January

Kat

"Did you find anything?" Luke grills me. I swear he enjoys riding my ass! Luke, Max, and I have found ourselves in my room. Riana is sleeping off another day of intense magic work outs. Somehow I still wonder how she is still alive.

"No, Not yet." I say through gritted teeth. Not only is he trying to police me but he is trying to kill my best friend. God he is a jackass.

"Well, why not?"

"Because it is not easy breaking into The Queen's study is not the easiest thing in the world!" It's not like my mom is going out all the time! She is a hermit for Christ sake!

"You're her daughter I am sure it is easier for you."

"You're a dick head! Piss me off and I will tell Riana!" I know bringing Riana into this conversation is wrong but he needs to get off my back and Riana is the only one he will listen to.

"Leave her out of this! Do your fucking job!"

"Stop stalking me and do your fucking job! Your job is to make sure Riana is safe and do all her magic stuff! Where is she right now? Right you nearly killed her this afternoon!"

"I have been doing my job! It is my job to push her! It's not like we all have an endless amount of time to do our job! If you would be doing yours maybe you would have a right to speak that way to me! Stop trying to deflect your incompetence on me!"

"Both of you stop! We are never going to make this work if there is fighting among us!" Max yells finally cutting into this argument. To be fair Luke and I have had this tension brewing for the past few weeks. "Luke is it harder than you think to steal from your mom if she never leaves her office, give Kat some slack. Kat, Luke is on edge because he feels like he pushed Riana too hard. So please give him a break. Now both of you get your shit together. This will not work if you guys are fighting all the time about who is Riana's favorite. Before you but in yes that is the underlying cause of this fight yet again. Kat you are her best friend and probably the only girl she trusts with her life. Luke you – hopefully if you don't screw this up – will be her boyfriend. Each of you have a special place in her heart so just stop fighting! Now Kat tell me how much Intel you have on this Kingdom."

As always Max is right for the most part. Falling onto my bed I cave and begin my tale. "Well I have discovered the name of the place we are looking for. I don't know if we should call it a kingdom or society or whatever. But the name is Striga Lami which is Latin for witch vampire. It isn't the most original name but what can you do. From that point I learned that they do have a ruling family called the Sage family but most people in the family weren't born to it. They took the most power witches and breed them with the most powerful vampires to make sure they had an heir at all times. So if someone came that actually had Sage Family Blood they would be given the thrown ASAP. But that is all I have as of right now and that just came from an old legend. If I could get into my mother's study I would have more to report."

"Well that is more than we knew at our last meeting so keep it up. I don't want to involve Riana till we have all the facts. From this point on we treat her as Queen. She is only informed of anything when we have the full story. If she starts to stress out about unimportant things then our mission has gone to shit. Luke what do you have to report."

"Well her magic is getting stronger. She can now teleport two people as far as China but that leaves her extremely drained. Her fighting skills are top notch and she can kick some major ass. Tomorrow I will start with the teleporting and by the end of the day she should have no problem getting two help to China. After that we will need you around Max to see if she can get three and then involve Kat." I retrain myself from punching Luke. Why can't I go before Max? God sometimes I feel like he is trying to lay claim to my best friend.

"Great. Go get some sleep. Riana will be fine." Luke eagerly leaves my room but not before sending me a dirty look.

"God he is an ass!" I scream at the top of my lungs. It makes me feel a lot better to shout my opinions instead of holding them in. "My mom never leaves her study how can he just think I am not doing my best. I have barely slept in the past four days thank you very much!"

"Katherine …" Max lets my name hang in the air but my rage just continues to grow.

"How can you let the pompous jackass anywhere near your sister?! He is vile-"

"He cares for her and would lay down his life for hers. He - I dare say – might even love her. She used to be scared of life but since he has been in her life she has become bolder and out there. She is trying to figure out life instead of just going with what everyone tells her. She even paints again! God can't you see it?" Max shouts back at me.

I let his words sink in before nodding along. As much as Luke gets on my nerves Riana seems to be doing better with him in her life than without. I just wish he wasn't so much like himself. He needs to chill and stop getting on my nerves.

"Luke almost lost her not too long ago. I know we all almost lost her but he was with her. He has a different mindset so cut him some slack." Max's tone is a calming which almost makes me want to punch him but I refrain.

"Fine I will try not to kill him for Riana's sake but …" I let my sentence trail off. Max steps right in front of me with a pouty look on his face. Yes I really do feel like hitting him a few times.

"But?" He questions.

"But if you ever use that stupid calming voice on me again I will break your pretty little face."

"Awe baby don't be mad at me." Pushing him away wrath rebuilds inside of me.

"First, I am not your baby. Second, I don't want to date you so leave me the fuck alone. And lastly you have been spending way too much time with Luke so get the fuck out of my room."

"Fine don't shoot I am leaving." Falling back onto my bed I sigh as max closes the door behind him. Ever since I met Max he has been under the delusion that I am going to fall for him. My feelings for him rang from contentment to I want to kill him. I put up with Max because my best friend is his sister but God if he tries to get into my pants one more time I will have to kill the boy. Plus Max is in a bromance with Luke and they are just bad news together. Luke's sass and general irritability rubs off on Max and I start to think that life would be better if I fed them to Strigoi. But alas one does not feed one's best friend brother and future boyfriend to evil vampires. It is in the Girl Code.

In times like these I have found the perfect remedy. Jumping out my window I go to the edge of the campus just past where Luke and Riana do magic practices so no one will hear. In a fake tree stump I have hid my AR-15 which is my baby and start to load up for a night of shooting. Rose first took me to the shooting range when I was seven and I was tired of my brothers. Since then it seems to be the only way to calm me down.

"What did Max do now? Or was it Luke? God forbid it was both of them that drove you to your dark place." Riana comments as I finish unloading my second mag into a tree about fifty yards to the left of me. I have gotten to be quiet the sharp shooter.

"God is just happy I didn't feed the boys to a Strigoi."

"Oh that bad during your secret meeting" She laughs and sits on a tree stump.

"How do you know about those?" I ask as I start to clean my gun.

"Luke can't keep a secret from me."

"You dirty girl! Anyways aren't you supposed to be sleeping?"

"Well sleeping is boring. I wanted to make sure the boys didn't drive you to an early grave."

"Your brother needs to lay off. I will hit him if he doesn't."

"I know! I know! I tell him all the time that you are not interested but he just says 'In time she will like me'." This sends me into a fit of laughter while Riana just shakes her head.

"Also, just date Luke already, you both have that sexual tension thing going." I believe Luke would be less of a pain if they were actually official.

"Kat, you know I like him but I don't think I can trust him. I opened myself so much to him then I find out - from the guy that wanted me dead no less – that he knew that Adrian is my dad. He knew and he didn't even tell me! I don't want to go through that again. I just feel so conflicted because he lied to me but when I am with him he makes me smile. He makes me happy and then I remember he has no problems lying to me." This is partly why I couldn't stand Luke because he has hurt my best friend but I know that if this will ever work we all have to leave the past behind and work together for the future.

"I know Riana but for this whole plan to work we have to put our drama on the back burner and focus on our jobs. I am finding information, you need to strengthen your magic and if the boys in our plan get under our skin then we just shoot it out!" I say holding out the now clean gun to Riana. As soon as we made these plans to run away together as a group I brought Riana out here to teach her the basics of shooting and it was a way for us to bond without the boys. She took to shooting like she had been doing it her whole life. Sometimes I thought she was better than I was.

"We need an automatic gun." Riana yells over the sound of rounds being fired.

"Those are illegal for anyone to have unless you are a part of the U.S. Military. But I agree that would be nice." I holler back. Riana just lets out a bitter laugh. She lets out two more mages before calling it quits.

Shooting seemed to have done the trick and we both have found a calmer place. Putting the gun back in the stump, we both head back to the sleeping campus.

"You know that you're my best friend right?" Riana asks as I drop her off at her room.

"Yes and you are my best friend. Now don't worry, our dysfunctional friend group will somehow get you to this lost place so you can have the answers that have been lost to the rest of the world." With that we hug and say goodbye.

Walking back to my room I know that I can't let my best friend down. We were going to get into a lot of trouble but I am up for anything. I know I will have to put my feelings toward both Luke and Max in a lockbox and leave it be. But God if you are there on this adventure bring me someone who won't make me want to shoot them. I hope this all goes well with our plan. If not then we are all in deep shit.

Hello! Okay so I have some news.

From July 14th to July 22nd I will not be anywhere near internet! So I am updating all my stories this week so everyone has something new to read!

Now this chapter is pretty unique to me because I wanted to show where the group started and then the next chapter will be their first visit in the new land! It will probably go back and forth and I need people to vote Max and Kat together or not? Let me know!

Happy Readings!

DA

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