There's A Circle of Witches

Part 1: So can we please be absolutely sure...

Alright folks.   I'm gonna ease back into the book with a flashback. This is part 1 of 2, and the last two flashbacks of this book.

I need at least two more New Orleans chapters (maybe 3) to finish the book.

I thought about this book daily even when things got dark and ugly for a while.  Every time I was pulled back to write,  I felt run down. BUT I love this book and I adore and am so grateful to all the wonderful people reading this. 

Let's ease back with a flashback.  We go from early SIAS to late SIAS.  This chapter follows the scene in "But I haven't stopped loving you once" for those wanting to read the Kid and Darla part <3

Part 2 this weekend.

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Hell's Kitchen, New York

Kid's apartment near Pier 81, 12th avenue

Late Spring, 1990

It's been over two years since he heard her voice. He stood still holding the receiver up to his warm ear.

"Kid? You there?"

"Yeah–" He caught himself breathlessly speaking. He cleared his throat. "Yes, I'm still here."

"So...do you want to? Meet me...for a coffee?"

"You're...here?" He couldn't think straight. "When did you get back?" He asked knowing there were a billion more questions he wanted to ask her and have been wanting to ask her.

He can hear her stumbling on her own words. He knew she probably struggled to initiate this call to begin with. "I'm–actually in the airport. I just got in."

I'm her first call. Kid pressed his lips into a smile. There was that warmth again, he thought to himself, feeling her presence in his chest.

"Ray is picking me up–I'm staying with him." Darla continued over the phone.

His brows shot up as he felt an instant knot in his stomach. "Ray? So you're–you'll be a few blocks from me."

"Yeah–Never thought I'd see the day he'd ever leave the village for your neck of the woods ." She scoffed a dry laugh. She teased him to lighten the mood, "...the neighbourhood is filled with criminals and biker bandits you know."

Kid couldn't believe how easily he could fall back into banter as if the last two years without her didn't happen. "Ouch–" He let out a little chuckle. "Weren't you the one who told me to find beauty and joy in the worn out ruins?"

"You remember that?"

"I remember everything." He responded without hesitation. Darla sensed the pain in his voice and he was thankful she didn't press on and question the child proof caps he put back on his answers.

She quickly jumped in, unsure how much she can truly fall back on their usual back and forth either. "I mean not all of Hell's Kitchen is bad. Some parts were great....if memory serves me right." She spoke recalling their home over Pappy and Harriett's garage. "...or am I off?" She looked for reassurance.

Of all the memories she had locked away behind a secret door in her mind, an unexpected one broke through. It wasn't one of the man roadtrips they would take in one of the cars in the garage's lot, where she would pretend to fall asleep on the way back just to watch his soulful eyes taking in their surroundings. It wasn't a memory of one of the many times she would gleefully scream holding onto him as he rode his motorbike across the city, burning rubber down Queens Boulevard.