Rise and Shine, Trash

POV: Trishelle

The water hit me like a goddamn ice bath.

I came up sputtering, blanket glued to my skin, and for one dizzy second I thought I was drowning. My lungs seized before my brain caught up, some animal part still screaming fight or run. Then I heard the laugh.

Of course. There was always a laugh.

"Get up, Trash. Breakfast won't make itself."

The bucket dangled from Jack's fist, dripping the last of its contents onto my mattress. He grinned like he'd just won something. Maybe he had. Making me flinch seemed to be a full-contact sport around here, and Jack played like he wanted a fucking trophy.

I wiped my face with my soaked sleeve and caught a whiff of it before I could stop myself. Clean. Small mercies. Last month they'd used water from the mop bucket, and I'd smelled like bleach and old socks for two days, no matter how hard I scrubbed. I'd take ice water over that humiliation any morning.

Could be worse. I peeled myself off the mattress, stiff from three hours of sleep on concrete. Could always be worse. That's the pack motto around here, isn't it. I'd stopped counting the mornings I woke like this, cold and aching, because counting made it feel endless. Endless wasn't a thought I could afford before dawn.

I still had the scar on my hip from the last time someone decided my "room" needed livening up. Oil, a match, a few warriors who thought it was hilarious to watch an omega dance to put herself out. I remembered the heat before the pain, the laughter drowning my screams, how no one moved until the fire nearly reached my ribs. Omegas healed slow. I'd worn that mark two years now, silver and puckered, proof that entertainment in Bloodmoon pack came at my expense.

I got up. I always got up.

The basement was still black with night when I climbed the stairs, hair dripping, teeth chattering hard enough to hurt. The huge kitchen swallowed me in cold tile and steel. I paused just long enough to glance out the window. Not even a hint of dawn. The world outside looked hushed and indifferent, stars fading against a sky that hadn't decided to lighten.

They want breakfast before sunrise. Fantastic.

I twisted my wet hair into a bun with fingers gone clumsy from the cold and lit the ovens. Footsteps behind me made every muscle lock tight, an old reflex I'd never managed to unlearn no matter how many years passed. I bowed my head before I even turned around, the way I'd been taught. The way that had been beaten into me. Literally, more than once.

"Further instructions?" I asked the floor.

Jack's boots stopped a few feet away. Coffee already on his breath, which meant somebody had beaten me to the pot, which meant I'd hear about it later. Probably with a fist instead of words.

"Alpha wants French toast. Bacon, eggs, sausage. Fresh squeezed orange juice." He said it like he was reading a grocery list to the help, because that was exactly what he thought I was. "And don't forget the coffee, Trash. Guys'll be up soon for training."

He turned to go, then paused, glancing back with something that might have almost been curiosity if it weren't wrapped in contempt.

"You ever get tired of this?"

I looked up, startled he'd bothered to ask at all. In three years, no one had asked me anything that wasn't an order.

"Every day," I said quietly.

Something flickered across his face, gone before I could name it. A crack in the armor he wore like a second skin. Then he shrugged and walked off like the question had cost him nothing and meant less.

Don't get used to being seen, I reminded myself, turning back to the stove. It never lasts. I'd learned that lesson early and paid for every relapse into hope.

I started the list in my head the way I always did, a litany that steadied me better than any prayer. French toast for the Alpha, made from bread I'd have to bake first. White and whole wheat both, because James liked options even when he never said thank you for having them, never once acknowledged the effort of keeping two kinds of dough rising at once. Eggs a dozen different ways, because half the pack had opinions and the other half had allergies, and God help me if I mixed up whose plate needed what. Bacon, sausage, coffee, juice I'd already squeezed and chilled the night before, the way I'd learned to after the first time I forgot and got backhanded across the kitchen for it. The sting of that memory still lived in my cheekbone, phantom pain flaring whenever I smelled citrus.

I knew this recipe of pain by heart now. Burn the eggs, get burned yourself. Forget the coffee, go without dinner. I'd learned the pack's appetite the way other girls learned dance steps, one bruise at a time, each mistake mapped onto my body like sheet music only I could read.

The dough went in to rest. The ovens roared to life, four of them, more heat than any kitchen should need, and I moved through it like a ghost who'd already died once and just kept working out of habit, my hands remembering what my mind had long since gone numb to.

Sometimes I wonder if this is all there is. The thought came unbidden, dangerous as a lit match near a gas can. If I'll die in this kitchen, my hands permanently smelling of bacon and bleach, my body a roadmap of their cruelty. I pushed the thought away, same as always. Hope was a luxury I couldn't afford. Neither was self-pity. They were both weaknesses, and around here, weaknesses got you hurt.

The first rays of dawn started creeping through the windows as I cracked eggs into a bowl. The yolk was bright orange, almost like blood. I stared at it for a second, mesmerized by the color, by how something so simple could look so violent.

He asked if I was tired. The memory of Jack's question surfaced again, unexpected. What would he do if I said yes? If I said I was so tired I could barely stand, that I dreamed of fire and waking up somewhere else, anywhere else? Probably laugh. Probably tell the Alpha I was getting ideas above my station. Probably use it as an excuse to remind me of my place.

My place was here. In this kitchen. With these ovens. Making their food. Cleaning their messes. Taking their punishments.

The pack would be up soon. I could hear them stirring, the low rumble of their voices carrying down the hall. Some of them would be kind today. Some of them wouldn't. It was always a gamble, like Russian roulette with six bullets in the gun instead of one.

I poured the egg mixture over the bread, watching it soak in. The Alpha liked his French toast soft in the middle, crispy on the edges. I knew this. I knew how he liked his bacon (extra crispy), his eggs (scrambled but still wet), his coffee (black as sin and twice as bitter). I knew things about these men that their own mates probably didn't know. I knew which ones snored, which ones had nightmares, which ones snuck midnight snacks and blamed it on the ghosts.

I was their keeper of secrets, their repository of preferences. And in return, they called me Trash and threw cold water on me in the morning.

Some trade. I flipped the bread, watching it turn golden in the pan. The smell filled the kitchen, rich and sweet. For a second, I let myself pretend I was making this for myself. That I'd sit down at the big table and eat until I was full, that I'd drink coffee until my hands stopped shaking, that I'd walk out the front door and just keep walking.

The fantasy lasted exactly three seconds before reality crashed back in. The first of the warriors entered the kitchen, his heavy footsteps announcing him like a drum. I bowed my head, focused on the stove, and prepared for another day of being invisible in plain sight.