DARKSIDE

17 | Interrogation

"Hey to you, too, Tim?"

Nova could not believe the person standing in front of her.

Him? Here?

It just did not make any sense.

"What are you doing here?" She asked him as he began to twirl her, following the song. Her right arm pressed on the small of her back, her fingers pressing against the cloth of her dress. The other was in Tim's hold, with which he was twirling her.

He didn't answer her and that made her temper rise slightly; her head swirling with questions, her heart beating rapidly. Because she knew him. She knew him all along and couldn't even recognise him. If she had, that would have saved her the embarrassment that she was now definitely going to face.

That thought alone was enough for her to ask him again. This time, in a pressing tone.

"I'm asking something." She said, her hands now resting on his shoulders after he pulled her against him, her hold beginning to tighten there.

She could feel her guard wavering but that was when she caught sight of Derek. He looked much more intimidating, she almost pitied the girl he was interrogating.

"Ask your father," he replied. His statement enough to make her pull her gaze towards him. Her eyebrows began to meet in confusion but she still managed to keep a neutral expression on her face.

She wanted to ask him to tell her everything without being vague but he was still doing the push and pull thing; quite rapidly, too. Had it been any other place or time, she would have given him a good piece of her mind but she couldn't, because it wasn't. But she still tried to get a little something just to have an idea of what was happening.

"What do you mean? Tell me."

Tim seemed to stiffen at her question and her tone. His eyes wavering through the crowd as if she made him nervous and he was looking for someone who could take him out of the situation. But when Nova's stare didn't waver and he gathered that the song wasn't ending soon and neither were the partners going back to the previous ones, he sighed.

"I can't." He said. Nova didn't pry him any longer. It was obvious he wasn't going to answer anything. That he couldn't. But she very well knew who could, and she was definitely going to ask him and get some much needed answers.

She decided to not be as intimidating as she was trying to be then. She decided to take a different route to the problem. She would ask her father later, but it couldn't hurt to get as much information as she could from him. Because when it came to matters like this one, her father wasn't to be trusted.

"Alright then," she said loosening her grip on him and softening her expressions. After looking around a bit she looked back up at him and asked, "at least tell me how you got here."

It wasn't much different from the original question but her tactic very much was. She was fluttering her eyelashes up at him, her brows furrowed in the kind of manner which showed that she was simply wondering.

It seemed to work on him because after a while of just staring at her in a way that made her think that he was trying to see through her, he sighed and then said, "Your father invited me."

"And the girl who was with you?" She didn't let her stance lose.

"She is my date." He said, his ears turning a light shade of pink just when he looked away from her and at the other people dancing.

"Oh, and who is sh —"

But she didn't get to finish her sentence because Tim had pushed her away from him and another hand had her hand in its grasp. And when that touch erupted a kind of tingle from where the hand held her, she had an idea as to whose hand that was even before she looked at him.