It had been two and a half years since the incident with Chase. They still didn't know what happened and were uneasy that he hadn't made his presence known again. It could be that he was just biding his time, recuperating and waiting for the right moment to attack. A moment when the Sons of Ipswich were vulnerable. Or maybe he had just used so much that he died. A guy could hope, right? Pogue wondered when the time would be right, if Chase was still around. It wasn't like they weren't vulnerable. After all, they were split up. They had been for over a year now. They still saw each other over the summer, but they were starting their second year of college tomorrow and they had been separated by their ever evolving lives.

Tyler was at Princeton, dating the very polite daughter of a very wealthy and influential state senator. Reid was Yale, surprisingly not using, while actually getting good grades. Of course he hadn't stopped his playboy ways, but he had cleaned up his act a bit.

Pogue and Caleb had both gone to Harvard and despite them both doing well in school, Pogue was becoming concerned about Caleb. He was acting different lately. Whenever Pogue asked, Caleb just said he was adjusting to the single life. Over the course of the summer, Sarah had broken up with Caleb. Caleb's only comment on it had been that Sarah had promised to keep their secret, because face it, who would believe her, and that they had just changed too much and were different people now.

Pogue would be the first to admit that people change and go their separate ways, after all, following the Chase incident, Kate and Pogue had grown apart. Kate knew that Pogue was somehow involved in why Chase 'left', and because she knew he was hiding something, their relationship began to fracture. After graduation when Kate moved back to New York to go to school, they tried to make the long distance thing work. But soon Kate said she was too busy for Pogue to come visit and eventually they just didn't call anymore. This summer Kate had come to Ipswich to see some old friends and Pogue had honestly intended to try and work it all out. He had even been considering telling Kate his secret. But when they sat down in the café to talk, Kate had gone first.

"Pogue, I know we never really said anything definite, but we haven't talked in forever. I really think the silence spoke for itself."

Pogue had sat staring at his phone a million times wondering if he should call her, but without just coming out and telling her he was a witch, and you couldn't do that out of the blue, what was he going to say that could fix anything. He cared about her, he really did, but things hadn't been right for a long time and he wondered if he should just break it off and let them go their separate ways.

And then Kate made that unnecessary. "Pogue, I've been seeing someone."

Despite their distance that still felt like a punch to the stomach. "Seeing someone?"

"Pogue, do you realize it's been almost six months since we spoke. It's been ten months since we've seen each other in person."

She looked at him like he was stupid and he could feel his temper rising. "So you start dating someone without saying anything?"

"Are you saying that you haven't dated?" She said it like she had already decided what his answer was going to be and that pissed him off more. Who was he now, Reid?

"No, Kate, I haven't dated. I thought that would be disrespectful since we hadn't broken things off."

She definitely looked surprised and a little embarrassed. "Yes, well, like I said, I think the silence spoke for itself." She was quiet for a few moments and when Pogue didn't say anything, she continued. "I know we had something special, Pogue, but you had to know this was coming."

He looked at her with his anger bubbling steadily. He needed to get out before he did something he would regret. "Fine, Kate. You want to be done with me, we're done." He grabbed his Bike helmet and stood up. "Go live happily ever after with this guy like what we had was nothing. Because of silence." With that Pogue stormed out, got on his Ducati and drove away.

Looking back on it he knew he had overreacted, but he just couldn't understand how she could just brush it all under a rug when even after so long of not talking, he had walked into that café and thought she was still the most amazing girl he had ever seen. He had screwed up, he got that, but after all they had been through, it was hard to discover that it didn't mean anything to her now.

And now somehow Caleb had talked Pogue into going out and hitting the club the night before classes started. Pogue didn't know why he was doing it. He hated the club scene. He liked the bars, the places that felt more like Nicky's. But Caleb said that all the girls were in the clubs. Pogue had been sceptical that the girls would be there the night before classes started, but when they got there the floor packed.

At first Pogue was too distracted to notice the girls. Instead of waiting in line to get in, Caleb had walked to the front of the line and used to get the bouncer to let them in.

"You didn't really want to wait in line, did you?" Caleb has asked when Pogue had stared at him in shock.

Caleb wasn't the one to use just to get out of things like waiting in line. They had all agreed to use as little and possible. None of them wanted to turn out like Chase. Yet here was Caleb using to get into a club.

When Pogue voiced his concern Caleb just brushed him off and headed for the bar. Pogue wasn't used to being the mature one. Caleb had always taken on the role of leader and Other than Reid getting his nose out of joint, they had always accepted it. Caleb was, after all, the oldest. He'd also been the one most determined to make sure none of them fell too easily into and addiction to the power.

He didn't want to think too much about it because there was also the possibility that Caleb was just having a little fun, which was what you were supposed to do in college. Still, he felt like he should talk to the others about it. He was staring at his phone, wondering if he should get it over with or wait until morning, when Caleb nudged him with his elbow.

"Hey, you should see the bartender. All the staff here wear masks. Despite the mask, though, she's still really hot." Caleb had to raise his voice so Pogue could hear him over the loud and fairly obnoxious music.

Masks? Pogue thought, looking around at the few waitresses he could see serving the VIP areas. Their music was bad enough but now they were a really pathetic cliché? Pogue wasn't against having a good time, despite the fact that he was still getting over the slight betrayal he felt from Kate, but all he really wanted to do at that moment was go back to his dorm.

Then Caleb nudged him again. "You've got to get over the Kate thing. She's gone. You should do yourself a favour and get over her. There's more where she came from."

Pogue gritted his teeth. More like Kate was exactly what he didn't want. Yes, he had cared for her, loved her even. She had come into Ipswich from the big city, all modern sophistication and elite-ness. She was the typical cheerleader in every cheesy chick flick. She came from a good family, had money, was intelligent, girly and had a worldly innocence about her. He had thought of her as his Upper East Side princess. And frankly he had been a little surprised that she had been interested in him. But of course as a sheltered young woman she had been drawn to his bad boy image. Clearly his image wasn't so appealing anymore.

"You know what you need?" Caleb asked, again shouting at Pogue over the music. "You need a rebound. That saying about getting over someone by getting under someone else, that should be your motto. After all, even before Kate, you never had trouble with the ladies."

Great, exactly what he needed; more chick drama.

"You need that!" Caleb said, pointing over Pogue's shoulder.

"Caleb," Pogue began as he slowly turned around in the crowded room. "I don't need an…"

As his eyes followed Caleb's finger, Pogue's words failed and he was left, mouth open, staring at the dancer's platform in the middle of the dance floor. He knew she was staff because she was wearing a mask. And somewhere in the back of his mind Pogue knew this must have been the 'bartender' Caleb had mentioned. She was hot, but she certainly wasn't bartending. The last song faded out as the next came in and Pogue was surprised to hear a song he had heard before. It was "You shook me all night long" by AC/DC. It had been completely redone to suit the club scene and Pogue silently mourned for the original and the hack-job they had done on it.

His foremost attention, however, was on the girl in front of him, dressed in what he could only assume was some kind of uniform designed to cover only the most important parts while tantalizing young men with the rest in hopes of them spending more money. Had Pogue been more intoxicated or less intelligent, he might have handed his whole inheritance to that girl. The way she moved her body to the music, blatantly sexual yet she looked like she wasn't thinking about her audience at all, but just feeling the music and moving… and that made it even sexier.

In the back of his mind, Pogue heard Caleb laugh and felt his presence leave, but Pogue was transfixed. People were dancing all around him, bumping into him. In any other circumstance that would piss him off but, as he watched the girl, time passed and life went on without him. At some point in the song, she opened her eyes and as her gaze travelled over the crowd around her, it locked with his own. It was too dark to tell her reaction and her facial expression was hidden by the mask, but her eyes didn't leave his for the rest of the song.

And when the song faded into the next, one he didn't recognize but had a heavy bass that beat in rhythm with his heart, she didn't break their eye contact. She held his gaze as she got down from her platform and made her way to him through the crowd.

His mind searched for something, anything to say when she made it to him. But to his surprise, she didn't stop to stand in front of him, but kept walking until she was but inches away and pulled his head down for a kiss. A kiss that immediately included tongues and her fingers running through his hair.

Pogue was just accepting that Caleb might be right and a roll in the sheets was exactly what he might need, just as his hands began travelling over her back and pulling her closer, she pulled away. Not far, but far enough that as her hands rested on his shoulders, she was standing the length of her arms away from him.

"Damn," she said, smiling like the cat who ate the canary, as his mother used to say. "I always wondered what that felt like." And then she was gone, disappeared into the crowd. He tried to find her and even went back to the bar and asked about her, but nobody knew who he was talking about. That or they just refused to help him. Maybe it was part of their 'bartender code', he mused, annoyed at not being able to find her.

*Meanwhile, in the change room…

"It's packed tonight." Aria said to herself, folding her uniform and sitting it in her locker with her mask and wig. Most of the other girls didn't have to wear wigs, but part of the deal was that any defining characteristics had to be covered. Some days Aria felt like she was working in a strip club. They had skimpy outfits, masks, stage names and the more men they brought in, the more they got paid. And the more they got paid, the less Aria had to worry about dropping out of school.

Despite the feeling of similarities, Aria's job had a lot of perks. She had flexible hours, she had great business connections and once a week she got to perform at the club. Music was what Aria lived for. She had been singing since she could string words together and being able to do it in a place as hip at 'Sinsations' wasn't something she would pass up for anything. Except maybe her best friend.

Branwen came through the door and went over to her locker. To most people that wouldn't seem like anything out of the ordinary. But to Aria, Branwen coming in and not saying anything was suspicious as hell. "What's up?" Aria asked.

Branwen looked over at Aria with a flawless look of innocent confusion. She had the infuriating ability to hold a straight face no matter what was going on inside her head. But she had other tells, like tapping her foot. Aria looked at the moving extremity and then back to Branwen's face.

Slowly Branwen smiled, taking out the contacts that hid her very distinguishable eyes. When she put them in their holder in her locker, she turned back to Aria. Despite her smile, her tone was serious. "So I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but you'll never guess who's out there right now."

Aria narrowed her eyes, thinking. There were several people who Branwen might be amused at the presence of but none that she could think of whose presence could be good or bad. "Who?"

Branwen opened her mouth to reply when Gina stuck her head in the change room. "Sorry to interrupt, guys, but, Siren, there's a guy asking for you at the bar. We didn't tell him anything, I just wanted to let you know."

"Thanks, Sass, but I know who it is. Thanks for covering. He's harmless but I'm not interested." Branwen smiled at Gina before she left and then turned back to Aria.

"Is this guy the who?" Aria asked.

Branwen nodded before leaning forward. "Pogue Parry."

Aria had to think about the familiar name for a while before it clicked. "Ipswich Pogue Parry?" Again Branwen nodded. "Why is he asking for you? Did he recognize you?"

Branwen laughed. "Of course he didn't recognize me. He probably doesn't know I exist. I was a year behind them in school. It wasn't like I was allowed to hang out with them."

"Well he knows you exist now, apparently. Why is that?"

Aria knew before Branwen even spoke. It was Branwen, after all. "I made out with him about ten minutes ago."

Aria sighed. "Of course you did."

AN: I've been thinking about the covenant lately, I watched the movie a few days ago, and really wanted to write a story about what I always thought might happen next. I'm kind of letting the story lead me so I hope you'll let me know if you think it's leading me in a good direction. This story is dedicated to my best friend. We often make up stories together and our covenant stories have always been out favourite. So here's to you Steph!