AN: I don't claim ownership of any kind for the song in this chapter.

"Grim Goodbye" -The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

-Welcome and Farewell-

Friday 3:45 p.m. Durnom. Varsity Club

The Sons had to pick up speed in order to keep up with the girl they'd so recently met. They didn't know her at all but she seemed to have no difficulties speaking her mind to them whenever she felt like it. On the drive over to the club, she had plenty to say about how they should go faster and how she couldn't wait to see Chase. This really had Caleb reeling about the things he knew concerning him, and what he conceivably didn't.

Upon entering the place, Chase was easy to find as he was up on the stage doing his thing. The guy's voice was pretty good. Whether he was smart or stupid remained to be seen though. There were homicidal maniacs running about with clear intention of causing terrible harm to Chase, and yet he was front and center in a very public spot where those psychos found him once before.

Filing into the building and finding themselves a place to stand at the back of the crowd, they waited and looked on. Chase was performing a song for the fair-sized crowd in the middle of a weekday. A low profile was most certainly not at the forefront of the man's mind.

"Fate, seems to recreate. I just cannot escape. Something holds me down and makes me act a way I can't explain. Even now I can feel it coming over me, choking me. As I'm falling behind, you can say you know me. But you have no clue what my dreams could show you."

The music throbbed and grew, nothing but the song. It had to be part of Chase's power immersing and blending into the song. What else could explain every single person focused entirely on the performance on stage?

"Lies, as I try to stay clean. And I try to stay sober. This is taking me over. And my dreams complicate it. No... I just cannot let this go. No... I tried so many times to tell you. No... I just cannot let this go. I just cannot win. I see you..."

Chase's gaze drifting through the faces in the crowd landed on Selene. His expression betrayed surprise seeing her. But he was talented, Caleb had to grant him that. He smoothly dropped the startled look into a solemn stare, finishing the song with his eyes glued to her the entire time. He was singing to her. Perhaps he'd been singing to her all along. Ah, the hopeless romantic he was.

"I see you, you, falling away. I see you, you, you... Killing me softly. I see you, you, falling away. I see you, you, you..."

Caleb wondered how Chase selected his songs. He wondered if it would be inappropriate to hit the guy for taking up too much of his thoughts and bringing up so many questions. Chase wasn't one to go around expressing himself freely and it was annoying when he wanted answers. This was the guy who pretended to be someone different for quite some time around him and his friends. This was the guy who tried to kill them one time, and saved them another...

The crowd began to break apart a bit as the show was over. Music from the sound system switched on to replace the void left behind with the club's obvious money-making talent leaving the stage. Caleb watched him move along the edge of the club, moving around the thick grouping of people closer to the center than anywhere else. Then he was near them at the bar, speaking to the bartender. The guy slid water over the counter to him after a moment. Caleb waited but Chase wasn't making any indication he would be coming to them or acknowledging their presence. He figured they would have to be the ones to approach.

He didn't seem happy to see them. He may have even looked angry they were there. Any anger or reluctance he might have been feeling quickly faded when Caleb moved aside to make room for Selene as she pushed through the four Sons. He watched as the two met one another's eyes once again. This time though, the obvious strong connection between Chase and Selene when she first walked in during his performance was missing. This time there was a distance, not in her eyes, but in his. Caleb could tell he was trying to hide it when he forced a polite smile.

The smile was one that would have fooled him and his friends in the past. The guy was great at displaying a disarming and charming smile on a whim. But that smile wouldn't fool him anymore. This time he knew to look in the eyes for the truth. And soon, he would perform the soul stare on him. If Chase agreed to it anyway. If the fifth Son chose not to accept the offer he was about to extend...

"Chase." Selene appeared shy and nervous.

He looked down and away, then slowly back to her. "Hey."

She slapped him across the face. He did nothing to try and stop her and in fact seemed to be thinking he deserved the hit. The next thing, she was wrapping her arms around him, holding tight. Well, there was a mind fuck.

"Why did you go? I don't understand why you would go anywhere without me," she murmured into his cheek.

He copied her low tone with his reply. "There was something I had to do."

It appeared to take effort to detach herself from Chase. "What? What was so important you would leave to another school, another town, and not say a word to anyone?"

"My father-"

Before he could get anything more than that out, Selene interrupted. "Your dad? Was it because your parents died that you had to leave your home?"

"They were not my parents and that was not home. You know how I felt about them, Selene."

Caleb was spending these moments studying the pair of them. From what he'd learned during his brief visit to Haversfield, the Collins hadn't loved much, except appearances and wealth undoubtedly. He guessed Chase hadn't shared with his friend what must have been an awful childhood. If Doris was to be believed..which she probably was since she had no reason to lie.

"Well, I mean, sort of. You told me they weren't very nice... But they're your parents. They loved you and that has to count for something."

"The people who adopted me felt many things toward me, and none of them came close to love."

Selene drew in a sharp intake of breath. She was surprised, confused, uncertain. She glanced around at Reid and Tyler, Pogue and him, as if the words she desperately sought would be there. They didn't know a lot, but they knew enough that something wasn't right in his old house, and it showed on their faces now.

"I'm sorry, Chase. I didn't realize. You talk to me, you tell me things. But you never said anything about home. I'm so sorry. I should have known. I think, in a way, I did know. My parents always were saying how it was a shame you grew up in that house. I didn't realize. I'm such an idiot. I'm sor-"

Chase kissed her, brief but tender. He stepped away from her immediately following the kiss, clearing his throat and shuffling uncomfortably. Finally, his gaze settled on Caleb.

"You brought her here, because she tracked you down. She's persistent like that. But all of you here... What do you want?"

"What do I want? I want you to join the covenant."

The protests and rapid demands as to what precisely he was thinking, were not unexpected in the least. The beginnings of an argument concerning the issue was made nonexistent when Chase answered, tone certain.

"No."

This, too, was far from an unexpected response. Caleb fluidly went into his explanation without acknowledging he'd already been declined.

"I mean, technically just by being born you're a member. But join officially, and it's for real. We'll be connected completely. If one of us is in danger or hurt, all of us will feel it. We do this, we can also communicate across distances with our voices and images, put right into our minds."

"Infinitely useful if that guy comes looking for any of us again," Reid said, spoken as though the thought just occurred to him, which it probably had.

Tyler stared like his friend had grown a second head. "Wait, are you agreeing with accepting Chase into the covenant?"

"He better not be," Pogue declared. "And you need to rethink this too, Caleb. We know nothing about this guy except that he went psycho and it wasn't that long ago."

When Caleb didn't say anything, didn't bother looking at him, he apparently felt the need to elaborate. He sighed in his head when his good friend began to count on his fingers things he was aware of already. It was an improvement above direct yelling he supposed.

"He killed that guy at the party. He put a spell on Kate that put her up in the hospital. He put me in the hospital. He kidnapped Sarah. And let's not forget how close he came to killing you-"

"Shut up!" Caleb shouted in dismay.

He'd just noticed what Pogue's list was doing to Chase's friend. Someone who likely meant more to him than a simple friend if the kiss was anything to go by. They kept staring into one another's eyes to find the unspoken words. He knew what that could be like. It happened between him and Sarah often enough.

His words were too late. Selene burst into tears, audible crying for only a second before she was wiping the wet away. Clearing her throat to regain composure, she started shaking her head. This time, the words she had to say did surprise. They absolutely shocked him.

"It's the power. He can't help it sometimes. An addiction can be so seductive. Sometimes you find something that you need..and you can't let it go..because it comforts you. It builds you up, makes you strong and brave. It makes you better and you can't go back to what you were before."

She was fingering a silver chain around her neck. It was a long chain and whatever was at the end he couldn't see, tucked beneath her shirt. Caleb wondered if it was really Chase she was talking about anymore.

The words entered his head to try and comfort Selene, perhaps to reassure himself as well. This girl needed some truth, some reality, and fast. Chase exposed his power to her, but said nothing about his past. This was something he could do for her to help with how much she was obviously reeling.

"The first time he came to Ipswich, he wronged us in a big way. No one is disputing that he did some terrible things. Things I will be the first to admit and say, have not been forgiven."

He locked eyes with a shifting and nervous man who he couldn't help but see as a guy who was still just his age. They were eighteen, a far cry from becoming full blown adults in the minds of the majority out in the world. Which made it unbelievable what they'd all been through over the past months, or even over the past few days.

"But I also remember what he did to protect us, all of us, the second time he came to Ipswich."

"I said no," Chase insisted. "Do you think the place I want to be is with people who hate me?"

"Well you seem fine not being with the people who love you."

If not for the low hum of the general club noise all around, they might have been able to hear a pin drop with the sudden silence that fell upon them.

"Selene..." Chase murmured. His eyes avoided hers, but she wasn't looking for his anyways.

"You know how I feel about you, and I know how you feel about me. Still, we're like this?"

Caleb was seriously beginning to wonder how he got himself and his friends a front row view of a relationship falling apart. This was not how he'd foreseen his Friday going. Find Chase, try and convince him to join their covenant. That had been the extent of his planning. And his friends tended to listen to him why?

"Selene. I left because I had to get out of that place and because my father asked me to help him. I didn't see it as a choice because it was my father. I was a stupid, angry kid and not the man I hope you will one day see."

He said it all rapid fire like. Caleb suspected it was in fear of her not giving him the chance to say what he wanted to get out.

She stared at him, his gaze still firmly rooted to the floor. Caleb had the guilty thought this was entrancing more than any television show he ever saw.

"You say that like you think we have all the time in the world."

Sheesh. Beauty truly was devastating in this case. If this was a break up or a reaffirmation of an assumed break up months ago when Chase vanished from his hometown, Caleb didn't want him and his friends to be star witnesses of it. He ran a hand through his hair and loudly cleared his throat.

"Reconsider the offer, Chase. I promise even if we can't forgive you right now, we don't hate you."

He felt Pogue's heated glare before seeing it, and didn't pay it any attention more than a brief flicker of his eyes. His focus was on the proposition he was to extend because it was the right thing to do. Chase was a Son of Ipswich. He could belong somewhere. It felt right.

"If you join, you have people to watch your back. You'll have not only friends, but brothers. The covenant is a family."

"The catch?"

Ah, yes. Chase was a bright boy.

"There will need to be trust. I need to perform a soul search after the ritual that ties you to each of us."

"Like I said, n-"

"You should join."

Chase wasn't alone when his stunned gaze fell on Selene. Caleb was more and more impressed with this girl by the minute. He supposed "woman" would be a more apt term. It was obvious she was smart and mature, and could most definitely hold her own.

"Join, Chase. You shouldn't have to be alone."

Now he was frowning at her. Caleb wondered if he was wondering whether there was a deeper meaning behind that sentence. He didn't get long to wonder.

"I should get going. I still have to get a room at the inn in Ipswich if I'm to stay."

"You're staying there? In Ipswich I mean."

She shrugged. "For tonight at least. Too late to drive back now. I hate the dark."

Caleb was watching Chase's face. It appeared he wanted to say something, but then he seemed to remember his audience. It was like seeing a wall rise up. That was how good Chase was at pushing everything down, hiding everything inside. The soul search would take all of that away, Caleb realized. He hoped it would do him good, exposing everything, but it was also a real possibility there would be an adverse reaction.

When Selene walked out of the club, Chase leveled his gaze at each one of them in turn. He kept his gaze on Caleb when he got to him.

"Okay. I'll join. What else am I gonna do?"

Not exactly the picture perfect response he would have preferred to reassure the boys. It would do.

/

Outside the Flying Crow Inn, the only place for visitors to stay in the town of Ipswich, a motorcycle pulled up just after four in the afternoon. The driver parked in a space near the back of the small lot, removing his helmet and a hefty looking duffel bag. He carried both inside and got a room for himself, number of nights stay indeterminate. The man shared he was from Haversfield, and he was looking for a friend.