The Stranger

The bathroom light flicks on as the door closes. With a heavy sigh, Kyra Faulkner takes out her very small, very untouched makeup case from below the bathroom counter. She hates putting the stuff on, prefers going all-naturel. But tonight is special. Tonight, the plan she has been thinking about for months gets set into action. And Kyra needs every edge she can have, so if some makeup and doing her hair will get her some help, so be it.

An hour later, she has her thick, wavy, shoulder-length champagne blonde hair curled slightly at the bottom. Her emerald color eyes are outlined with eyeliner and her black mascara makes them pop. With a touch of light pink lip balm, she is quite a sight. Now, it’s not like Kyra has ever had trouble attracting guys’ attention. It’s more the other way around; she is yet to meet a guy who caught her eye. Her twin brother, Kenai, is the same way. Every girl in their small town of Ristey Hollow has fallen for her brother one time or another. Even though he is shier and more polite than his sister, enough to give them a date or two, he still hasn’t found anyone interesting. And that may be the one thing they have in common.

Kyra, not wanting her thoughts to linger on her brother any longer, cleans up the bathroom. She goes back to her room. The electronic white blinds and heavy curtains opened a few hours ago after the sun had set. The black walls and white bed beckon her to abandon her dangerous mission tonight. No. She has lost enough time already. Tonight will happen. After slipping on her signature black, leather jacket over her royal blue t-shirt and black jeans, she grabs the money she needs. Kyra made it from selling back her college textbooks after her last and final semester of years of taking online classes with her friends. Her parents think the money is going towards more studies or a private fund for her future. Wow, aren’t they wrong. Well, technically it is going towards her future. But it’s a future they don’t want for her.

She heads downstairs, knowing full well she has to go through her parents before going to the lake. There she will meet up with her best friend, Elicia, who has agreed to help her tonight. She’s the only soul Kyra trusts with her plan. Hopefully they’ll be able to find someone to willingly help them tonight at the lake where all of the teens and young adults from the town hang out.

She hurries and tries to sneak past the kitchen and den doorways before it’s too late, but with little success. “Kyra! Hon, are you going out?” Her mother calls from the den.

As soon as she hears her, Kyra curses under her breath. “Yes, mom. I’m just meeting Elicia at the lake.” She steps into the den doorway, seeing her mother put down a book in the armchair. Her dad’s desk is a mess, as usual. “Where’s dad?”

She motions with her hand towards the window. “Out. There was something wrong at the Dirksen residence.” She shakes her head, as if she thinks it’s something stupid.

Casper and Ferris Faulkner are model citizens, as well as parents. Her dad, Casper, is the leader of our town. Even though he usually makes decisions with a committee, he has the final say and is a great leader. And her mom is very good at playing the leader’s mate. Everyone in Ristey Hollow loves her and looks to her as Casper’s second hand. And she is; her dad couldn’t live without her. They’re a match made in heaven. They’re powerful, beautiful, and don’t look a day over twenty-five. Because they aren’t, physically. Kyra’s parents, her brother, and she are avori vampires, a rare breed of the main species. What separates other vampires and them, besides dhampires, is they stop aging when bit by a vampire, forever turned from human to eructa. Avori are born vampires and age until they are twenty-five, then they remain immortal. Avori females can give birth to avori kids with or without an avori male; that’s where Kenai and her come in. Oddly, they’re their parents’ only kids. Most avori parents have multiple generations of children if they live long. In all her parents’ seventy-eight years, they only had one set of twins and show no sign of wanting more. Maybe they’re a handful.

“Anything interesting going on out there tonight? Anything special for graduation?” My mom gets up and walks over to Kyra.

She shakes her head, suppressing a guilty look. “Nope. Just the usual kid stuff.” She smooths out her hair and smiles at her daughter’s little makeover. Ferris Faulkner is by far one of the most beautiful women in the town. She has Kyra’s wavy blonde hair but hers is much longer, reaching down to her chest. Her stark blue eyes make her look striking. She constantly wears blush and lipstick to make her pale skin look better. Kyra has learned to live with it.

“Your brother will be home tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll have fun then.” She’s worried Kyra won’t have fun tonight? Oh, don’t worry, mom. Tonight she will probably have more fun and adventure than she’s ever had in her whole life.

She fakes a convinced smile. “I know. I’m gonna go. Don’t wait up.” It’s a stupid thing to say because regardless, they will. Everyone in their house goes to bed a few hours after dawn and that’s when she has to be home by. The tricky part of her plan will be getting where she needs to go tonight and back before the sun rises, killing her. What a sad way to die. Vampires call it ultraviolet death, usually ruled a suicide since every vampire knows its greatest enemy.

Her mother smiles. “Okay, be careful.” Kyra nods and goes out the front door.

She walks fast through downtown Ristey Hollow, passing the small shopping district, the convenience store, the one gas station, the library, and two schools. Just past the high school, where Kyra only graduated four years ago, is the edge of the woods. She follows the dark, dirt path made from years of the town’s younger citizens traveling to the lake, their hideaway. When the sounds of laughing and cheerful shouting fill her ears and the smell of burning wood fills her nostrils, she knows she’s close. Coming to the clearing right before the lake, the scene before her is not at all unlike every Friday night. Teens and college students are scattered everywhere, standing, sitting, and swimming. They talk, dance to music someone always brings, or play with the bonfire that’s lit every time she comes. Kyra doesn’t come much anymore, especially since most of her friends from high school left the town to go explore the world that lies beyond the woods. Like her brother.

As soon as Kyra enters the party, people she knows from school and town say hi, wave, and nod her way. She weaves through the gathering, looking for Elicia. She finds her best friend by some girls by the fire, her dark, long, red hair pulled back in a braid. The fire bounces off her blazing locks, shining in the moonlight. When Elicia’s eyes and hers meet, she excuses herself from whatever conversation she was in to come over to Kyra. Even dressed in a purple, zip up hoodie and black leggings, Elicia still looks gorgeous. They are two of the most stunning girls in the younger generation in the town, but Elicia and Kyra couldn’t be any more different. Elicia has always been the shy and quiet friend, whereas Kyra is anything but.

Elicia frowns at her friend. “Please tell me you’ve changed your mind?”

Kyra shakes her head, wearing a very determined look, one Elicia has always envied. “Not a chance. Elicia, you know why I have to do this. I can’t stay in this town another minute. I love this place, but I want to see the world and everything in it! I want to know what’s out there. You know that.”

Her frown doesn’t change. “You know what’s out there, Kyra. For four years, I’ve watched you waste your college classes on history, anatomy, defense methods, Latin, etc. Classes you would only need for the Guild.”

“Because that’s where I’m headed.” She defends plainly, knowing full well her friend gets why she took them.

“You don’t know that for sure…” Elicia says, her voice filled with doubt.

Kyra takes a step closer to her friend, grabbing her shoulder. “Hey, come with me. I know you’re itching to get outta here as much as I am. We could-.”

“Yeah, I want to see it, but not fight it. There’s too many dangerous things out there, Kyra. If you want to get yourself killed, fine. But I don’t.” Kyra can tell from her friend’s tone that this discussion is over. There’s no way in hell she’s getting her on board.

Even though they’re best friends, Kyra doesn’t know everything about Elicia. She knows she came here her first year of high school. Elicia was already immortal, but she came from a bad background and hadn’t been able to attend high school when she was a teen. Whenever Kyra asked her about her past or how old she was, Elicia shut down on her. She eventually decided it didn’t matter. She loves Elicia, even if she has to leave her for the life she wants.

Elicia sighs and smooths out her hair. “Who do you wanna ask?”

Kyra turns and scans the crowd. “Everyone with a car, I guess.”

They don’t ask everyone, only the other twenty-two year old avori. The teens are either too young or it’s too risky. If they’re jonesing for a thrill ride, that’s not what they need. They need someone who can keep their mouth shut and mind focused. Unfortunately, they reach the bottom of the barrel when tons of people turn them down. Kyra’s last option is to ask Malik. He’s an okay guy and all, but he has the hots for her. Ever since she went to this dance in high school with him, it’s like they’re betrothed. Literally, his and her parents talk about them getting married and stuff like that. As if.

Malik is just not her type. He’s huge, tall, wide, and muscular. He keeps his light brown hair cut short in a crop cut with a short beard along his jaw. And his personality isn’t great. He’s way too obsessed with his appearance, and all he wants is a little wife to cook and clean and let him protect her. No way. Like Kyra would even consider her mom’s life.

She isn’t naïve. Kyra knows that wanting a love like her parents have isn’t realistic because they have something really special. But she at least wants someone who gives a damn about what she wants, and makes her heart skip a beat when she thinks about him. Kyra’s a hopeless romantic at heart and just wants to love someone more than her next breath and wants him to love her the same in return. Is that too much to ask? So, no; Malik isn’t for her. But if pretending to be interested can get her a ride, then so be it.

Elicia and she approach the group of guys Malik is laughing with. When his eyes land on Kyra, his attention is obviously hooked. He completely ignores Elicia. “Hey, Kyra! I didn’t know you were coming tonight.” He doesn’t hide the satisfaction in his voice from the sight of her.

Kyra forces a flirtatious smile. “Hi, Malik. Can I talk to you for a minute?” She summons him with her index finger.

The guys all whistle and cat call. She suppresses the extreme urge to roll her eyes and call them immature. Malik instantly pushes through his friends to meet her. “Anytime.” Kyra leads him off to the side by a few large rocks on the edge of the woods. Malik scowls when Elicia follows. “What’s she doing here?”

She glares back at him. “Nice to see you, too.”

Kyra interrupts their mild bickering. “We need a favor, Malik. I was hoping you could help us. Please?” She touches his arm affectionately. She would feel bad for playing with his feelings if he wasn’t super arrogant and hadn’t wasted four years of his life on her and hadn’t picked out their future kids’ names.

Malik grins, resting a hand on her back. “Anything for you, babe. What’s the favor?”

Elicia and she share a guarded look. She knows Elicia is telling her she’s crazy. Kyra knows she is, but it isn’t going to stop her. “We need a ride out to Eastcliff.”

His eyes widen and the shock on his face is evident. She expected as much. “Eastcliff? Out by Kansas City? Why in the world would you wanna go there, girls?”

“There’s a sorcery shop there. I just need a few things for a class thing. Extra credit after finals, you know.” Kyra lies easily, waving her hand as if it’s nothing. She only knows about the shop because she eavesdropped on a meeting between her dad and some of the other townspeople discussing a trip there. It’s the closest one she knows of.

Malik wears a look of concern. “I don’t know. That sounds kinda dangerous, going that far out of the woods…”

“Scared?” Kyra goads him.

Elicia grins ruthlessly at him. “Yeah, I would have thought you’d like to have some fun?”

He still doesn’t respond, so Kyra takes his arm and gives him an eyeful of her big, green eyes. “Please, Malik? For me?”

That changes his mind quickly. He gives her a half smile. “Okay, when do you wanna go?”

“Tonight?” She asks kindly.

He exhales deeply. “That soon, huh? Okay. Let’s go.”

Perfect. As long as they get to the sorcery shop and it has all the supplies Kyra needs, the first phase of her plan will be underway. The second and third phase are the tougher parts. If they go wrong, she could die. And no matter how brave and willing to sacrifice her life for her happiness she may be, that scares Kyra.

Where did her life go? It seemed only yesterday she was nineteen and everything was going great. Then things changed; her hopes and dreams slipped away, her friends left, and things changed between her and her dearest friend, Kenai.

See, it all started when Kyra was thirteen. A crisis descended upon the peaceful, avori settlement. A group of demons attacked the town. They were extremely outnumbered, so the town guards took them down but not before fifteen casualties. That was a huge loss on the town, but there was another problem. Reapers, creatures that collect the dead, didn’t come to reap the dead avori or demons. People in the town knew this because eructa are good at sensing supernatural phenomena. And a bunch of ghosts hovering in a small town is a phenomenon. Then, the Shield Guild came. The warriors dressed in black leather were merely mentioned as a legend in Ristey Hollow until that day. They came in, broke the spell that had been cast on the town to prevent the dead from leaving, and helped the reapers clean up the mess. In Kyra’s eyes, they are the highest authority. They really aren’t; they’re just an army of eructa who live to fight evil and protect their people from the human world.

Ever since that day, Kyra knew what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. She wanted to join the Shield Guild. It was the perfect job. You got to travel the world, fight crime, and all to protect the world and people she loves. And she also wanted to do something else in the Guild. She had her own goal, a private agenda. She wanted to make the vampire species more accepting of the avori. According to her parents and every other avori vampire she has ever met, avori are hated by the other vampire races. Bohgs, dhampires, istori, pricoli, turned, and even lepictas hate them. Kyra’s dad told her it was because avori are the only vampire race that was born one-hundred percent vampire and lived their whole life as an eructa. All the others, except dhampires, were once human and were transformed to vampires at some point, usually against their will. Dhampires got some sympathy since they are half-human.

For some reason, remos (humans who know to some degree about Kyra’s world and what creatures lie within it) are very hostile towards the eructan world. Most humans when they learn about any of the eructa, are scared or think of them as monsters. Kyra doesn’t get it. From what she knows about humans, some of them sound worse than the nastiest avori. So the other vampires hate people like Kyra because she has been a monster her whole life. Besides being incredibly prejudice, that statement is just not true. The avori are actually one of the most peaceful races, in her opinion. So Kyra’s dream was to join the Guild, see the world, save people, and try to help the situation between vampires and avori in any way she could.

So what did she do to make her a dream a reality? She took every precaution out there. Kyra took self-defense classes and learned basic fighting techniques. She hit the books hard for three years before she turned twenty, the age you could apply for the Guild. She learned everything she could and had the best chance of getting in over anyone else.

Then, her and her brother turned nineteen. They were both enrolled in the online college classes every avori in their town did after high school. They were both really bright. But Kyra knew what she wanted to do with her life. Kenai didn’t. If there was anything Kyra could call her twin brother, it would be indecisive. He jumped around twenty different careers in one year alone. He liked reading and computers, two things that didn’t make up any jobs Kenai was too keen about. So what did he do? Kenai piggybacked onto Kyra’s dream and signed up to take the Guild’s entrance exam. You would think that’s cute; twin brother and sister working together.

Here’s the thing about the Guild. They only have two rules about entering the top secret organization. No lamia, lepictas, rugupumas, hirgs, ghouls, or zombies are allowed. And if a member of your direct family is already admitted, a second member will not be allowed. The Shield Guild feels that having multiple members of the same, direct family would create a huge weakness. It would make those members vulnerable to each other and give easy access to evil eructa to the Guild.

So Kyra and Kenai both took the test. They both studied; Kyra for three years, Kenai for a week. They didn’t both get in. Just Kenai. That stung for a while, more than anything else ever had. Her rejection letter next to his acceptance one is an image that will always haunt the two of them, but she could get over that. She actually almost was. She wasn’t mad at him for getting in. She was for the first year, but then she realized it wasn’t Kenai’s fault they picked him instead of her. If the system was flawed enough to pick a guy who’d never even read a book on the different species of eructa or what they eat, or who’d never touched a weapon, or even glanced at the Guild’s mission statement over a girl who did everything possible to get in, then that’s on them.

No, she’s mad at Kenai for applying in the first place. It would have been one thing to apply after she had been rejected, but to apply at the same time? Kenai had known it was her dream for seven years to join the Guild. He had known it would kill her to not get in. But what did he do? Kenai purposely lowered her chances of getting in. It’s bad enough she was competing against people all over the world, but her own brother made it worse with his own test. He lowered her chances to fifty-fifty since they had to choose between him and her. It hurt her, more than any stupid fight or argument they ever got into in their twenty years. Instead of being her usually sweet, sensitive, kind brother and letting her have it, have her dream, Kenai took it. He went off to the Guild and continually comes home and brags about his new adventures, his new friends and family, and his life. Kyra’s life. She didn’t talk to him for six months after what happened. He never apologized, but her parents forced them to make up. They’re better, but it’s still not the same between them. They used to be the closest a brother and sister could be, looking out for each other, and always trusting the other with anything. Now she can’t trust him. He stabbed her in the back.

She tried to get over it. She tried to find something else to do with her life. But she wants to fight and travel and meet all the creatures from all the books she read. Only a Guild member does that. Then, she planned. She knew she had to get in somehow. She had to convince them to let her in. Her plan was tricky and risky in every sense, and if she went through with it, she would have to betray Kenai. It was gonna hurt, but he would understand. She hoped.

Kyra’s plan was to buy some magical supplies from this sorcery shop, and using it, knock out Kenai. He would come visit for a few days, and when he prepared to leave, she would jump him. You see, the only way into the Guild’s base is through teleportation which is only possible for some demons and all Guild members. Using a special potion, she would knock out Kenai at the exact moment he was about to teleport, holding open the teleport hole. After using another potion to disguise herself as her brother, she would break into the base. Plan A is to find something interesting from her confidential test scores; plan B is whatever she comes up with on the fly. Everything rests of this trip to Eastcliff tonight.

The three of them pile into Malik’s white Ford Explorer. He drives with Elicia next to him, and Kyra hides in the back. They make it through town with no trouble. Then he takes them down the ten mile round leading to the edge of the avori territory, the whole ride protected by the shelter of the thick, dark, Missouri woods. This will be Kyra’s first time out of the town. All of her college classes have been online or at the high school. She didn’t even get to take the Shield Guild entrance exam outside of Ristey Hollow. They came and gave it to her here.

When they reach the front gates, Kyra gets her first glimpse of a creature besides an avori; a musae. The unnaturally beautiful demons guard anything needing protection from roads, gates, sacred ground, to an avori settlement. She’d read books and watched documentaries telling her that musae could hypnotize people and drink blood, which is odd for demons. When the SUV stops at the guardhouse the musae sits in, Kyra sees the demon up close. He is gorgeous with a head of red hair and a lean body to die for under his strapping, blue and black uniform. He shines his flashlight through Malik’s window. “Is there anyone else in the vehicle with you?” He asks them in a stunningly handsome voice.

I know he has a picture of Kyra’s face in that guardhouse. She has no doubt her parents have told the guards to not let her step foot out of the town. “No, just us two, sir. We’re going to the city for the night.” Malik replies coolly.

“Okay, be careful. There have been reports of stakings downtown lately. Have a nice night.” He warns them kindly.

“Stakings? What?” Malik freaks.

She sees Elicia lean over the seat and thank the musae. “Thank you. We will. Have a nice night.” She closes the window. “Drive.”

The SUV starts moving, but Malik isn’t convinced. “Kyra, stakings! Stakings! We’re gonna die!”

When they are a safe distance away from the guard, she sits up in the back. “Shut up. We’re not even going in the city. We have no time to waste. We’re gonna be risking dawn as it is.” Without another word, Malik steps on the gas.

Eastcliff is a small, suburb town in the Kansas City area. Kyra has already seen more cars than she has in her whole life so far, and they’d passed malls bigger than Ristey Hollow. Kyra wishes she could enjoy it, but her mind is constantly worrying about everything that could go wrong; getting lost, discovered, or staked. When they get to downtown, Kyra spots the sorcery shop right away. The huge, neon sign from the road has a small, flashing lightning bolt on it. The lightning bolt is the sign of the witches, insignificant to the human eye. “There. Park in the lot.” She tells Malik. The shop is in a normal looking strip mall with a drug store, a fast food place, and a place that has to do with nails.

He parks and turns the SUV off. “What’s the plan?” He asks.

Kyra comes up between the seats to face the two in front. “Malik, you stay and watch the car. Elicia, you come with me. The faster we get out, the better.” Malik looks like he’s about to argue about staying alone, but the girls jump out before he can stop them. And it looks like he’s too scared to get out. Baby.

Kyra pushes open the glass door to the shop, and can’t believe what she sees. The place looked so small from the outside, but it’s really huge. There are twenty aisles of shelves about two stories high. The signs hanging above the aisles have the weirdest categories on them, some even in a language Kyra doesn’t understand. “This is your first time in a sorcery shop, I presume?” A voice rings out from a desk on their left. The two girls look and see an older woman with short, dark gray hair in a matching gray sweater. Even though she is older, her face has hardly any wrinkles and her eyes are brown and kind. She could tell at once she was a friendly witch, one who has been practicing for decades. She smiles at them. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

Elicia shakes her head. “No, we’re from Ristey Hollow.”

Realization fills her almond-shaped eyes. “Aw, avori. Now what are two young, vampire stallions like yourselves doing here tonight? You’re not practicing.”

Kyra takes a step towards her. “No, we just need a few supplies. Nothing fancy.”

She comes out from behind the desk. “Alright, then let me help you. It’ll take you forever to find anything if you can’t read Eaug, aka witch slang. What do you ladies need?”

“First, I need something to hold open a teleport hole for at least thirty seconds.”

She nods and leads them down the first aisle. “A teleportation holder. Right this way.” The shelves we pass are full of body parts, dead animals, plants, and things Kyra can’t even name. They get to a section full of minerals, shiny gems, and rocks. The woman hands Kyra a gray rock the size of her fist. “Here you go. Just throw it on the ground right before teleporting. It should hold it open up to a minute. Just one?”

She nods, taking the rock as Elicia looks at the shelves curiously. “Yes. I also need something to knock someone out safely for a long time.”

“Knock out juice. Okay.” The woman leads them to another aisle and gives her a bottle with a red liquid. “They don’t have to drink it; just get it in their eyes, mouth, or nose. One drop of this will at least put them out for a few hours. Anything else?”

“Last thing; I need something to disguise myself, preferably as a specific person.” She is sure magic is that powerful. Hopefully she can afford something that elaborate.

The witch shrugs. “Well, you have two options. I can give you a spell or a potion. A spell will hide you from witches who can see right through a potion, but the potion lasts much longer.”

Kyra needs time on her side. She’ll just have to take a chance and hope no witches are in Kenai’s troop. “I’ll take a potion.”

The witch smiles. “Lovely.”

Three hours later Malik, Elicia, and Kyra are driving through the gate past the same musae they saw earlier. Malik brings them to the front of Kyra’s house, the lights are off. Weird. They can’t be asleep yet…mom and dad must be out. With an hour to dawn, that’s pretty strange. “Thanks for the ride, Malik. I owe you one.” She tells him with her normal, polite voice. She doesn’t need to play him now that his job is done.

Malik still flirts back. He turns in his seat to look at her. “I’ll be cashing in that favor real soon, babe.”

She won’t be here. “I’m gonna walk Kyra up. Be right back.” Elicia gets out and Kyra follows, strolling up the front sidewalk as if the girls hadn’t gone out into the unknown world and purchased things Kyra will be using to break the law. When they get to the door, she faces her best friend. Elicia places her hand on her shoulder. “Hey, you be careful, okay? And you let me know as soon as you can how things go, alright?”

Kyra nods. “I will. I love you, Elicia.”

She throws her arms around Kyra in a sudden embrace. “I’m gonna miss you. Please don’t get yourself killed. Promise me.”

She hugs her back and nods. “I promise. I’ll be back and tell you about everything. You’ll see.”

They release each other, wipe away some tears, and Elicia leaves. Kyra watches the SUV drive down the street. Then, she goes inside. Her parents are out so she avoids the usual late-night roasting she expected.

Kyra wakes up late; it’s four by the time she gets up. In her sleep t-shirt, long pajama pants, and bedhead, she goes downstairs, hearing voices in the living room as she nears the first floor. She walks to the doorway and sees who it is; her parents are sitting around talking to her brother. Kyra didn’t expect to see him until later; he’s early. All three stop and at look her, everyone smiling at Kyra’s presence. “Hey, sleepyhead.” Her dad greets with a coffee mug pressed to his lips. Casper Faulkner looks more like a college intern than a town leader in his nice, light gray suit with a red tie. His light brown hair is gelled back, as usual, with his green eyes that match his kids’ lighting up the room.

She yawns and nods. “Yeah, I had a late night.”

Her brother stands up and welcomes her with open arms. “Hey, sis.” She gives her a brother a good look over. He’s no longer the skinny, cute nerd she grew up with. Ever since Kenai joined the Guild, he’d gotten better as far as his personal appearance goes. Every time he comes home, he’s always a little more muscular, a little taller, and seems to carry himself with some more confidence. He keeps his curly blonde hair really short and his green eyes seemed to beg her for something.

Kyra hugs him back. She did miss him. She misses the way it used to be, but she has to fix her life before she fixes them. Kyra knows that for sure. “Hey, Kenai. How’s it going?”

He pulls back and smiles down at her. “Good, but it’s been busy. Sorry I missed graduation.”

She shrugs it off. “It’s nothing…”

“I heard everyone was out celebrating last night.” He states, obviously curious about his old friends.

“Yeah, it was fun. Elicia and I had a good time.” He used to be good buddies with her too, before he left that is.

Her mother clears her throat. “Speaking of last night, I heard you were out flirting with Malik.” Oh gods. She hated living in a small town sometimes. Too much talk. Nothing was a secret.

“It was nothing, mom. I didn’t propose or anything.” Kyra reassures her, trying to end the uncomfortable discussion they were gonna no doubt have.

She doesn’t let it go. “Honey, I like him. You better go out with him again. His mother and I were talking-.”

“Oh please! I don’t like him! He is the last person I ever want to date. You know that.” She cries out, dropping into an open armchair.

Kenai rises to her defense. “I agree with Kyra, mom. I don’t like Malik that much either. He’s too weak. She’ll break him.” The smile on his lips reflects teasing love. It shows some of the old Kenai she misses.

Her dad just sits there, taking the whole scene in. She isn’t sure what his stance is on Malik. Kyra’s sure he isn’t thrilled about the idea of his wife marrying off his twenty-two year old daughter. Mom comes over and sits on the coffee table across from her daughter, her skinny jeans disagreeing with the low crouch. “Kyra, honey, I just want you to be happy. You’re done with school now and I don’t want you throwing your life away because of the Guild.” Kyra tightens her hands into fists, hating the way her parents always disagreed with her dream and belittling it. “There’s more to life than fighting. There’s adventure and love. I just want you to have it.”

Kyra stands up and throws her hands in the air in annoyance. “I know, but I don’t need a man to make me happy! I know what I want.” She goes back upstairs to shower and change.

After getting ready, Kyra changes into blue skinny jeans, a black cami under her black jacket, with matching black convers. She towel dries her hair as she walks into the hallway. All of a sudden, she hears Kenai below her. “Now? Are you sure?” No response. “Okay, I’ll stop at headquarters to grab it before coming back to the compound. Later.” He must be on the phone. He’s going back to the Guild? Well, first he’s going to the headquarters; where Kyra needs to break into. It’s almost sundown. Is Kyra ready to do this? Can she betray Kenai, break into the Guild, and possibly get killed in the process? Yes, if she doesn’t do it now, she might never do it.

Kyra runs back into her room, hiding the three ingredients in her leather jacket. She puts the small, silver-coated blade she bought online in there too for precaution. She can’t be too safe. And there was one last thing she had done to devote herself to this crazy plan. Kyra instinctively touches the tattoo behind her right ear she drew into her skin with needle and black ink she bought online too. It took her hours in front of the bathroom mirror to get it. She decided to give herself the three diamonds connected with one on top of the other two, surrounded by a circle, the symbol of the Shield Guild that every member had tattooed behind their right ear. She did it in case the transformation potion wears off and she can get her way out of it. Then there’s a knock at her door. “Come in.” She says in a shaky voice.

Kenai comes in with his gray jacket on. He’s going now. “Hey, sorry but I have to take off. Duty calls.”

Kyra nods weakly. “I get it.”

He looks like he’s gonna leave with just that, but his frown keeps him there. Kenai comes in her room and grabs her shoulders. “Kyra, I hate this distance between us. I want things to be like they used to be. What can I do?” His voice is begging.

She holds her ground. Hold onto that anger or she’ll never be able to go through with tonight. “You’ve done enough.”

He pulls at his hair with both hands. “What do you want from me, Kyra?”

“An apology would be nice, or at least recognizing you screwed up and did this to us.” She mutters sadly.

His green eyes fill with grief, and for a minute she thinks he’s gonna break down and do it. He’s gonna say the two words she’s been waiting for. But no. His phone pings and he curses. “I gotta go. We’ll finish this later.”

She waits for him to leave and rips off the top of the transformation potion. She drops the hair she silently tugged off his head when he turned around into the bottle and downs it. The liquid tastes disgusting, like cleaning products and mouthwash. The potion starts working at once. Kyra’s eyesight fades and an intense pain follows, knocking her to the floor. After a few seconds, the pain fades and her eyesight returns. When she stands up, she sees her hands and clothes have changed. She is wearing exactly what Kenai was. Wow, that’s magic for you. Looking in the mirror, she is the spitting image of her brother, well, more than usual.

With no time to gawk, she runs to his room. His door is opened a crack and she sneaks in. Kenai stands in the middle of his room and she knows he’s about to disappear. Wrapping her hand around the rock, Kyra throws the rock down to the floor behind Kenai and the smoke fills the room. Now she only has a minute. Kenai turns around in a whirl. “What the-?”

“-sorry, Kenai.” She quickly apologizes and throws the open bottle of knock out juice in his face. The red liquid drenches his face and shirt. His surprised, open mouth gets most of it. Her brother immediately drops to the floor.

After taking a deep breath, Kyra takes a step forward. This is it. No turning back. After tonight, she’ll know where her life is headed. She walks into the clear hole in the smoke all around her.