The Haven High Book Series (Wattys2017)

Chapter 9

Everyone sat in Lauren's dusty living room in a rough circle sprawled out on her ratty old circa 1990's furniture, amid pizza stained paper plates and empty chip bags. There hadn't been enough seats for everyone so some of her guests made themselves comfortable on the fraying beige shag carpet.

Kelly was surprisingly one of them. She had taken up residence when Donnie had shown up in human form and had quickly excused himself before turning into a beautiful Russian Blue cat.

Just before shrinking down to size he had hurriedly explained, "Mio Dio, Lauren you have far too many mice. I must hunt. With this many I can no keep my human form."

He took his cat form. Much to the delight of Kelly who apparently was a huge cat lover, judging by the squeal she let out when she saw him.

When they looked at her funny she just said indignantly, "What? I like cats. So sue me," and by way of explanation she said," Look my stupid dad won't let me have any, ok?"

After racing around the house for a few minutes with Kelly in tow, Cat-Donnie settle into a routine of winding himself around Kelly's tucked up legs while she played with a piece of frayed rug with him.

Okaaayyyy . . . Cam thought, that wasn't the strangest thing he'd seen in his f-up world, but it was the closest before taking another sip of his Grande Espresso Macchiato.

When Donnie-cat finally noticed the sliding glass closet door adjacent to the living room and the identical cat that looked back at him his tail puffed up to three times its size and he started head butting it so hard that he nearly threw it off the tracks.

"Hey shouldn't we stop him from doing that," Cam asked?

Kelly just giggled and said," No way that is too adorbs for words." And she giggled again.

Kelly giggling was a new one for all of them including Xan. They all just looked at each other as if to ask if she was a pod person too, but Lauren jumped into clear everything up, "Guys Kelly's not acting strangely, well not completely, she just loves animals. When I went to her house the night we went to the club I saw her pet Imp that lives under her bed."

Cam cocked an eyebrow at Lauren. It was news to him that Kelly felt chummy enough with anyone to ask them over to her house, but if Lauren said she was fine then he had to chalk-up her weird behavior to the adorable cat.

When Donnie hissed and rammed the mirror again they couldn't help laughing.

Xan pulled out his phone and said, "I've got to get a video of this. Magic wielders can you dial down your mojo for a sec?"

And much to everyone's surprise he was able to get a two minute video before his phone conked out.

Cam couldn't wait to see Donnie's face when he saw it.

Xan was one of the lucky ones that could still handle technology. Cam felt like crying every time he was reminded that his PS4 was collecting dust in his bedroom closet because he'd fried the thing after a particularly intense Call of Duty online match.

Maybe he thought he'll use his awesome potion making affinity to make a draught that will lessen the magic whammy thing that affects technology and get rich.

He was dragged from his reverie by Zach clearing his throat taking his time to think of the right words as he stood in front of everyone by the dirty bay window.

He wondered when Zach became the de-facto leader of his little rag tag crew, but he didn't think anyone, but Zach himself, would disagree with his appointment. The guy had gone head to head with Liam, an inhumanly powerful Fae that was hell bent on taking down the council and everything it stood for, three times now and lived. Cam couldn't help, but admit he'd be on Liam's side if it weren't for the fact that he didn't care who he killed in the process, including his own sister. And as a brother he knew how F-up that truly was.