Conflicted: Keegan's Chronicles (23 page)

“What is back?” Rourks heart was racing.

She lifted her eyes to his. “The bond. I’m
so angry at you I can’t see straight. But, I want to wrap myself in
you and never let you go. I have never felt so conflicted before.”
She glanced back at Donald, frozen in place. “I care about
him.”

“I can see that.” Rourk glared over at
Donald, his jaw clenched. He pulled her close, staring down into
her blue-green eyes. “Keegan, I love you. I am your chosen. We are
meant to be.” He slowly traced his finger down the side of her face
and outlined her full lips with his finger before he bent down to
kiss her.

Keegan did not resist. She heard the
crackling, but she didn’t care. She continued to kiss him as if no
one else were there. She gently pulled away and whispered his name.
He groaned and tangled his hands in her hair. Their eyes met for an
instant and she leaned in to kiss him again when she heard Thaddeus
clear his throat.

Keegan pulled away, her cheeks flaming.
Donald was standing closer than he had been, his shoulders slumped
and his eyes wounded. Keegan lifted her hand towards him, then let
it drop. “I’m so sorry. It’s just too strong, I can’t fight
it.”

“Can’t or won’t?” he said, his voice
dangerously soft.

Keegan opened her mouth to reply, but
noticed her brother giving Anna a high five. She jerked towards
them with a glare, momentarily forgetting Donald. “You did this,
didn’t you?”

Anna smiled. Thaddeus just stared.

“You didn’t even think of Donald’s
feelings.” Keegan motioned to her boyfriend where he still stood,
his hands limp at his sides as he glared at Thaddeus and Anna. “Or
bother asking me if this is what I wanted.”

“It’s what was meant to be, Keegan,”
Thaddeus said, leaning against the wall.

“Who are you to say what is meant to be and
what is not?”

“Keegan, chill out. We didn’t do anything.
The rings have always cemented the bond. All we did was make you
want to try on the ring.” Thaddeus glanced over at Anna. She was
still smiling.

“Were you in on this?” Keegan crossed her
arms and looked up at Rourk.

“No, I had no idea. However, if they had
asked me I would have willingly been involved. I would have done
anything to get our bond back.” Rourk met her eyes.

Keegan reached for him without even
thinking, her hand cupping his cheek.

Donald hung his head, taking a deep breath
and letting it out. He bolted from the room, morphing into a tiger
before them, knocking over furniture as he took off at full
speed.

Startled, Keegan stared after him into the
dim evening beyond the door. She looked back at Rourk, her heart
aching.

“I’m going after Donald.”

Julia Crane is the author of the
Coexist: Keegan's Chronicles
.
She has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. Julia has believed
in magical creatures since the day her grandmother first told her
an Irish tale. Growing up her mother greatly encouraged reading and
using your imagination. Although she's spent most of her life on
the US east coast, she currently lives in Dubai with her husband
and three children.

Find Julia online at
http://juliacraneauthor.com/index.html

Chapter One

The sun was beating down on me as I sat on
the stoop waiting for Mrs. Armstrong to pick me up. I adjusted my
hat to keep more of the sun out of my face. It was bright and I was
tired.

A silver Honda Accord pulled up and the
window rolled down. “C’mon Kairi, hop in,” a familiar voice called.
I stood up, picked up my backpack, and walked to the car. As soon
as I was buckled, Mrs. Armstrong took off down the road. “How are
you doing?” she asked.

“Fine,” I responded, not really in a sharing
mood. “Where am I going?”

She sighed. “It’s hard to find a good place
for teenagers to go. There aren’t many homes available.”

“Does that mean I have to go to another
group home?”

“No, I was able to get you in at the
Thompson’s. But, if this one doesn’t work out, I’m sorry Kairi,
you’ll have to go to a group home.” Stopping at a red light, she
looked over at me. She had short brown hair and kind hazel
eyes.

I just nodded. “Okay.”

“Did something specific happen at the last
place?” She turned back to the road.

“No.” I never knew why foster parents didn’t
like me. I wasn’t a troublemaker. I just didn’t fit in. The longest
I had lasted in one foster home was six months. The shortest, a
week. Mrs. Armstrong always got a call that ‘it just wasn’t working
out’ and could she please find another place for me to go? Now,
after twelve years of being in the system, foster homes were
scarce. I had been to almost all of them.

The group homes were harder because there
were a lot of kids living there and the kids were meaner than the
adults. None of them ever liked me. One even told me I was too
pretty to be there. I didn’t agree with that. I wasn’t ugly, but I
didn’t consider myself beautiful.

I remembered it like it was yesterday. It
was two years ago and one of my roommates yanked my long, golden
blonde hair. “Hey!” I yelled.

“What?” she yelled back. “You won’t fight
me, pretty girl. You wouldn’t want to get dirty. I should punch
you. Then you wouldn’t be so pretty, but I’d get in trouble. Can’t
have that.”

I glared at her wishing that I had it in me
to just knock her out. But, she was right; I’d get in trouble for
throwing the first punch. “Just leave me alone.”

“Look at you, you can’t even look angry at
someone. You and those stupid brown, puppy dog eyes of yours.
Pathetic!” she snapped before she stormed away.

“Kairi?” Mrs. Armstrong said.

I realized I had missed something. “Sorry.
What?”

“I asked if anyone had made you
uncomfortable.”

“No. It was fine.”

“Hmmm. Somehow I doubt that.” She pulled up
in front of a brownstone. “Here we are. You’ll have to switch
schools again.”

“I know.” Being the new kid at school wasn’t
new to me. I had done it so many times. Sometimes I left a school,
went to another, and then went back to the old school. “Do I need
to go to school? It’ll be out for the summer in a few weeks. Can’t
I just…skip?”

“No, you can’t skip. You need to finish it
out.”

“Bummer,” I muttered.

“Do you need anything?” Mrs. Armstrong
asked.

I needed a lot of things. Parents would be
nice. Friends. Maybe a boyfriend. A house to call home. Some nice
clothes. All things I’d probably never have. “No,” I answered.

Sighing again, she opened her door.
“Okay.”

I opened my door, grabbed my bag, and got
out. We walked up the stairs together. She rang the doorbell and we
waited for someone to answer. Who would it be this time? An older
couple? An infertile couple? A single person? I could hear
footsteps and then the door swung open. A middle-aged couple had
won the prize – me! I rolled my eyes at myself. “Good evening.” The
balding man nodded. “I’m Mr. Thompson. You must be Kairi.”

I sighed. He had said my name like Carrie.
“It’s Ky-ree,” I pronounced it correctly.

“Oh. I’m sorry. Ky-ree. That’s pretty.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

Mrs. Thompson smiled. “Welcome Kairi. Come
on in.”

I walked in and smelled something
mouthwatering. I couldn’t quite place it, but it was sweet and
yummy. Mrs. Armstrong and the Thompsons were talking. “Here are all
the papers needed to register her at school and the medical forms
for treatment if she needs it. I just need you to sign these papers
and I’ll be out of your hair.”

I wandered around their living room. There
were some wedding pictures of the Thompsons. They looked much
younger, so it must have been taken years ago and some pictures of
a boy and a girl. There was also a table with a bunch of different
kids pictures on it. “Those are all the foster kids that have come
to stay with us.” Mr. Thompson said. He was standing next to me
now.

I nodded. “Cool. How many do you have
now?”

“Two girls. An eleven and a fourteen year
old. You’re fifteen?”

“I’ll be sixteen in a month.”

“Cool!” he said. “Mrs. Thompson loves an
excuse to eat cake.”

I laughed. “Me too.”

“Kairi,” Mrs. Armstrong called. “I’ll be
going now. You call if you need anything.”

“I will.”

She lingered for a minute giving me a look I
had come to know as her please-try-to-fit-in-this-time look. I
understood. I was out of options if it didn’t work out here. When
she was gone, the Thompsons called down the other kids for
dinner.

When they entered the living room, they
stopped short when they saw me. “Ivy, Lara, this is Kairi. She’ll
be living here,” Mrs. Thompson said.

Ivy was the smaller of the two and had
jet-black hair. It hung to her shoulders and swayed when she
walked. Her eyes were a bright blue. Lara was taller and bigger,
not fat, but looked like she was heading there. Her hair was brown
and frizzy. Her green eyes narrowed as she looked at me.

Ivy looked at Lara, almost like she was
looking for permission. Then she forced a smile and said, “Hi.”

“Hi.” I smiled and looked from Ivy to Lara
and back again, hoping that maybe this time would be different. By
the look on Lara’s face, I doubted it would be.

We walked into the kitchen where Mrs.
Thompson was pulling out a ham.
Try, really try to get them to like you
.
“That smells delicious,” I complimented.

“Thank you. It’s ham with a maple syrup and
brown sugar glaze on it.”

Ooh
. No wonder it smelled so good. “Can I help?” I
asked.

“Lara, can you show Kairi where the plates
are so she can help you set the table?”

Lara shot me a look and then said, “Sure.”
She pointed to the cabinet near the sink. “They’re in there. Get
five I guess.”

I nodded and grabbed five plates out of the
cabinet and put them on the table. I did the same with the glasses
and silverware. We sat down and had ham, potatoes, and vegetables.
“Dinner was very good,” I said later as I helped to clean up.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Thompson replied.

She took me upstairs when we were done
cleaning up and showed me to my room. “Ivy and Lara share the other
room. This will be your room. There is another bed here for another
girl. I’ll take you to school tomorrow and get you registered.
Lights out is ten for you. There’s a TV in the family room or books
you can read. Or if you and the girls want to play a game, we have
a bunch of board games too.”

“Okay, thank you.” I started unpacking and
when I turned back around, I found her still in the doorway
watching me. “Was there something else?” I asked.

“No. Sorry.” She quickly went back
downstairs.
Weird,
I thought.

When I was done unpacking, I went to the
family room and watched some TV. Half an hour before lights out, I
turned it off and went to the bathroom. There I got ready for bed
by brushing my teeth and washing my face. I had to pass Ivy and
Lara’s room to get to mine from the bathroom. Ivy and Lara were
already in bed, so I crept by quietly. I overheard Lara talking to
Ivy. “I don’t know. She’s just weird.”

“No, she’s not,” Ivy said. “She’s
pretty.”

Lara scoffed. “Whatever. Something’s off
about her.”

I sighed and kept walking to my room. Only
here for a few hours and already someone doesn’t like me. Hanging
my head, I walked back to my room, and climbed in bed.

Sleep came quickly, but so did the
nightmares. I could never make sense of them, but they had to do
with being chased by monsters. I woke up with my heart pounding
many times. What was wrong with me that I had so many nightmares?
They shook me to the core. The last time was so bad that I had
tears running down my face and was trembling.

In the morning, I stood in front of the
mirror getting ready for school. I had brushed my hair and pulled
it into a ponytail. I had a little bit of make-up and was trying to
decide how much to put on.

“You’re so white,” Ivy said, scaring me from
the doorway.

“You’re white too.” I laughed.

“Yeah, but you’re really white.”

True. I was pale. I never used powder or
cover-up because there wasn’t any for someone with skin as pale as
mine. I put on some blush and eyeliner. Then I rummaged through my
bag for my lipstick. I found a bright red one. That would work. I
was wearing jeans and a black shirt. The red would stand out.

Lastly, I examined a brown freckle of mine
near my left ear. It was bigger and darker than a normal freckle,
but it wasn’t a mole and certainly didn’t have a hair sticking out
from it. No amount of make-up could ever cover it up either. It was
just there.

“Time to go!” Mrs. Thompson called. I walked
slowly down the stairs dreading the day in store for me.

Before going outside, I put on my hat and
sunglasses. Ivy shot me a strange look.

I shrugged and said, “I burn easily…because
I’m so white.”

She giggled. Lara sent her an evil look and
she shut up.

In the car, I fiddled with the necklace that
hung around my neck. “That’s pretty,” Mrs. Thompson said.

I looked down at the necklace. It was a big,
gold heart on a gold chain. It looked really old, antique-like. I
only took it off to shower, and that was only because I was afraid
that the water might ruin it. I was told that I had been found with
it. A small, petite, blonde girl with a big necklace around her
neck. It was the only thing I had of my parents, or what I assumed
had been my parents. At the very least, it was the only thing that
might someday lead me to my family.