Exiled - 01 Read Free

both awake we might as well have breakfast together. It’s been too long.” She started to gather eggs, a frying pan, and other essentials. “How about French toast?” she said. She knew it was my favorite.
    “French toast sounds great, Mom.”
    She puttered about the kitchen. “So your birthday’s coming up, the big eighteen. Do you have any idea what you want?”
    I shook my head. “You shouldn’t get me anything and you know that. We don’t have the money anyway. I’d rather just not think about it.
    She stopped and turned to me. “I’ll be damned if you’re going to have a birthday and not celebrate it. We’ll make it work.”
    “You always do, but no matter how many good birthdays I have, they’ll never make up for the bad one.”
    My mom sighed. “Chase. Riley. Williams.”
    “Yes?” I replied innocently.
    “This is our life now. I don’t regret what happened and neither should you.”
    “Mom, things could be better for you if I…” I loved my mother, but sometimes I hated that she couldn’t admit our life was better in the Circle.
    “Chase, my life in the Circle was a lifetime ago, and I don’t miss it.”
    “Not even a little?”
    “No, and you’re old enough now to know that your father and I hadn’t seen things the same way for a long time.”
    That caught me off guard and my first instinct was to defend my dad somehow, but he didn’t deserve that. Mom was trying to share something with me and I didn’t want to stop her from treating me like an adult.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’ve always known your father is a fire elemental and I’m water. They’re opposing forces of nature. My magic is for healing, and his element holds nothing but destructive power. Being polar opposites may be why we fell in love, but we couldn’t sustain it. Your father was always a proud and arrogant man, and so hard on you. Nothing you did was ever good enough, and granted, that’s part of the reason you are so good. You never stopped trying to impress him. It might be hard to believe, but once upon a time he was gentle, sweet, and kind. He wanted us to be one happy family. Then one day, something changed.”
    “What?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. His power controlled him, and he became obsessed with you being his legacy, instead of his child. As much as you miss your old life, you need to understand exile is for the best for both of us.”
    “It’s just hard to see that sometimes.”
    “I know you have to bear the burden of being Riley Williams’ son, and that’s not fair. You’ve never been able to relax since the Underworld wants to kill you just for being his son. None of this is something a normal seventeen-year-old has to deal with, but hunters are never normal,” she said with a smirk.
    “Yeah, try telling the Circle that,” I said.
    Mom shook her head. “We don’t need the Circle, Chase. We don’t need their help. We don’t need their money and we don’t need their problems.”
    Maybe Mom was right, but I wanted to be fighting the good fight, not fighting to survive. We could make ends meet without its help, but sometimes I missed the support the Circle could provide, and without their funding, Mom and I worked full-time just to pay the bills. Mom worked in a rehabilitation center, a worthy employer that didn’t exactly make or pay a fortune. She enjoyed the work, but she couldn’t use her element in the open. Mom’s powers were useful, but people fear what they don’t understand.
    So this was our life trying to be normal. I wasn’t sure why, but attacks on my mom were rare, while for me they were the most dependable thing I had in my life besides her.
    “Any plans for the day?” Mom said, as the smell of French toast filled the room.
    “No, I work tonight.”
    “I know you feel it’s your responsibility, Chase, but you don’t have to take so many shifts. You have enough on your plate dealing with the Underworld without worrying about paying the