Sharks and Wolves

My Enemy's Enemy Is My Friend.

Kayla Schaefer

“So which one was Derek,” I demanded as I entered the kitchen. Emma stared angrily out the window, watching them speed off, pushing past the neighborhood speed limits.

“The brunette one,” she answered coldly, still tense from their visit. The face was fresh in my mind.

Derek was a tall, brooding man with luscious curled chocolate locks skimming his forehead, and similar to Emma’s age, around the mid-twenties, while Emma was still one number under the middle marking of 25. With the two year difference, Derek should be 26 but he didn’t look that young. His darkened face was hard with early creases and a tight forehead, deep brown eyes harsh and undiluted with rage and frustration, further emphasized with his scowl, with intimidating muscles under his fitted tee. He dressed young but acted too serious for a man such as himself.

I could easily tell where Caley got her looks from, excluding her mother’s glowing blue eyes. I could recognize the caramel skin, the delicious Hershey locks, and immature curls. She was her father’s mirror image but the clarity of her blue orbs softened her dark aura and gave her a focus point that contrasted against the rest of her brown theme. Caley had also inherited her mother’s slender figure, fragile and sleek like a twig instead of the enormous size of her father’s Sycamore stature. 

“Kayla,” Emma’s shaken voice pulled me out of my personal thoughts. She stood before me, basking in the diluted sunlight streaming in through the French door glass panels of the backdoor, standing tall –towering over my whimsy 5’3 by an impressive 5 additional inches –and balanced on both feet planted firmly on the ground. Her eyes were hardened and direct and I felt unnerved as they pierced through me. I tried to mimic her pose but failed as I fell into my own signature stature, relaxing on my right leg while the other crossed it, my hands resting on my hip and tilting my head questionably.

“Yeah,” I replied hesitantly, nervous about the intense look in her eyes.

“I need you to take Caley to your grandparent’s house,” she ordered. Her voice was cool, collected, and decided. I stared with wide eyes, unable to process her mind of state. Instantly a nerve shot off and my blood started to boil.

“Let’s think this through,” I tried to reason with her, unable to shake her icy glare. She parted her lips to interrupt me but I held my fingers up, silencing her. “I can’t ditch work out of the blue to refuge someone at my grandparent’s house. They don’t even know her, second of all. It’s rude and unprofessional and just showing you’re a coward for hiding your daughter away.”

“Damn it Kayla,” she cried, hysterical, as her cool exterior cracked under intense stress. “Forget about being unprofessional and rude! Forget you’re even my lawyer for a moment! I’m asking you this as a friend, as a godmother. My baby is in danger of being snatched away. If she was here today, I guarantee you they would’ve walked out the door with her! I can’t afford to lose her,” tears escaped her swollen eyes and flowed down her enflamed cheeks. It reminded me of the night she came to my house, dirty and desperate. “They broke into my house, Kayla. They could’ve came in here and taken her and there would have been nothing I could have done to stop them.” She sniffled and then suddenly grabbed my arms, shaking me fiercely. “She isn’t safe here, not in D.C., not anymore. She needs to go somewhere safe and as far away as possible where Derek can’t reach her.”

“And you think grandparents can protect her? My grandpa is exceeding seventy five years old, Emma, and my grandmother isn’t too far behind. They can barely lift hay barrels, let alone push a full grown man away.”

Something flashed over her eyes. “But he’s a pretty good shot, isn’t he?”

I veered away in doubt. “There are so many things wrong in that statement. Do you really want Derek to be shot on sight? If he is, that’s including me and my family into this matter, not just as your attorney, but as a fellow defendant, too. I don’t want that happening all over again. We just got over one scandal and I won’t let them get involved in another. It really weakened their physical strength, Emma, bringing me to the second fact. Do you know how heavy a Remington is? My Grandpa can’t lift that anymore! He can barely lead the horses. That’s why he has my uncles over, to help him out with the ranch. He’s getting old, Emma.”