strange, there is a prominent blue-green on the walls and the furniture is red, as are the curtains. They also have a bunch of paintings hanging on the walls in all sorts of colors, which makes a big visual mess, but somehow it works.

Thick, long, maroon curtains cover the windows completely, leaving the place almost dark, but there are several lamps mounted across the ceiling that illuminate the place just enough. I'm more than pleased with the lighting, so I walk over to an unoccupied table.

Another nice thing is that there are no chairs, just a bunch of small armchairs scattered perfectly to give any table just enough space between them. Some are dull blue and others are a very dark red. The distribution of the different armchairs makes me feel a bit unsettled because there are 18 blue armchairs but only 16 red armchairs.

It shouldn't be like that... Maybe I can talk to the owner and give him some advice? If he doesn't have another 2 red armchairs maybe he should just remove the 2 extra blue ones. That way people wouldn't feel so strange when they....

"Good afternoon, miss. Would you like to see the menu?" a man asks me, startling me because I was immersed in my thoughts.

"Good afternoon," I reply, "Yes... I mean, no. I don't wish to see the menu."

"Okaaay," he trails off and lets out a small laugh at my ineptitude, "Can I get you something?"

"Just give me a sweet coffee and some cake or whatever, that has sugar in it."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do with that description. Basically everything in here is full of sugar, it won't be too hard to find what you want," he smiles as he writes something on his pad and before he leaves he stares at my face closely for a second, not bothering to pretend he's not doing it.

He's looking at my eyes curiously.

I look down when he makes a surprised face. For some reason, I feel totally annoyed with the guy for being so rude after being nice at first... not that he was really rude, but he expressed his displeasure and these last few hours I've been feeling worse about my eyes than ever before. All the people stare at me like I'm a freak.

I don't like it.

As I wait for the waiter to come back with something to eat, I start counting the seconds, supporting myself by tapping the table with my finger so I don't lose count. The waiter takes exactly 678 seconds, and I'm so pleased with that number that I even forget his behavior from earlier and give him a smile.

Now that I'm not worried about what he thinks of me, I can tell that this guy's face is disfigured.One of his eyes is badly bulging and he seems to have a very large mole on his round jaw, but I look away because I'm not rude and I don't want him to feel bad about his malformations.

"Here's a caramel cappuccino and a chocolate lemon cake. It's very, very sweet," he places the things on the table, "Would you like anything else?"

"That's all, thank you."

Time passes quickly and before I know it, I have eaten two slices of that chocolate lemon cake and two caramel cappuccinos. My stomach hurts and I'll probably have trouble passing what I just ate, but I know it will be worth it because it's the first time I've ever eaten anything with dairy or that much sugar on it.

The freedom feels amazing.

I catch a glimpse of the time on the clock above the cash register and approach the girl there to pay and leave the place.

When I get to the building again, the ginger boy is still in the same spot, still playing with hisphone. He gives me a quick glance before telling me that Angie has arrived and that I can talk to her on the intercom. I nod and walk over to where the names of the people who live in the apartments are listed and a button on the side to contact them.

I look for 12B and something inside me starts to tremble when I read "Vosse" but I press the button anyway.

"Yes?" asks a female voice after a few seconds, "Who is this?"

"My name is Midnight. I'm Lionel Vosse's daughter," I say, trying not to sound as insecure as I feel, "Are you Angie? Can you... let me in?"

She doesn't say anything for several minutes, but I know she's still on the line. I turn a little and see that the ginger boy has now finally looked up from his phone and is looking at me with wide eyes.

"Lion's daughter?" Angie repeats, then lets out an awkward laugh that doesn't sound fun at all, "Are you kidding? He doesn't have kids."

"No. I'm really not kidding," I reply, frowning at her tone, "Can I come up? I've traveled a long way to meet him. If he really doesn't want to deal with me, I'll go, but I really want to meet him."

"Come on up, we're on the fourth floor," she says after considering for a while, "But I'm warning you, my alpha boyfriend is here. He's really big, so if you're going to try something, he can take you."

"Try something like what? I don't want any trouble," I clarify. Now I don't know if I want to go up there or not, I have no idea what an alpha boyfriend is like. And I don't know how to fight or even defend myself. I'm not an aggressive person. I've never had any confrontation before, I wouldn't know how to respond.

"No, I meant... whatever, just come up."

Okay, I guess she understood that I'm not looking for trouble. I hope.

I fetch my suitcase, giving a smile to the boy, who is still watching me with new fascination. Then I go up to the stairs because the elevator is out of service. 49 steps later, I'm on the fourth floor and in front of the door that has 12B engraved on a small golden plaque. I knock four times, and when no one answers, I knock another four times, now louder.

The door opens and a woman about my age faces me. Her hair is black, shiny and smooth. She's the same height as me and her eyes are the bluest, most beautiful eyes I have ever seen in my entire life.

Wow, she is gorgeous.

She looks me over from head to toe and grimaces as if deciding that I'm nothing interesting compared to her, which is true. Then she comes back to my face and stares at my eyes in surprise.

"What makes you think you're Lion's daughter, other than your eyes? That proves nothing." She spits in a thick accent and puts her hands on her hips, "If you came here looking for money, I don't think you'll get it. If you came here in some kind of joke, it's not funny. And if you camehere just because..."

"It's not a joke," I interrupt her. And I pull out my original birth certificate out of my suitcase to hand it to her, "His name is on there. Lionel Kendrick Vosse, born December 4, 1986. His signature is not present because he never found out about my birth, so now I have another birth certificate with my mother's last name on it, but this is the original one. “

"Okay..." she murmurs, still reading the record, "I'm still not quite sure if you're telling the truth, this seems very suspicious to me. My brother is too young to have a daughter like you."

"What the hell looks suspicious to you, Angelica?" asks a man coming from the living room to the side of her, putting his hands around my aunt's waist and giving me a friendly smile that makes me sigh. Literally and audibly, "Give her a chance, I don't think she has some malevolent motive for this. And besides, she's looks just like Lion."

As Angie takes a closer look at me, I can't do anything else besides stare at the man. His brown eyes are warm, his red lips are somewhat feminine, but in contrast to his strong jawline they don't look it.

I think he is the most perfect human specimen I have ever seen in my entire life.

I think this is what it feels like to be in love.

"You're right, I guess," she mumbles, "I'm sorry, I'm very suspicious. But you have to accept that this is very, very weird. My name is Angelica."

"My name is Midnight," I greet and turn to look at the man of my dreams, "And you are?"

"Mine. He's mine," Angie answers for him, making him laugh and shake his head. Then he stops touching her to extend a hand toward me. A perfect strong masculine hand.

"My name is Bastian," he introduces himself, "Nice to meet you, Midnight. Please come in, don't stand out there."

I nod towards him and enter the apartment. And even though I consider myself a brave person (relatively), I'm starting to get scared of this. Not the fact that they might do something to me, because they seem like nice people, but I'm starting to worry about what will happen after I meet Lion.

I never planned anything after that.

I don't have much money left. Maybe it's enough for a couple of days in a sleazy hotel but what about after those few days, what will become of me? This is exactly why people don't just decide they want to travel and leave right then and there. There are things to plan.

And the truth is, even though I have enough money to buy another plane ticket and go home, I don't want to do it. I don't want to be stuck home all the time again, I don't want to go back to not eating sugar or dairy or meat. Not before eating all the sweets that come my way. And meat. I'm the main part of the food chain, I should be free to eat as many animals as I want... or maybe the carnivorous desire stems from the deprivation my grandmother forced on me.

Either way, I don't want to go back to that shitty ass house. It smells disgusting and everything is horrible.

"Do you realize how much they look alike?" Bastian asks Angie, getting my attention. My aunt bites her lower lip and nods without taking her eyes off me.

I couldn't tell if we look alike or not, unless I looked in a mirror next to Lion to compare our features. But I can't do that at the moment, so instead of thinking about that, I start looking at my surroundings. The incredibly large apartment.

It's not a very cozy place. The colors are cold and everything is very masculine. The walls are dark blue, the furniture is black and there aren't many decorations, but there are a lot of framed pictures on the walls. I walk over to look at them, leaving my suitcase by the door.

My attention is drawn to the most predominant ones which are of a man with boxing gloves and a belt which, I may not know much about sports, but I know is important. The same man is in other photos with other people, so it becomes obvious that he is Lionel.

My father.

The truth is, he does look too young to be a father. I know he was five years younger than my mom, but I didn't expect him to look this young. He's pretty good looking too, his body is muscular and tall. Athletic, like me. He always has a little smile, like everything is funny to him but more importantly, I look at his eyes.

They are just like mine.

I think I understand now why everyone stares into my eyes with such interest.