Chapter 153: 121. Breaking Up The Band

When me and Kaylee got back to the house Willow quickly filled my girlfriend in on her encounter with Steve Ford, and how she was forced to use magic to save herself. Then I told the others what we found out, about someone inciting or coercing the bully to act, and how those memories had been tampered with.

That basically confirmed that both Melanie and Willow had been targeted by some unknown magic-wielding individual, only six days apart. And both attacks took place in broad daylight, where the results could potentially be witnessed by members of the public.

Now it was barely twenty-four hours later and we had almost the whole club squeezed into our living-room for the July meeting. We were a couple days early, the full moon wasn't until next Wednesday, but considering what was going on everyone felt like this stuff couldn't wait.

"This is exactly the sort of scenario we wanted to avoid," my mom said with a sigh. She slowly shook her head as she added, "Public exposure seems like a given at this point. Frankly I'm surprised it hasn't happened already."

Willow cringed and looked down at the soda can she was holding, "I'm sorry ma'am. I didn't know what else to do, but I definitely didn't mean to..."

"It's not your fault Willow," I told the anxious sorceress.

My mum agreed, "Willow I'm sorry if we gave the impression we were blaming you. You were right to defend yourself."

"Thank you ma'am," the cute ravenette replied. "I still feel bad about how things ended up though."

I tried not to flinch or cringe as I heard not-me respond, "I think you should be proud of what you accomplished, Willow. Not only did you protect yourself from a violent assault, you thought up and cast a complicated curse on the spur of the moment."

The praise left her blushing, and also got some mixed reactions from everyone else around the room.

I could tell my parents didn't think I should be complimenting Willow on the clever curse she imposed on the bully, neither did Paige or Brooke. On the other hand I already knew Sasha enthusiastically approved of Willow's actions. The two wolfgirls looked like they weren't losing any sleep over Steve Ford's fate either. Nina seemed a little torn, like she couldn't decide whether she agreed with our folks or if not-me and Sasha were right about this being a positive outcome.

Kaylee was sitting next to me and I couldn't see her reaction without awkwardly turning to look, but we were sort of cuddling so I felt the little shifts in her posture and muscles and stuff. I had a feeling she felt kind of torn on the subject as well, but maybe for different reasons. I was actually a little worried she might be jealous or envious again, especially after hearing 'me' praising the cute sorceress like that.

The only one who's reaction I couldn't gauge was Melody, because she wasn't at the meeting. She was busy with her boyfriends again, and at this point it felt like we probably wouldn't be seeing the shape-shifter much in the future either. She and her guys were all looking for a place to move in together, and from the sound of it they were planning to move somewhere up north.

Paige pointed out, "At least it's not permanent, Steve will be back to normal by this time next week. Let's just hope he stays out of sight and off social media until then."

That made me cringe a bit, with the 'not permanent' comment. I was positive she was making a subtle jab at what the other me did to Kyle and Danny last weekend. Then I cringed harder when I heard not-me comment, "I give it a fifty-fifty chance Steve will make it the full seven days without finding some reason to like something about that new body."

Nobody else seemed to hear that, so I did my best to ignore it as well. Fortunately someone else started talking, so I focused on that instead.

"It seems pretty clear someone's targeting Club Luna," Cerys stated, as she took control of the meeting. "The problem is we're no closer to figuring out who, or why."

The blonde werewolf still had her collar on, and she was in her wolfgirl form again. She definitely enjoyed that form at least as much as Melanie, who also had her ears and tail out. The two werewolfs were cuddling, and once again I thought they looked very cute together.

Our new club leader glanced at my girlfriend as she continued, "Personally I have a feeling Kaylee might be right about this being the work of the council. It feels like they're trying to set us up. Like they want to expose us as dangerous so they have an excuse to come after us directly."

"The problem is how do we confirm that?" Brooke responded. "We haven't even got any leads on who's doing this stuff. And for that matter, even if we did somehow confirm it, what would we do with the information? Something tells me we can't just text or email the council and ask them to leave us alone."

Melanie scowled, "So what are we supposed to do? We don't know who's behind this, but they seem to know all about us. We've tried keeping quiet and keeping a low profile, but that didn't stop them from coming after me and Cerys last week. And it didn't stop them from targeting Willow yesterday."

"I appreciate that this may be an unpopular opinion," Sasha responded as she glanced around the room, "But my suggestion is we simply continue going about our regular business as if nothing was amiss. I'm not saying we should ignore the dangers, nor should we be careless or sloppy. But if we're watching each other's backs and we all keep in touch, we should be able to weather this storm just fine."

My cousin continued, "Everyone in this room has fantastic gifts and talents. Our leader is an experienced witch and a werewolf, and she's not the only werewolf-witch in the club. We have three human witches, each of whom have several years experience. We've got a sorceress blessed by a goddess. I'm a skilled enchantress and have many years experience with various forms of magic. And finally we have both a demon and a goddess on our side, not to mention a pair of powerful angels."

"Frankly I don't think there's much for Club Luna to be afraid of," she concluded. "If all of us stand together we are a formidable opponent. So let them keep trying. Sooner or later they will make a mistake, and when they do we will have them."

By the time she was finished Cerys was smiling, so was Nina. Willow looked like she was trying to hold back a smile as well. Melanie still looked serious, along with my parents. And I noticed both Brooke and Paige looked troubled.

"Sasha has a good point," our club leader stated. "We're stressing right now because someone's poking at us and we don't know who they are, but they haven't hurt us. And they're not going to hurt us, because we won't let them. We're going to beat them, because we're stronger and we're smarter, and we're better. This is just another incident, and we're going to figure it out."

Paige responded, "We're strong as a group, but the attack on Willow happened when she was alone. It's easy to talk about being strong and tough when you have supernatural healing, but Brooke and Kaylee and I are human, so is Willow. We're a lot more fragile than all the supernaturals here. And while Brooke and myself both know protection spells, neither of us have much talent on anything that would let us fight back. And Kaylee can't even call on protection magic to keep herself safe."

"I have to agree with Paige," Brooke sighed. "Do we have anything more concrete than just go about our regular routine and hope we don't get hurt? Are there any leads at all?"

"What about the podcaster angle?" Kaylee asked. "Those guys were supposed to be releasing another episode last week, maybe there was something in there. Did anyone watch it?"

"I did," Paige replied. She continued with a sigh, "On the one hand they were still blurring faces and withholding names? But on the other hand, they revealed enough information that it wouldn't be hard to dox a few of their subjects. Including Melanie and her dad, which would quickly lead to the rest of us."

"That's just great," Melanie grumbled.

"So what do we do?" Willow finally asked. "It feels like we've run out of options. Trying to keep a low profile hasn't worked, and going about our normal business while we wait for the next attack sounds kind of stressful."

Everyone was quiet for a few moments, until Paige spoke up again.

The tall brunette looked and sounded both sad and apologetic as she admitted, "There's something that's been on my mind on and off for the past week, and after what happened to Willow yesterday I was up half the night thinking about it. Now with what we've been discussing here today I think my mind's made up."

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After a deep breath she stated, "Thirteen months ago May Hawthorne tried to disband Club Luna, and she specifically warned us about the council. Looking back now, part of me wonders if maybe we should have done just that. In just the last few months we've had the situation with that cave, someone lured us out there and got us on camera. Then we had the podcaster guys snooping around. And now someone's actively targeting us, trying to either hurt us or get us to expose ourselves."

She paused again, then sighed. "I can't help thinking maybe it's time to walk away."

"You're saying we should just quit?" Cerys half-demanded. "Give up, close down the club, and walk away from it all?"

Paige shook her head, "I'm not saying that. I'm just sharing what's on my mind."

"You all know I'm going to be leaving soon anyways," the tall brunette added. "That's less than two months away now. I think... I'm sorry but I think this is my last club meeting. I can't afford to put my life, my future, or my family at risk. Maybe it's too little and too late, but the reality is if I don't do this today I'd be doing it in about six weeks anyways."

She took one more deep breath then made the decision, "So yeah. I'm resigning from the club, effective immediately. I'm sorry."

For the next few seconds it was completely quiet in the living-room again, with some people staring at Paige while others were just looking at the floor or their drinks.

"All right Paige," Cerys finally responded. The young wolfgirl sounded sad this time, instead of angry or frustrated or anything like that. "It's been fun chasing ghosts and solving supernatural mysteries with you over the years. But I get what you're saying, and you have to do what's best for you."

There was another couple seconds of awkward silence, until Brooke spoke up. She was sitting next to Paige, and had an arm around her girlfriend's shoulders. The tall blonde grimaced as she said, "I think I'm going to follow Paige's example. I haven't been that active in the club lately anyways, and looking ahead I'm going to be even more focused on college next year than I was this year. You all know I want to get into teaching, and I can't help thinking it's going to hurt my career if something weird happens that gets me exposed to the public. So yeah. I think I'm going to formally withdraw from the club now as well."

Cerys nodded slowly, "Ok Brooke. We'll miss you too. Like I said, it's been fun doing all the club stuff with you over the years."

"Thanks Cerys," Brooke gave her a sad smile. "It's been a wild ride, that's for sure. And I'm not moving out of town or anything. We can still talk, we'll still see each other around."

Paige nodded, "Same. I'd like to stay friends with all of you, even after I move away. We can always text or call. And I'll be back at holidays and stuff, maybe we can meet up for coffee or something."

"Will you both be back here tomorrow for the big BBQ?" Kaylee asked. "That's not a club event, even if everyone else there is part of the club."

"Of course," Brooke promised. "I'll be there for sure."

"Me too. I wouldn't miss it," Paige added.

At that point Cerys looked around the room and asked, "Anyone else ready to call it quits?"

"I'm sticking with the club," I replied. "I think it's important."

Nina agreed, "Me too."

My girlfriend cuddled a little closer against my side and added, "Same. For as long as I can anyways. I'm still supposed to leave for university at the end of next month..."

"I only just joined," Willow stated. "Even after what happened yesterday I'm nowhere near ready to give up."

Sasha nodded, "I agree. Despite only being here a short time I'm already convinced Club Luna is important and does good work. I will stick with the club for as long as you all will have me."

"Same," Melanie stated.

Then Cerys looked to my parents and asked, "Tanya, Julie, as our sponsors and the responsible grownups in the room, what do you two think?"

"I think you girls have had to deal with a lot of stressful situations that many adults couldn't cope with," mum replied. "And I think you've all done a very good job handling it. From what Julie and I have heard, you've done a lot of good over the years."

She continued, "I also think Paige and Brooke are making difficult choices, I know it can't have been easy to come to those decisions. And I think that regardless of whether or not they're officially part of Club Luna, they should know they can always count on the club to come to their assistance should they encounter any trouble in the future, supernatural or otherwise."

My mom agreed, especially with that last point. "Brooke, Paige, don't hesitate to reach out to any of us if something comes up. If you see anything, or if something threatens you contact the club immediately."

"We will," Paige replied. "Thank you ma'am, we appreciate that you're looking out for us."

Cerys nodded, "Yeah club members or not you're still our friends, and you can count on us to help out."

Brooke thanked our parents as well, then she thanked the rest of us too. And finally she and Paige both got to their feet, and it finally hit me that they were leaving.

By that point it seemed like the club meeting was either over, or if not then we were definitely taking a break. There were lots of hugs and some sad smiles and stuff as Paige and Brooke went around the room.

It definitely wasn't goodbye, we'd be seeing the pair of them in less than a day when they came back for the big BBQ party on Saturday. It was sad though because of what it represented. However you looked at it, this was their very last club meeting.

Once all the hugs and stuff were out of the way Brooke and Paige bid us all a good evening, then they finally headed out the door together.