MasukKaela After a moment, Lynch lets me go. “So, is it a deal? You promise to give us full closure on whatever you want to do?” I frowned. “I don’t have a problem with you, Dad. I do have a problem with mom. Mom always has a problem with everything I want to do. It’s as if she doesn’t want me to do what I want.” “You can always talk to me, Kaela,” Lynch took my hand. “But I can understand your mother. I’m sure she has her reasons for saying no to you.” “But I…” “Look, if you think about it, you’ll agree with me that your mother doesn’t always say no all the time.” I thought about it. Lynch was right. But the occurrences when my mother said no were way more than the occurrences when my mother said yes. I had to agree with Lynch either way. I bobbed my head. “Exactly,” he affirmed. “So, if she says no, she probably has a reason, and I don’t think her reason is to stop you from having your way.” “But mom should try to understand sometimes,” I said. “I won’t walk into danger with my
TeresaI watched, surprised and baffled, as the council members poured out of the room in their numbers until Clara, Keller, and I were left.“C’mon, run along,” Keller curled a brow at Clara. “I’m sure there are issues your Luna would want you to take care of.”I gave Clara a look. She nodded and left.“How are you?” Keller closed the distance between us, the fierce man who kicked every council member out gone. “I… I don’t know,” I said. “I assumed the council would be in the same page with us.”“Yeah, about that,” he glanced around. “We need to talk. But not here.” I nodded, and he offered his hand. “Shall we?”I took his hand.The drive back home was quiet. Clara had to drive my car since Keller took me home in his. When we got to the house, Keller led me to the private lounge and closed the door quietly. I shrugged off my coat and draped it over the hanger, slumping onto the nearest couch. “What a day! And we failed to achieve anything meaningful.”“About that,” Keller crossed
Teresa “C’mon on, get over here,” Lynch's muffled voice came from Kaela’s room. I’d seen when Lynch slipped into her room, looking this way and that. Suspicious to know why Kaela would open the door to Lynch and to no one else, I approached. I wanted to knock at some point, but decided against it. I didn’t know what Lynch was up to, but I was sure it was something good, and I didn’t want to ruin whatever it was. So, I stood back and listened to every one of their conversation. Lynch surely had his way with words, and he knew how to reach out to anyone, wherever they were, no matter how distant they think they are. And he did it with Kaela. I was especially happy for Kaela, grateful that she didn’t act stubborn or try to push him away. If anything, it meant she was beginning to accept her fathers slowly, even if she acted like she didn’t. Grateful for the win, I headed off for the meeting Keller had arranged between the council and me. I was a few minutes late when I arriv
Kaela “I can assure you that your mother is nowhere near, Kaela,” Lynch's muffled voice came from the door. “You have to trust me.” I was standing now, still contemplating whether this was a trick by Lynch and my mother to get me to open the door. But he had been there for too long and assured me that it was him. “I just want to talk,” Lynch added. I moved. It was either Lynch was being sincere, or they were really good at the game they were playing, and there was only one way to find out. I moved another step. If I realized that all of them were there, I’d run. I crossed the room and pulled the door open. Lynch stood on the other side, hand folded to land another knock. There was no one with him. I abandoned the door and returned to my bed. He slipped in, closed the door quietly, and crashed on my couch. An uncomfortable silence took over the room, stretching. I picked up my tablet and turned on the backlight. “I wasn’t happy with my mother, either, growing up,” Lynch broke
Kaela As the car cruised to a stop before the fleet of cars in the garage, I pulled the door open, pushing it wider and jumping out. “Kaela?” Mom called, but I ignored her. “Kaela!” she yelled my name. I kept walking without turning. Inside the sitting room, my fathers were all waiting. Keller walked towards me, worry written over his face. “Sweetheart,” he called. “Are you okay?” I stopped when he approached. He squatted, cradling my chin. “We were looking all over for you.” I knew dad cared, but I was sure he had other things that preoccupied his time. Sometimes, I think he loves the pack more than me. I heard echoing footsteps behind me, and then a familiar voice. Mom “Kaela, I said I’m sorry,” Mom said. I refused to turn around. “What’s going on?” Dad glanced above my shoulder. “I… I kind of misjudged the situation,” mother replied. I suppressed the urge to scoff. “Baby, you’ve got to forgive your mom, you know that, right?” Dad asked. I pulled away from his
TeresaTo say that Kaela’s excitement didn’t scare me was an understatement. She was unusually excited, and I’ve never seen her so excited for school before. I thought it was suspicious, but a part of me brushed it off as the effect of a mother-daughter bonding moment. But even as I tried to put it off as that, my mind told me that something was definitely off about it. I finally found a way to convince myself that the mother-daughter bonding moment I’d started working on months ago, after I stopped Clara from fixing her up and doing the job myself.But by late afternoon, when Mark called me and told me that Kaela was nowhere to be found, that argument could no longer hold water.I recalled the way Kaela’s eyes twinkled with mischief when I dropped her off, as she giggled and walked off. Everything now made sense. It was no mother-daughter bonding bullshit.Kaela was up to her mischief again.I stumbled through my office door, careful not to break the crystal glass doors and wall
TeresaSince the Luna's last visit, I couldn't take my mind off her gestures to me.It dawned on me that she wasn't who Tanya said she was. She was kind at heart, and everything she was doing for me was out of the goodness of her heart and nothing m
TeresaI couldn’t get my mind off the last visit. I was back to my usual self, thanks to the herbs, and I was fine now.But I still couldn’t get my mind off the motivations behind the Luna’s visit. If she visited me, something must be moti
LynchI may have told my brothers that I’ve got this taken care of, but the truth of the matter was that I didn’t know where to start.This world didn’t come with directions or a map. There was no sun either.No way to
KellerThe last time I felt the bond we shared was three days ago. It wasn’t gone. It was severed. It just felt muted. Snuffed.Like a fire burning that went out abruptly.You could describe it as a heartbeat heard through water. It was distant enough to be painful, yet steady enough to keep hope a







