Author's Notes: Okay, yeah, I know I have not updated in…a little under a year? But I became uninterested in the series, therefore lost my thought with this, and it had nowhere to go. However, I recently just got the series (minus one and four) and I am re-reading them, and I am currently on number eight. So if there are things or technicalities I mess up on, I am sorry. But please know I plan on updating much more frequently and writing a few Sweep one-shots in the near future (so please review them when they come along, I may post them together, though, in the same story)! Please do enjoy, and I do apologize.

I know they are coming.

I can feel them coming closer, hunting, searching. I know what I must do, even if I do not want to do it. It has been peaceful here.

- Bradhadair

Breathing heavily, I turned sharply towards the door, hearing the voices float from behind the thick piece of wood. "Somebody, answer!" a male yelled, and I knew I must look scared; I had never felt so afraid in my life.

"Morgan," hissed my mom – who was actually no longer Kendal Roberts, as I had grown up to know, but Maeve Riordan, a totally different person – and without hesitation I crawled slowly into the kitchen.

Resisting the serious need to drink some Diet Coke for an energy boost, I opened the cupboard below the sink. I maneuvered my body to fit in there, shoving the few detergents stored there against the back. My knees scraped the plumbing, but I was too nervous to care. My mom was nowhere to be seen, and someone was watching us because we could, apparently, do magick.

I could hear mom hiding as someone picked the lock with what sounded like a paperclip. I could hear the door creek open then, and I had to manage to keep myself in check so I wouldn't open the door just to peek and see who it was.

"Come…on…" said a voice, "Sky, they should be here! We can't let them slip. If we do, we won't be able to re-enforce their powers in our clan. The Riordan's, Sky!"

I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. They were talking about the Riordan's, too. They were real. My mom and I were them. And somehow, we had an important role in society.

"I still can't believe that baby is alive," said Sky, in a voice that suggested she was annoyed and also female.

"Sky, do you think they're here?"

"I don't know, Hunter, let's search," she replied, and we could hear them moving around, checking under the couch, behind the TV stand.

"I haven't seen anything!" cried Hunter, and Sky grunted in reply.

"Check under the sink," said Sky. "But I don't know why we wouldn't be able to sense them…"

There was a moment of silence as Hunter's footsteps drew closer, heavy footfalls that seemed to echo my fast heartbeat as he neared. When he finally opened the cupboard and saw me seating there, gazing up at him, I screamed. There was a stumbling of noise on the other side of Hunter (he was blocking my view) and he whirled around as blue fire was thrown at him, my mom looking wild with her fingers shaped like a claw in Hunter's direction.

He swiftly made a sign in the air and the fire stopped. Mom looked at him sharply, one eyebrow rose as she glared at him. "Who are you," she breathed, "and what do you want?"

"International Council of Witches," said Hunter, raising his hand. "I've come to protect you. You've been found out about, and they're coming after you."

I could only guess 'they' was bad by the look on my mom's face and the way her hand swung down to her side in defeat. "You're that youngest member aren't you?" Hunter nodded swiftly, and she sighed, looking at me.

"Go get packed, Morgan," she muttered, and I stared at her in disbelief.

"Packed?" I screeched. "We're actually going to follow these loons?"

Some part of me told me I was being irrational, but I didn't care. My mom was telling me to go with two strangers who had just broken into my house. They were all talking about some Council of Witches and my mom had just thrown fire at someone. "You'll be coming to stay with us," said Hunter, and I finally looked at him in a new light – and not a good one.

He was blonde, with the palest hair and the greenest of eyes. He also had pale skin and bit of freckles specked across the bridge of his nose. His lips were currently in a thin line since he was very concentrated. Plus I had just gotten a new boyfriend. I was going nowhere.

"I am not going with you," I said stubbornly, and my mom glared at me while Hunter sent me a half-amused glance and Sky looked disgruntled.

"Yes, you are," he replied coolly, and I blinked back at him. "Even if I must bind you together – which means using my magick to stick you all together like you're in some kind of wrap – then I will."

He turned away from me, and I found myself glaring at the spikes of the back of his blonde hair. Sky sent me a cold look and I resisted the urge to give her the finger, reminding myself that my calm, sweet mother was standing right there.

"As I was saying," said Hunter, "our house is just on the outskirts of this town, so we aren't that far away, yet it is far enough."

My mom and I exchanged a look, a silent communication.

I don't want to go.

We have to.

As I resisted the silly urge to cry I looked around the house. If we left here, it might be destroyed. The house I grew up in would be no more, and we would never have a home to return to. It destroyed me, but I blinked it back and stomped upstairs as loudly as I could.

Even though I tried to be obnoxious, Hunter's, Sky's, and my mom's calm voices drifted upstairs like wisps of smoke. I could hear them, as much as I tried to ignore them. My mom telling Hunter sadly that I had been like this for awhile now – a rebel. I gritted my teeth at the memory, ignoring the pain that suddenly was overwhelming.

He had come to me when I was young, free, and careless. He was my mother's ex-lover and I didn't even know his name.

My mom and I had gone for a walk in the woods. While she had looked at herbs and plants on the forest floor, I became bored and told my mom I was going for a walk. She told me not to go too far, and I agreed. I set off happily, skipping, not realizing when I had out-stepped the boundary I'd said I would stay in, and suddenly found myself lost and alone.

He, mom's ex-lover, had walked up the path whistling, an axe hefted over his shoulder, leather gloved hands in his farmer-looking coat pocket. I was crying and shaking, and he stopped when he saw me. "Are you okay, young lady?" he asked, the perfect gentleman and charming. He knelt down beside me as I shook my head, listened as I stuttered that I had lost my mom.

He'd grinned then, the sudden charm and good mannerism of his features gone. He pushed my shoulder back, so I smashed into the ground with a dull thud. He'd then twisted his fingers and a cage of a bright gold twisted around me, forming complex patterns and his rhythmic fingering was hypnotic. I watched as he wove my cage, making it tougher and thicker, and more intense as it pressed down around me. I should have escaped as soon as I saw the flickering lights, but I was little and unsure of what to do with a stranger. It also hadn't helped that I'd been lost and away from my mother.

Eventually the cage pressed was so tight if I moved an inch I was electrified by the golden light. It was strong, and I felt like I couldn't breathe from the pressure. I could feel panic just rushing in me, overwhelming me. He grinned at me, muttered something else, and his face blurred from my memories so all I could remember was his charm, his outfit, and his manners – good and bad. He'd left then, giving me one last smile as he left.

My mom, screaming, had found me tied up in these weird strands of light, strangely quiet and strangely mystified. She had been gasping, done some weird symbols in her air of her own, and then the cage had gone – like that. Apparently, mister-no-face hadn't thought my mom would ever find me and had seriously left.

Until now, I had not known what had happened to me. I had not known that magick was something real, until just today. My mom had freaked, and random people had appeared at my doorstep – or more like broke in through the doorstep. But how did I know what to do? They sounded like they wanted to protect me as well as my mom. What did I hold that they wanted? And what was I supposed to do about it?

I clicked my suitcase shut and dragged it down the stairs, each landing plunking and causing Hunter, Sky, and my mom to look up at me and my cheeks to turn slightly pink.

Hunter immediately moved to come help me, his hand brushing mine as he reached for the handle. I felt something weird shoot up my arm and the air seemed thicker, but I brushed it off as paranoia and I let him carry it, stomping off to go into his ratty old Honda, knowing he would probably get my car later – there was no way he was going to let me drive my car now.

Sky stayed inside and helped my mother pack, and Hunter climbed inside the driver's seat and I went inside the back. There was an awkward silence as Hunter's mouth opened a few times, as if he wanted to say something but was not quite sure what. When my mom and Sky finally came through the front door, my mom locking it behind her, the tension seemed to drop of Hunter and me as we sighed in relief.

My mom's and Sky's presence seemed to fill up the car as they spoke, and I ignored them as Hunter joined in, pressing my forehead against the cool car window's glass. The first tear slipped down my cheek, but I turned away and prayed no one noticed.

Please tell me what you think! Again, I apologize for the very long wait!