SORRYSORRYSORRYSORRYSORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Times x to the millionth power

I know I haven't updated since November, and from the many reviews I have received, you've all been dying to see the next chapter. Well here it is. Four months later than I thought it was going to be up, and I'm hoping that finally posting it and promising not to take so long with the next chapter will be sufficient apology to get anyone who has stuck with this story to forgive my updating delay.

I want to give a shout out to all of you who haven't given up on this story after me leaving it for so long.

…and I apologize in advance for the cliffy that I am going to leave you with :D.

Disclaimer: I do not own Witch. If I did, you would have all had me fired by nowfor not updating :D

10:30 am at the Lair's

Irma had arrived back at home roughly 10 minutes ago and was hanging around the kitchen by the phone. Ready to hang up on Ms. Vandom should she call, then tell her mother it had been the telemarketers again. Her father was at work and Chris (thank god) was over a friend's house terrorizing someone else for once.

"Irma! You're home, I expected you to be out with friends." Her father had just come through the front door. It wasn't unusual for him to spend the weekends mostly home. Saturday mornings were usually slow days at the police station.

"Nope, I'm meeting up with them later though." Irma replied. She picked an apple up off the bowl on the counter and took bite out of it.

"What are you going to be doing?"

Irma shrugged. "We'll probably hang out at Hay Lin's then watch a movie or something." She said, leaning over the kitchen counter. She took another bite out of the apple.

"Cool." Her father said reaching for an apple. "By the way, how was your sleep over the other day." He asked trying to make small talk. Her father was not the best at making conversation with her, since he had no way to relate to being a teenage girl. If only he knew I was the magic version of law enforcement. We'd have loads to talk about.

"It was great." She replied happily. Despite knowing her father could not relate quite as well as her mother might, Irma liked talking to him more. He was much more easy-going. I wonder what it would be like to be able to talk to him about WITCH? Then she shook the thought out of her head. Anything her Father knew, would undoubtedly reach her mother and her mother would throw a fit. It's best to keep it a secret…I think…but would it be so bad if Dad knew? He's a cop, he understands the whole defending good from evil thing? Right. She wanted to trust him not to tell anyone their secret, she was finding it was a hard secret to keep from him especially because he had raised her to always tell the truth and she was blatantly deceiving him at every turn. Yan Lin knew, heck, she had taught them all about magic…but on the other hand, Ms. Vandom knew and she was having a total freak out. Irma couldn't help but wonder how her dad would react. But I shouldn't think like that. It would be terrible of he knew, we all have to keep the Guardians a secret. Still, if there was anyone she wanted to tell it was her dad, who could probably offer some good sound advice on the whole Crime fighting front.

The companionable silence was disrupted by the ringing phone. "I've got it." She said hurriedly. Grabbing the phone before her father could. She rushed out of the kitchen as she answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Irma, Hi it's Ms. Vandom are your parents there?"

"uhh…nope. Sorry Ms. V, their not here right now and their cell phones are off too!"

"They are?" Great! Great job Lair! Now she's suspicious!

"yah, cause uh…Chris…spilled grape juice on them this morning! So they have to get new ones." Irma told her, improvising as she went along.

"Irma have you talked to Will recently?" Ms. Vandom demanded.

"Not since yesterday. Gotta go Ms. V, the uh…doorbell is ringing." Irma hung up before Ms. Vandom could reply.

"Hanging up on Will's mother?" Her father's voice asked from behind her. He was leaning against the door way to the living room. Irma stiffened. Crap, he'd heard the conversation!

"Uh, yah well you know she was looking for Will, who's not here but Ms. V is a very talkative person and you know I needed an excuse to hang up politely." Irma finished lamely. She was really not doing so well with good excuses.

To her surprise her father smiled. "I know what that's like."

She quirked an eyebrow "You do?"

"Sure," he said flopping down on the couch. "I had this girl friend in High school who was a very clingy person and she was the most annoying person ever."

"So why were you going out with her?" Irma asked curiously, sitting beside him on the couch.

"I asked her to the Prom and she just wouldn't leave me alone after that. Stalker in the making, anyways after I was at a loss of how to tell her to leave me alone politely, so I paid off my little brother to throw tantrums and act generally crazy every time she was around."

Irma laughed, that might actually be a good use for Chris...but I could never do that to Martin, he's too sweet, besides she reminded herself grimly, Knowing Chris he would gang up on me instead. "Did it work?"

"Sure, except that my brother got wise to what I was doing and demanded I pay him more, by the time I'd gotten my stalker to back off, Your uncle had robbed me of a hundred bucks and blackmailed me by saying that if I didn't do what ever he wanted he would go find the ex-girlfriend and say that I missed her and wanted her back."

"When did her stop."

"He didn't, I became a cop and I may have hinted that blackmail was illegal." Irma laughed, bringing a hand to her mouth to stifle the laughter. She saw her father staring at her "What?"

"Who did you punch?" He asked, staring at her hand, she pulled it away from her mouth and instantly saw what had gotten his attention. Her knuckles were faintly bruised from a fight in Meridian a few days before. Followers of the knights of Vengeance had been terrorizing a village in Meridan and while trying to arrest them, she had gotten into a fist fight with an adversary that she had disarmed.

"Oh, a wall in the radio room at school. I got angry at Uriah."

"So, why not punch Uriah?"

"Because, the teacher was there. I would have gotten detention and had to go to 'peer counseling' with him."

Her father raised an eyebrow at her "Really?" he asked.

Please don't make me use mind control on him! Irma thought. She hated using her powers to deceive her parents, especially her father. Not to mention, she had had to use her mental powers of persuasion on him so often recently that she had begun to notice him building up an immunity to it.

Before her father had a chance to reply, however, his cell phone started ringing.

"Hello?" He answered it while she sat silently begging it wasn't Will's mother… "Hey! Mrs. Cook, what's up? Ms. Vandom called you…meeting at the Hales 2:00? What's she want to talk about… Really, well I'll see if I can be there…." He trailed off looking at Irma, who in an attempt to get him off the phone, had begun shaking her head franticly and gesturing for him to hang up. "I'll call her later, okay, thank you for telling me. Goodbye."

He hung up the phone as dread began to circle around Irma's heart.

"So what have you been up to that Will's mother needs to tell all of us, might it have something to do with the bruise on your hand? I've a pretty good idea that you didn't get it from punching a wall." He asked, not suspiciously, but inquisitively, and she knew from his tone he'd rather hear the truth from her

Crap! Irma thought. She couldn't make him forget something that he already knew.

Irma Lair leaned back on her couch and put her hands over her face, whether it was a good idea or not, she had two options, try like hell to use her powers to convince him to avoid her friends parents permanently to avoid him ever knowing the truth (and that would probably fade after a day or so and her powers were only minimally affective outside of her guardian form) Or tell him the truth like her heart was telling her too and ignore all the rational reasons that Will and the others had instilled in her brain about keeping their secret…

Aww screw it!

Thought I would leave you with something to think about and also a promise that the next chapter will likely be up by the middle of June, possibly earlier, but before I can even think about it I have the SAT, the English AP test, my Psychology final, two essays, and a video presentation to think about, not to mention all the crap we Juniors go through while beginning our college application nightmare. So while I know you all are dying for a chapter, I hope you can wait for my month of hell to pass before you start badgering me :D

I promise, you wont wait as long as you did the last time for a chapter.

~Litara