Serpent's Kiss: Book 1

Chapter 1

Of all the things he hated the most about being in any system, particularly this one: it was the waiting around. Even if, thankfully, he had not had to do very much of it. No, just every now and then when he was being transferred from one family to another after any amount of time spent with them for whatever reason given. A yawn escaped him and he rolled his eyes at these thoughts, ignored the look from the woman at the desk at the social worker's as they passed over her.

He could imagine what she was thinking of him. Though he didn't really care because, well, this time, like a majority of the other times, with only a couple exceptions here and there being because of him, he had not been the cause of reason for this transfer. And even if it was, he didn't know the woman to care about what she thought about him.

That aside, even if he had known her, his reason for being here this time... well, this time, he could say it hadn't been because of him that he was here, in this boring, bare-bones room of an office that seemed to be the norm for most social workers. It had just so happened that a friend of a friend in the family he'd been living with the past couple years had moved in, and now they'd needed to give somebody back since they couldn't afford any number of kids past four. So, he'd been the one.

Taking up two of the seats in the waiting room, he stretched out over them so that his head was hanging awkwardly off to the side of one seat, his legs on the other of the two, with one bent at the knee. It wasn't too much longer in this position, when the same woman who'd been watching him from the desk came over to him and looked down at him. He looked back up at her, turning the volume down on his scratched up Discman to hear her.

"Are you really that bored?"

Adair grinned and nodded his head slightly at her. "Yeap."

"There's nothing you brought with you that you could entertain yourself with? Besides, well, that?" She eyed the Discman in his hand.

He snorted and had to keep himself from rolling his eyes. "Yes and no."

Desk Woman raised a brow at him, idly smoothing out her pencil-skirt as she waited for him to explain himself.

"Yes, I do. But, no, I'm not in the mood for it right now." He explained to her, purposefully keeping things vague. He had a sketch pad he liked to draw in every now and then, mostly of particular memories and events of some kind of meaning to him. Most of the time, though, he had to be in a particular mood for them, or they just didn't come out as he liked them to.

Desk Woman shook her head at him and shrugged as she turned around and went back to work at her desk, muttering something along the way about "Kids these days." As she did, he cast a glance at everything he'd brought with him, a backpack and a duffel bag, before shrugging and holding the screen of the Discman up over his head so he could see the contents on the screen and what was playing, turning the volume back on as he did so.

Or, rather, he'd been about to, when Desk Woman returned.

It took him a moment for him to act as if he'd only just then noticed her, instead of having to keep himself from flipping over the two chairs he was lazing on. She'd been here just a second ago.

Holding in a sigh, he finally acknowledged her and turned the volume back down for her. "Yes?"

Blinking at the word, she held up a handful of kids' coloring books and a packet of crayons before going back to her desk in a quick run, heels clacking along the floor. He blinked back at her odd reappearance and disappearance before giving the coloring books and crayons a funny look.

He was 17, not 7.... and he almost wanted to tell Desk Woman that, all the while looking at the books on the table a couple of feet away from him.

As he did, the only pair of doors to the room opened and a man and a young girl who looked about his age walked through to the desk at the opposing side facing the double doors.

Adair sat up then, smoothing his 'artfully' tattered blue jeans (he'd admit, they were an old pair that had gotten the tatters over time, but he'd improvised with those tatters so now they didn't look nearly so old and worn) and shirt that had gotten slightly wrinkled from lounging as he had over the two seats he'd stretched out over, running a hand through his angle-cut blond bangs; a seemingly pointless gesture as they only ever fell back into his eyes every time he did that.

Desk Woman looked up from whatever she'd been looking at on the computer on her desk, blinked at the man, then flicked her eyes at the girl before returning them to him.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"I'm here to pick someone up. Adair... Ereegal?" He stretched out the middle of the last name.

Having turned off his Discman this time to listen to the conversation, Adair corrected the man.

"Errigal, but you got Adair right," he said with a grin in the direction of the man and the girl, eyes falling on the girl just long enough for her to shift her eyes to the man and then look back at him with a small smile.

The man chuckled and shook his head. "Sorry. I'm Caleb, this is Lea," He said as he turned to gather the small stack of papers waiting for him on the desk and started leafing through and signing them as Desk Woman pointed out to him where on the pages he was to sign for Adair.

While Caleb signed for him, Adair went back to move the two seats he'd been sitting on back into place and picked up both his bags, heading out of the room as if he couldn't wait another minute in it with Lea following behind him.

"She really gave you the coloring books." She'd noted, a hint of amusement in her tone that told him she was trying not to laugh. Adair rose a brow as his response to the observation as he leaned against the car, watching her move to sit on its hood, both of them having tried the doors of the car only to find them locked.

"They never treated you like you were younger than you really were while you waited with them?"

Lea shook her head as her answer to the question, lip curling up slightly, folding her arms lightly over herself as she scooted further onto the hood to lounge. "How bored were you waiting for us?"

Here he climbed up on the car to lay on the roof in the same position he'd been in the waiting room, head facing closest to Lea so he could look upside down to her. "Is this bored enough for the books?"

Lea snorted and slapped his arm lightly. "Yeah, I'd give you the coloring books too if I'd seen you like that. I saw you getting up when we came in."

Adair pouted playfully at her as he rolled off the hood just in time as Caleb came out and unlocked the doors.