This chapter is dedicated to XprincesspX ...I know you're reading girl. Thanks for being with me on this journey.

And for all the rest of you Witches that like a good fight...

Kat

The fasten-seat-belt sign goes off, and Trace sits down his beer and stares at me. "Why did you lie, and say you were going to Texas?"

"I never said I was going to Texas. I said I had to leave today."

"Were you even going to tell me you were coming to LA?" he hisses.

"Well, you know...we were always hitchin' the same ride. I figured...just let it play out," I gesture around to the plane and Matt chokes on his beer a little as he snorts with laughter.

"Jesus, Mari, you got a live one with a smart mouth. She's gonna fit right in with the porn stars," he tips his beer to his wife.

Marianne rolls her eyes and throws a pillow at him. "My WITCHes aren't all porn stars. Only a few."

Trace blinks. "You recruited Kat for your WITCH Campus? " Trace rises. "What the hell are you thinking, Marianne—talking to Kat about this, and not me!?! This isn't happening. That program is not Kat's scene."

Marianne stands up, nearly meeting Trace's six-one height in her heels. "Sit your little judgmental ass down, Gallant. You don't know what the hell you are talking about, you don't speak to me like that, and you don't speak for Kat, either."

Matt winks at me, and swivels his bucket seat, swinging a leg out sideways, catching Trace behind the knees. Trace's indignant stance buckles and plops abruptly down in his seat. "What she said, son." Matt says coolly, bowing forward in his seat to his wife, and handing Trace back his beer.

Trace rubs his face, and looks wildly from Matt to Marianne. He seems almost at a loss. He sighs and swigs the beer. "I'm sorry, Marianne. I didn't mean to yell. You know I respect the hell out of you, but this is..." he looks at me. "Kat, do you understand what her WITCH Campus is?"

"Better than you, I think," I retort. "It's an artist colony for Women In Transition Creating Happiness."

He looks between me and Marianne, skeptically. "Kat...everyone in Hollywood says Marianne's WITCH Campus is a great thing for helping down-on-their-luck women, but it's basically..." he looks from Marianne to Matt, to me, "Well, people in LA say it's where porn stars go to die."

"Oh, they ain't dead, yet." Matt chimes in, slurping his beer. "Some of 'em still fine as hell, actually." He winks at Marianne. "My Annie could start her own adult film company, if she wanted."

Marianne slaps Matt on the head as she crosses behind him and brings the champagne bottle back to our seats.

"I have sixty-seven WITCHes on campus right now. Four are retired adult entertainment stars. Two are former Vegas showgirls. Five are struggling actresses that made ends meet as exotic dancers. One was a call girl. The other fifty-five women have never worked in the sex industry. One was a nun, actually. One is a Kennedy second cousin or something. About two-thirds of the WITCHes I recruit are young women like Kat. For whatever reason—famous parent, famous boyfriend, social media starlet—they get attention in the public eye. They are full of potential, just not sure how to wield it. Like I was, when Skid Marcs blew up and I was suddenly the part-time arm candy of the world's biggest rock star. I wish somebody had given me the opportunities and guidance I give these women. Would have saved me a lot of heartache." She winks at her husband.

"Yeah, she would have straightened my ass out a lot sooner, and not let me dick her around for a decade," Matt assured Trace solemnly.

"Yep," she agrees. "These women I choose as WITCHes —they get to explore pretty much anything they want—art, music, acting, college coursework, writing—whatever, while they live on the WITCH Campus. All I ask is that they help me organize and execute my charity events. Which is also a great experience—and some of these women actually find that non-profit work is their passion and end up working for me full-time. I don't just take in hard-luck cases. Women like that go to other programs. To be a WITCH, a woman has to have ambition, intelligence, personal presence, and a desire to contribute. Trace, believe me when I say, this is a win-win for Kat. She's not sure what she wants to do with her life, but she's very capable, and she certainly needs to learn to handle herself in the limelight. While she's exploring her options, part of her sweat equity will be using her press popularity to make appearances at my charity events. It's good PR, you know, especially with you and Matt breaking your relationship to the press. Kat will grow leaps and bounds from this. I offered her a meeting for curiosity, but after we spoke for half an hour, I knew for sure, she's a WITCH through and through," Marianne gives me a brilliant smile and toasts me with her glass. I tip mine back and say,

"Thank you, I'm honored to be a WITCH!"

"Look, Marianne," Trace frowns, "I think you're A-list in every category, but I really don't think it's a good idea for you to teach Kat how to be famous."

"Babydoll, you made her famous already," Marianne winks at him. "I'm just going to help her learn how to survive it."

"Yeah, but—"

"Trace," I cut in. "You're forgetting one huge thing."

Trace says "What?" at the same time that Matt laughs, like he knows what's coming.

"It's not up to you where I spend my summer, or what I spend it doing. Marianne offered me a spot at WITCH Campus, and I agreed. You are wasting oxygen, arguing with Marianne, and you're pissing me off, acting like I'm not even here."

Matt snickers. "I heard they call you HellKat. Suits."

"Yeah," Trace scowls. "Listen, do you guys mind if Kat and I have a minute?" He gestures to the back of the plane.

Matt swivels around in his chair, his arms raised high to the door beyond the entourage filled seats. "Have at it. Don't fuck on my bed, though. I like you, kid—but not that much."

Trace stares at Matt, and then erupts in a barky laugh. "Christ, you're insane, you know that?"

Matt winks at him. "Just trying to lighten the moment, Trace. You are way too intense all the time."

Trace turns his back on his bio-dad and scowls down at me, angry eye-browed. He slings a curt hand toward the door. I squint my eyes back at him, cross my legs, and take another slow swallow of champagne. Does he really think he can forbid me from joining Marianne's WITCH's, like I'm a child?

"Please, Kat," he says in a too-even voice.

"Fine," I flounce out of my seat and strut to the back of the plane.

"Wow," I say as I enter the bedroom suite.It's decorated like an Arabian's prince's chamber, drowning in swaths of richly colored silk and brass fixtures and musky incense. Not at all like the neutral, generic, taupe colored cabin.

No lie, mirrors on the ceiling.

"He's insane," Trace mutters again.

Even ogling Matt's Mile High Sanctum doesn't dispel our irritation with each other. After a brief thirty seconds of sex palace shock, we round on each. Trace gets the first word in.

"Are you trying to punish me, Kat? Cause this is a pretty damn good way to do it—playing Ashlynn 2.0."

"What the fuck did you just say?" I hiss. I know he did not just call me Ashlynn.

"Your plan is to make me lose my mind all over again? Make me sick to death worrying about you running wild in LA while I'm a world away on tour?"

"Oh my god, Trace! I am so sick of you treating me like a kid. I am not Ashlynn! This is your lifestyle! You live in LA! I'm just trying to learn the ropes!"

"Then you need to wait until I can teach you! Go to Duke, like a good girl, and come to LA next summer when I'm done with the tour."

"Teach me? Like a good girl?" I nearly screech. I stamp my foot. Wait, did I really just stamp my foot? God, he makes me so mad. I want to push him hard, but I've promised myself never to touch him in anger. Never again.

Trace bites his lip and bangs his fist to his forehead. He splays the hand in front of him, in frustration. "Fuck, Kat. I didn't it mean it like that. I meant, you're smart—and you earned Duke. It's a prestigious school. A degree from there means something. If pre-med is not your thing, I totally get that, but don't throw away Duke on a whim. This Witch Campus thing...it's not a summer gig, baby. I knew a girl that went there. She was there for two years. It's all pilates and art classes and makeup seminars and cool college classes one week, and flying around the country with Marianne to do charity stuff the next. You're going to have a lot of fun, and want to stay for the full year program—"

"And why is that bad?" I challenge.

"Because it's also clubbing appearances with the other WITCHes at night to fund your wardrobe for Marianne's charity photo-ops. And with clubbing comes dudes and drugs, and—"

"And you don't trust me!" I shout. "That's what it comes down to. You think I can't handle myself."

"I trust you," he growls. "But LA is a fucking den where devils can prey on you, and you don't seem to give a shit about my feelings, Kat. Do you know what I've been through with your sister these last two years? She made me feel a million years old. I'm twenty-three. I'm supposed to be having the time of my life with my band, and all I've done is worry about her, chase her around, plead with her, clean her up, watch her blow all my efforts to shit, and then do the whole damn thing over and over again. I can't go through that again! I thought you were better than that!"

I am so fucking sick of everything between us being about Ashlynn. Before I can even register the words coming out of my mouth, I yell, "Was it really like that, Trace? Or did you just pay Riley to be her stalker-savior while you fucked a hundred fangirls?"

It happens all at once, but to me, the horror is in slow motion. He stiffens— his whole body going arrogant—and the Rock Star face descends, plasticizing all his features. "This is done." He turns to leave.

I grab his arm and shoot in front of him, furious. "We aren't fucking done, Trace! If you love me like you say you do, you can't just walk away from every fight we have!"

Every muscle of him is tensed in aggression, but he never touches me. He leans close, his words violent spittle against my ear. "I do love you, but I'm so goddamn, bone-deep mad at you right now, and I refuse to be Ross Gallant. I know when to walk the fuck away."

He stares down at me, his face unreadable. His raw honesty has quenched my own rage. I step aside, yielding the door. He snatches a guitar case on the way back to his seat. "Hey, Man," he says casually to Matt offering his bio-dad the guitar, as if he's not seething underneath, "Teach me Total Loss? I never quite got the progression through the bridge."

With a quick glance to me standing in the bedroom doorway, and a more meaningful glance to Marianne, Matt puts down his beer and curls his fingers for the guitar. "It's like this," he strums through a quick sequence. "The tricky part is here," he fingers the lick—once, twice, three times, slowly at first, then moving to full speed. I sit down on the damask bed, listening to Trace repeat the playing, to near perfection. "Yeah, that's it. Fuck. You're a way better guitarist than me," Matt murmurs.

Marianne sashays into the bedroom, the bottle of champagne firmly in her grip, and sinks down on the bed beside me, putting a confident, consoling arm around me. "I know it's hard. But you can't let him rule you. You have to be your own woman. It's the only way it ever works, in the end."

I feel numb in the core, but my eyes haven't got the message. They are leaking. "I love him so much. But he hurts me." I whisper.

Marianne laughs. "It wouldn't be real love, if he couldn't hurt you. C'mon. Let's finish this bottle of champagne. I think I need it. I'm about to tell all my kids their Daddy has a first-born love child that's the heir to the family Rock Star business."

I laugh despite myself. "We got first world problems, huh?"

"You got that right, WITCH," she snorts, and offers me the bottle of champagne.

Well, what do you think about Marianne's Women In Transition Creating Happiness? Should Kat join the WITCHes or be "a good girl" and go to Duke? Did Kat kinda hit below the belt with fangirl comment, or do ya feel her frustration with Trace?

Anybody else besides me wanna give Trace a good slap right now for that "good girl" comment, and ya' don't even care that he hates to be hit? Let me hear from ya! I gotta know how y'all think they should resolve this new drama...