Winter

This was fine.This was okay.He wasn’t even really mad today.Nothing had forced him over the edge today.Today wouldn’t be bad.I could deal with this.I closed my eyes tighter as his boot pressed into my back. He leaned over and flicked ash from his cigarette on me. Dad never smoked in the house. Hannah hated when he smoked. She refused to let him in the house if he smelled like it. So he had other ways of getting his vice.“How did I get stuck with you? You useless wolf. I’m so glad that I had the forethought to bring Hannah into the mix.” His boot lifted off but connected with my side. “You really are the most useless thing. You were supposed to be a ‘great miracle’ that your mother begged me to take care of.”Curling up into a ball, I reached up and held onto the only thing left of my mother’s. Her locket never left my neck. It was the one thing that survived. Outside of me. I survived. All I did was survive.My muscles tightened as the cigarette butt burned into my skin under my

Slamming my locker shut, I glared at my best friend, Krista. “What do you want?”“Maybe…it would be your face on Friday?”“Absolutely not.” I walked past her.Krista had been by my side since we were eleven. Her family had been part of the Moon Shadow pack before it was absorbed into our pack. They weren’t leadership but they were one of the original founding families. Alpha Damian, and his father before him, made sure that when the packs were combined that many of the families were given similar status.She transferred into our school when we started Middle School and somehow I became her best friend. I had no control over it and I still didn’t. Krista was the one person who I could rely on no matter what and sometimes that got her in trouble. She’d run her mouth a little much and we’d both end up in deep shit.“But Winter, come on. Hunky Jackson is having a party at his house. Everyone is going. Everyone. And you can’t say everyone if you’re not going. I need my wingman! Wingwoman. W

I sat next to Krista in the high school office. She was smirking, her arms crossed over her chest, and her head leaned back against the wall behind us. Another one of our classmates came out of the office and winked at us before heading out. Principal Miles stood outside his door and motioned me in. Sighing, I got up and walked over to his office.“Well, this is the first time this year I’ve had you in my office.” Principal Miles sat down behind his desk. “I’d hope we didn’t need to do this until the official meeting at the end of the year.”Chuckling, I sat down across from him. “I mean, you know I love this office.”It was true. He’d turned his office into a bit of a dark academia vibe. The walls were painted a dark blue with gold accents everywhere. There were black bookshelves lining two of the four walls and most were filled with leather bound editions. He’d added in a few more mystical pieces to complete the look. Plus, his desk was a huge dark wood centerpiece that was intricate

My alarm went off and I groaned. Getting up, I hit the alarm and rubbed my eyes. I sat up from the chase lounge and stretched. For some reason, I felt even more locked up and in pain than before. I grabbed my backup backpack and everything I needed for the day. It was a serious debate whether or not I wanted to just sleep in and not show up to Statistics.In seventh grade, one of the times it got particularly bad, the older librarian who worked here gave me a key to an unused office. It had some old books that were needing to get donated but other than that, the space wasn’t used. Over the years, I made it into a mini version of Principal Miles office. A safe haven away from my house.The walls were a dark green with silver accents. My bookshelves were also black but these shelves held my own collection of books. After I brought home books and woke up the next day to them being trashed or burned, I stopped bringing home anything other than textbooks. Instead, I filled my little office.

I grabbed the three notebooks from Delilah over the three different classes. There were also the two textbooks, my own notes for the day, and then I grabbed a couple extra notebooks that were empty. With everything that I gathered today, I could easily set up a lesson plan for each class now. While I wasn’t quite comfortable being in an official teaching position, if I looked at it that I was only teaching someone a language, it lessened the feeling of imposter syndrome.‘You’re coming over for dinner.’Rolling my eyes, I grabbed my leather messenger bag that had somehow survived all of my college years with me. ‘I have work I need to do.’‘You little…you’re coming over for dinner. You didn’t even stop by when you came in last night!’Closing the door and locking it, I headed down the stairs and to the office. ‘I got in late. I needed to be up early. I wasn’t going to wake you or Ember up. You’re too old to be missing that kind of sleep.’I held back my laugh as my brother yelled in my