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BILL

I wanted to attract Jennie's attention, but the word 'mom' stuck in my throat, I used it so infrequently that when I did, it burned like acid when it passed through my lips. So instead of speaking, I looked at her, waiting for her to meet my gaze.

“Er... Hi,” I mumbled when she didn't look up at me. I didn't want to be rude by not acknowledging her.

“Nuru, you don’t have to be so awkward,” Jennie gasped through a puff of smoke. “From next week you’ll drive yourself to school. "

“I’ll walk... thanks.”

I wouldn’t be caught dead driving in that piece of junk. It's rumbling engine would give me the last thing I craved — attention.

There was a faint crease on her forehead that she didn't seem aware of as she took another satisfying drag on her cheap cigarette.

“Jennie…” I frowned at the awkward tone in my voice and my heart drummed faster.

“Yes.”

So much rain was falling that the sound blurred into one long, whirring noise. It reminded me of the rotor blades of a helicopter.

“Can I open the window?”

She hesitated, her cigarette dangling loosely from her thin lips. “Um... That's okay... I guess.”

I pulled the window down for a second and the icy wind blew against my hair. My mouth twisted with chagrin. I shivered and closed it.

“How was school?” she asked me. “I didn’t see you at lunch today.”

She usually came to check up on me, just to make sure I kept the family secret safe. Of course I would, I didn't want to move again and the police were the last visitors I wanted to entertain over dinner.

“I spent it at the library,” I mumbled, rolling down the windows again to try to get the smell out. “I had to cover some work…”

She handed me a beer bottle. I opened it for her. When I gave it back to her, she gunned it down in one swing.

“I thought we agreed you don’t drink during weekdays.”

“I’m having a bad day.”

Those were the only days she ever had since my father died. It saddened and surprised me that she felt some sort of regret.

I listened to the thunder of the engine, the car protesting with every street corner it turned. The thing was old enough to be my great grandmother's. It was a surprise it was still running.

We were silent for a while — a tense, awkward moment — and then she turned flat eyes on me, letting out a cloud of smoke.

"So Bill and I have been talking..."

I groaned and shuddered at the name of her dangerous boyfriend. And suddenly had to swallow because my pounding heart was in my throat again. "And...?"

"You have a client tonight." Her voice was low but very clear.

My face fell and I looked out of the window to hide the brewing tears. I leaned away from her in repulsion. "I don't want to do this. Jennie, this is not me. You know me. This is not what I want."

A swift rigidity fell on the car. It was an awkward silent moment.

Jennie suddenly whipped her head in my direction, scrutinizing me, her nostrils flaring. "I don't have time for your whining... get your priorities straight."

"Jennie, please, make him stop sending me to these men. They could hurt me."

I turned back to look at her and she was frowning. "Stop being dramatic, no one wants to mess with your father."

"I don't have a father, remember, you took him away from us. You —"

She interrupted me with a growl: it was the single most menacing thing I had ever heard, and chills ran from the back of my head to the soles of my feet.

"I dare you. Say it."

I shook my head and stared out of the window at the large river and watched as tiny pilot boats crossed the Columbia, lights piercing the fog, all dwarfed by the monstrous ship.

“Look, Nuru,” she sighed hopelessly. “We may have only a couple of months to live, if we're lucky. So tread carefully. Bill is not your average guy. And you have to chip in. It's ridiculously expensive to nurture you.” Her voice was vacant, bleak. "The only way you'll leave here is by a body bag. We might as well accept it."

Nurture? What exactly did that mean? Was I too much trouble for her? Was I an unnecessary responsibility? By the cold, distant look in her eyes, I knew the answer. Yes. Yes, I was.

“Look, Nuru,” she sighed hopelessly. “We may have only a couple of months to live, if we're lucky. So tread carefully. Bill is not your average guy. And you have to chip in. It's ridiculously expensive to nurture you.” Her voice was vacant, bleak. "The only way you'll leave here is by a body bag. We might as well accept it."

Nurture? What exactly did that mean? Was I too much trouble for her? Was I an unnecessary responsibility? By the cold, distant look in her eyes, I knew the answer. Yes. Yes, I was.

“I won’t die and I won't leave you behind,” I mumbled stubbornly. “We'll run far away. To another country, maybe, he'll find another obsession in your absence.”

Jennie sighed and lit up another cigarette. "I wouldn't leave."

“You're the only parent I have left, Jennie,” I choked back a sob. “I can’t lose you too. Please...”

She sighed heavily. "Oh, Nuru, stop with the dramatic, sentimental, emotional shit. I'm not good with that and you're dying if you ever think of doing a runner on him. I'm no God okay? You stop trying to be one. It's just the two of us now, focus on staying alive. We just need to do everything he says. Okay?"

I didn't respond as we passed through 14th street without stopping. High winds and heavy rains battered cars, but still the farinaceous weather didn't kill the Port Edward magic.

"We're almost home. Get ready the second you get in."

"Please..." I begged.

She scoffed with impatience at my teary eyes. "The client has booked you for the full weekend."

"The whole weekend?" I screeched. The sting of betrayal washed through me. "Jennie... please, you can't do this to me... please m... mom..."

Her face stayed hard and rigid. "Stop being difficult, Nuru. I can't deal with your tantrums right now."

I turned my face away from her, an abrupt, fierce, stubborn hatred washing over me, and smoothed the hair out of my face. Why was I born Jennie's child? Why did she not harbour the same protective instinct most mothers did? Why me?

When the car turned into my street I suddenly had a strange feeling. Bill, panicked, furious, would be waiting for us at home. We were exactly five minutes late.

I could picture him pacing back and forth on the front porch or biting his nails impatiently, sitting in the recliner in the living room looking out of the window.

When the house came into view, and I saw the empty front porch, the feeling grew strangely more severe. The front lawn was curiously bleak and its three-cars long driveway held nothing of interest. The house looked like a recent cut-out from an Architects Today magazine. It looked like it'd been finished last month. It looked almost too new in some strange way. The walls were curiously white for a start and spied brown double doors as wide as they were tall. The windows took up entire walls with only polished steel beams to break them into yet more rectangles.

Jennie parked the car in the driveway and the second she was in the house, she blasted the speakers at maximum volume — a rough translation that the conversation was over.

With a roll of nausea, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and donned my jacket. Outside it was pouring still and I pulled the hood over my head, and fished for my phone to check the time. It was 3:45 in the afternoon and I had fifteen missed calls from Bill and three voice messages. I deleted them all without listening.

I ran up the steps and tried the door, it was unlocked. I burst inside and just stood in the hallway waiting for their argument to conclude. Seeing Bill's hostile, cynical expression only made me more resentful. I was frozen to the bone and I quickly turned the heating up full blast.

"Do you realize how late it is?" Bill was saying to a terrified Jennie. Bill can't shift to his wolf form. A life sentence handed to him in the magistrate court. The only sure way to torture a werewolf. I could just image all that rage boiled up inside, no way to release his wolf, release the pain, release the calling of the fullmon.

She shivered and I could almost taste her fear. "I'm... sorry... Bill, I lost track of time."

"Do you honestly believe that is a good excuse?!"

Jennie winced, and her eyebrows pulled together. "Of course not." She walked past him into the kitchen. She always moved away from him when he got like this to avoid his disorienting fists. "But that is what really happened."

He was following behind her, gritting his teeth as hard as his fists. Still angry. "I thought you understood! When you're going to be late, at least send a text."

"Yes, I know. I must've forgotten."

His eyes sparked with hate as he glowered at Jennie. "That's beside the point, you still should have called dammit!"

When she was in the brightly lit kitchen, brown in color, large, with a big rectangular table that could sit six people, I finally exhaled. "You're right. I'm sorry." Jennie, always the peacemaker.

"Next time you —"

"There won't be a next time," she quickly reassured Bill in a soft, almost pleading voice.

I followed them into the kitchen and threw my backpack on the floor and opened the fridge. I looked through its contents and then shook my head in disgust. Everything was cold. I made myself a cup of coffee.

"You have any idea how important tonight's client is?" Bill said in a low voice. He kept his eyes on Jennie, ignoring me like I wasn't there. We mostly avoided each other, which was hard to do since we lived together.

I wrapped my hands around the hot cup and sighed in contempt.

Jennie laughed nervously. "I know I wronged you. It won't happen again."

I flickered my gaze from Jennie to Bill, aware that there was a great deal of tension and that, somehow, I was the root of it. We sat in silence for a long, agonizing moment and then Bill stormed off, there was no way I could leave Jennie with him when he was still so angry. The sky no longer reflected light outside the window, the sunless day making room for a starless, cold night.

"Nuru?" Jennie asked.

I looked at her uneasily and took a sip. "Hmm...?"

"You won't be cheeky with your father, right?"

I deflected her question, grimacing at the word father. "What time am I expected?"

She sighed. "In twenty minutes."

I frowned. "Oh."

"So please..."

I shrugged and dropped my empty cup in the sink. My mother watched me with scrutinizing eyes as I twirled and walked out into the hallway down towards the bathroom. I unlocked the door and flickered the light.

Surprisingly it was still clean. White in color. The towels and tub were dry. The medicine cabinet above the sink had a mirrored door.

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