The pleasant smell of frying minced meat filled the kitchen as Karen broke them into small pieces using a spatula to get them more evenly brown.
She could hear metal meet wood behind her at the table, where Sebastian cut the vegetables. The chopping was unusually slow, making her worry about his mood today.
He had seemed quite dejected since this very morning. Karen thought she should try to light the mood before asking him what he was worried about.
"Remember to cut 'only' the onions and garlic, Sebastian."
She could hear him laugh dryly behind her and saw his face contort when she turned around to see his reaction. The faked sulking expression on his face got intensified by the tearing of his eyes, which was caused by the freshly cut onions, and made her smile instinctively. It couldn't be that bad if he still had his humor.
"I cut myself one time. One time! How long do you want to ride that dead horse?"
Abusing the tears in his face, Sebastian made his voice crack and gave her an award worthy impression of a deeply hurt man.
Yet his tearing blue eyes didn't leave her for a second while his hands glided over the cutting board, slicing the vegetables easily into small pieces in defiance of her accusation. Karen couldn't hold her laughter at that contradictory sight, bursting out loud.
Despite knowing full well that he was just acting, the thought alone that it might have hurt him made Karen choose to give him an opportunity to strike back. Just to see if he was well enough to take it.
"Haha! As long as you tease me for just missing once at the shooting range."
He jumped instantly at that cue, switching his former act for the usual snarky attitude.
"Missed?! Karen Miller, the award-winning sharpshooter missed?! No way!"
The overdramatic expression on his face got undercut by his sleeves, wiping off the tears in his eyes. Still, it filled her with joy to see him back and well. Time to go to the bottom of his gloomy attitude today.
"I was stressed from work that day. What's your excuse, cooking master?"
Sebastian stood up after all the onions and garlic had turned into tiny cubes and he walked over to the stove in front of Karen.
"Uh… speaking of, how's been work today?"
Karen mixed the meat with the vegetables as he leaned over the stove to drop them into the pan. It was probably not work, seeing how his smile still reached up into his eyes.
"Oh… we're changing the topic? As you wish sous chef."
She gave him a small nudge with her shoulder for the dodge attempt.
"It was actually quite tough today. I don't think I can tell you anything concrete yet, but Stephanie is currently putting some clues together."
Her hands shuffled the content of the pan at regular intervals. His expression changed slightly at the end of her sentence when she spoke.
"What clues?"
Sebastian prepared the sauce with a separate pot, dumping tomato paste and water into it to heat it up. Doing so, he turned around, hiding his expression from her. Might this be the reason for his change of character?
"You know, this profiling and statistic stuff. There have been some suspicious movements lately. She's trying to look into it if there's a pattern."
Karen noticed how worry sneaked slowly into his face. Maybe she shouldn't have mentioned work at all. Seeing how it affected him, there must be some relation to the problem he was really thinking about.
"It's nothing, really. You know you would be the first one to get the info if we found something concrete."
Although that might not take much longer, it could as well be a matter of time.
"What about you? How was your day, Sebastian?"
A look at the minced meat, and she turned the heat off. Leaving it on the warm spot until the sauce was ready.
He shrugged his shoulders while putting the spices into the pot.
"Nothing much. Just some standard sparring with the others and some paperwork. Nothing worth mentioning."
She knew him well enough to notice that there was nothing hidden in his words.
While waiting for the sauce to cook, they prepared the noodles in advance. Left with a dead-end in the conversation, her eyes drifted over to the watch, realizing that it was quite late. Only to see that he did the same. It might just be about his children.
"You think Sophie and Jacob will come home soon?"
Sebastian twitched slightly, giving her the last clue of the case.
"Well, it's already quite late, and they are both not here yet. Sophie should get back at any moment. Except if she got into trouble again… but Jacob, hm… we might better call Warren and ask if something is wrong."
So that was what he had been worried about. It was quite obvious in retrospect. Jacob had his first official day of training with an evaluation from Warren. No wonder he might get worried if there were sudden signs of suspicious movement just the day his son got drafted.
Karen pulled his smartphone from the counter and swiped the recipe away to access the contacts.
"Wait, I'll send him a message."
She wrote a brief message with a request for an answer while he continued cooking.
The answer came quick, even if it was slightly disappointing.
"Warren says it might take a little longer, but they could also just continue tomorrow. Should I drive over to pick him up?"
His furrowed brows relaxed in relief at the news and her offer.
"Yes, that would be great. Thanks, Karen."
She gave him the phone and went for the keys of the car. Karen could hear him sighing while she got the jacket from the floor.
"I know it's silly to worry but... just be sure to get him here without running into Sophie. She's just going to ask questions where he was."
She leaned over to him and gave him a quick kiss before making herself ready to leave.
"I'll be right back."
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She turned the knob and pulled the door open. Just the right moment to hear Sophie cursing and see how she fell flat on her face.
"SHIT!"
Karen didn't hesitate and rushed over to the groaning girl, who lied face down on the pathway to the front door. Her hands were still stuck in the pockets of her jacket and she kept cursing under her breath while shivering from the slightly fresh weather.
"Are you alright?"
She kneeled beside Sophie to help her up, looking for superficial injuries. Besides, the groaning and cursing it seemed that everything's fine. She moved her body around smoothly and there was no blood visible, at least until Sophie turned her head to look at Karen.
"Alright? Are you serious? Whad would you call dhis?"
While she pinched her bloody nose together, her nasal voice changed to an angry tone. Frustrated brown eyes, between the wool hat and scarf, looked at Karen in animosity.
She shook Karen's arms off when she tried to support her and trudged towards the house. Karen didn't want to leave it at that, so she followed her, concerned.
"Wait! Let me at least take a look at it. Not that it's broken."
Sophie stopped to stare at her, still shivering. Her voice sounded now more defeated than frustrated.
"I don'd need your help, Karen. Id's nodhing."
It was hard to believe that while looking at the blood dripping onto her scarf.
"Come here. Let me just take a look."
Void of her fighting spirit, the girl gave in and Karen moved Sophie's head a little backward to get a closer look at the nose. She examined it carefully, concluding that nothing was broken.
"Okay, an ice pack for the neck, and it should be fine. Go ahead into the bathroom, I'll get you one."
Sophie continued to trudge inside, her shoulders hanging weakly down.
Karen rushed to the kitchen, searching for a cooled ice pack in the freezer. Her sudden return earned her a questioning look from Sebastian.
"What happened? Already back?"
She straightened back up after finding what she was searching for and smiled at him. Trying her best to reassure him that everything was fine.
"Sophie tripped outside. Her nose started to bleed a little, but nothing serious."
He turned the stove off and walked towards Karen, taking the ice pack from her hands.
"I'll take care of her, distract her. Could you please go and pick up Jacob? It should be enough time for you two to get back here before she suspects something."
That was not what she expected to hear from him.
"You really mean that seriously, don't you? I thought that was a joke earlier. You don't want to tell her the truth? Going even so far out of your way to hide it actively?"
Karen could see something else besides the worry on his face. She grabbed his arm as he tried to leave for the bathroom.
"I understand why you didn't want to tell them before Jacob got his powers. And why you want to wait for the right moment to tell her as well. But don't you think she should know that her Father is fighting Demons? Not to forget that her brother gets training to do the same. How long do you want to play hide and seek?"
Sebastian didn't look at her, avoiding her gaze. Yet she could still see the desperate expression when he answered.
"Please… this is not the right moment. Can't we talk about that later?"
She let him go and was left standing for a few more moments in the now silent kitchen. Guilt filled her for pressuring him so much, despite knowing his already vulnerable state today. Had she gone too far?
They had so successfully avoided talking about this sensitive topic at home for a long time that now it felt so strange to speak it out loud.
It wasn't even like his children would have believed them from eavesdropping alone.
Magic, Demons, all that was just fiction. Who would believe that it was real?