There was someone staring at me from the trashy alley outside.

Someone with dark eyes. A dark-eyed, attentive stare.

Someone, who also just so happened to be a--

"Pup's got his eyes on you, Alexis." Kleo brushed past me, carrying two empty ketchup bottles for a refill. "Again."

I ignored her pointed look directed at me like I was so used to doing on a nightly basis and continued what I'd been doing, which was grabbing one napkin after another and folding them into neat, precise triangles. It was foolish, especially when these napkins always ended up in the dirtiest corners of the shack or on the leftover stains on the grubby tables. It was foolish, but it was a repetitive task, and those kept my brain rationally quiet.

There was a sudden loud thud and then the doors swung open. I looked over at Ashton, the other waiter on shift here at Coco's apart from Kleo and I, as he barged inside the backroom, his hair disheveled and his maroon waiter uniform stinking of smoke.

"You're not supposed to be passively smoking," I eyed him.

Kleo squirted a loud wad of ketchup on the marble slab, cursing softly under her breath.

"I wasn't. I was actively smoking." He rebuffed dryly then smacked his hands together in a pleading gesture. "The back booth's filling up, can you take care of their orders?"

"Why should I?" I asked him, rubbing the back of my neck because I could still feel the beady-eyed stare trying to pierce my skin, and tried to shake it off.

"Because Phil's outside," he said, "and he's going to beat the shit out of me if he smells the smoke on me."

I held my breath and tightened the strings of my apron, grabbed a few neatly folded napkins, and washed glasses, before shoving past him and into the bustle of the restaurant.

"Thanks--" The rest of what Ashton said went muffled as the doors swung close behind me.

Grimacing at the bright harshness of the ratty shack I worked at, I squeezed past the various occupied tables towards the very back where one remained empty--or was, just a few seconds ago.

"Aye, was waiting on you, girl." Mr Reynolds' gruff, nasally voice found my ears way before my eyes found his wrinkled face.

Mr Reynolds was a thirty-something retired rancher, who also happened to be my landlord--something he never let me forget--something I didn't like forgetting either. Because it was that fact alone--the only thing that kept me from kneeing him between his legs sometimes.

I eyed him narrowly, keeping him in my periphery as I placed a single glass and napkin in front of him. "What can I get you?"

Be fucking professional, Alexis, if you want to keep this fucking job, Phil had told me multiple times. So I was being fucking professional. I always was.

His friend joined us, seeming to be the same age as him but with a little more grey in his hair--I noticed--sitting across from him. I placed a glass and napkin in front of him too.

"We'll get two beers." His friend ordered.

I nodded, pulled away, and almost turned to leave when there was a harsh, deliberate yank on a lock of my hair.

"And the rent that's overdue, girl." Mr Reynolds sneered as I turned around to look at him, head tilted just a little with the pull on my hair. His two grubby fingers that held onto my hair let go almost instantly, still outstretched as if delivering a warning. I tensed.

I leaned down towards him, grinding my jaw before letting go. "Do that again, Mr Reynolds, and I'll break them."

"Break what?"

"Your thumb," I murmured, eyes on him all the while, "and your index finger."

He pulled them back, rubbing his fingers over his shirt, and muttered something under his breath. His friend snickered and dug out his phone from his pocket.

"Tell that fucking kid of yours to stop digging for trouble in the storage shed." He snarled at me, all sick glee gone from his eyes.

His words made me want to bristle, but they alerted me just the same.

I didn't bother giving him the satisfaction of a response, though. Instead, after making sure his hands were by himself and not within an inch of my reach, I turned around and walked away.

"Alexis!" A shout rang somewhere in the distance and it didn't take me long to notice Phil making his way towards me. Sweat beaded his forehead as he growled out, "You seen that boy Ashton? Where the fuck is he? If he so much as took another one of his smokes near my kitchens--"

"He's in there." I cut him off, inhaled aggravatedly, and gestured at the back room doors. "He was smoking. Leave me out of it."

I went behind the counter, grabbed two beer glasses, and filled them until the beer overflowed, bubbling up until it smoothened out against the rim.

I could hear the shouts happening in the backroom and I knew Ashton would have a few choice words to say to me now that I'd snitched on him, just like I knew a stray dirty-furred dog was waiting for me behind the alley where this shack was located, staring at me with his pleading eyes from the back door, hoping I'd give him some scraps of greasy food.

It wasn't something I'd meant to make a routine out of. It was something that had just happened--unfolded during one of my usual shifts, and it kept on happening like a daily chore now.

I stepped out from the back door once the rush hour of the shack had settled a little and Phil didn't seem like he'd throw a beer glass at either of his workers. The takeout box in my hand was filled with a few pieces of chicken--a wrong order that Kleo had been about to throw in the trash, just like that--and it was warm. That's all that mattered.

I heard a familiar bark, a scuffle behind one of the dumpsters, and then a small, skinny-furred body appeared from the dark and towards my shoes.

I sat down against the wall and opened up the takeout box carefully, placing it beside me and watching, careful and tired, as the dog started chewing on it.

There was silence as he ate, just the faint sounds of the city and its bustling streets at night, and the toned-down rush inside the restaurant.

To be inside for hours, catering to tables and booths and all different--yet so sickeningly similar--minds of the townsfolk, and then finally getting a chance to take a breather--all of it was a relief on its own.

I tipped my head back against the grimy wall and closed my eyes, exhaling slowly and feeling the tension draining from my shoulders.

A bark jolted me out of my doze.

"What?" I asked.

Another bark and then a nip at my knees.

"Don't bite me. You're very dirty." I spoke quietly, then held out my fingers and watched as the dog rubbed the top of his head against my palm. "I can't take you home."

He barked again almost as if asking me why I couldn't.

"Augy wouldn't like it."

I rubbed the top of his head with my thumb, stared at the torn waggy ear he'd always had, and watched him push the empty takeout box away.

"I'm sorry," I told him.

He butted my hand with his nose. I spent the rest of my break petting him until someone from inside the restaurant shouted my name. Only then did I get up, whispered awful promises to the dog (awful because they were also hopeful and hope never got you anywhere, did it) and walked back inside, closing the back door behind me.

•••

It was almost midnight when I reached home. Maybe that was why when I unlocked the apartment door, trying to juggle the takeout boxes in one hand and shrug off the dark windbreaker from my shoulders, I was only met with silence from the apartment.

My shoulders stiffened in alarm, an instinct that was ingrained so deeply inside me that I didn't even notice, and I had to count to ten until I switched open the lights. Only when I noticed a curled-up lump on the couch with the TV on, a science documentary about galaxies flashing on the screen, that I felt the tension draining from me.

I tried to be mindful of the noise and carefully set the takeout boxes on the kitchen counter, toed off my shoes, and placed them by the door--locking it once, twice, and then thrice for good measure.

"Someone knocked on the door while you were gone." A sleepy, muffled voice came from the couch.

I turned, eyed August's bedhead, and quietly walked back to the kitchen.

"I tried looking from the curtains." He added.

"Don't do that again," I told him. A direct warning.

There was a shuffle. A yanking of the blanket, a gruff inhale of frustration. "Why not? You're not here half of the day. I come back from school and you're never here."

I glanced at him, tying my hair up in a bun. "I'm only not here because I heard you praying in your room last week that you wished I went away for good."

August's pale face colored, his dark hair--a shade that was an exact replica of mine--ruffled in almost every direction. "I didn't."

You did and I heard you. "I brought you pasta," I said instead and set up on microwaving it after I was done washing my hands. "Come on."

"I'm not hungry."

I faced the running microwave, heaved out a sigh, and ran my hands up my face.

"Where were you tonight?" He asked--no, demanded--and it was the suspicion in his voice that alarmed me, made me want to stuff myself in my room and not get out for days at an end. It made me feel mad.

"How was school today?" I asked him, whipping around to face him, watching him with something akin to relief in my chest as he got up--finally--clad in years-old ratty pajamas with faded cartoon planets drawn on them and padded over to one of the kitchen counter stools.

"Why do you care?" He grumbled but sat down anyway, eyes locking on the microwave.

"Augy, when did I give you the impression that I don't care?" I raised my hands in the air, frustrated and tired of trying to make him understand that it wasn't my choice. None of this was my choice.

"When you weren't here and left me with Uncle Misha." He glared at me, sleep rumpled and pillow creases on his face.

Getting glared down at by a twelve-year-old wasn't something I think I'd ever get used to. Especially on nights like these.

"I didn't leave you with Uncle Misha. Mom and Dad did." I told him.

"You left me and you left Mom and Dad." He shouted and I stiffened. "And now you won't let me go back to them!"

I blinked. The microwave beeped behind me. "You can't go back to them."

"I will." He snapped, voice cracking, eyes wide with anger and hurt and so much more that I wished to erase--just because he was my baby brother and I'd never meant to let this happen. "I'm not...I'm not letting you keep me trapped here just like--just like Uncle Misha. You can't force me--"

"For God's sake, I'm not forcing you to do anything!"

"You're trying to control me!"

I drew in a sharp breath, turned around and faced the cabinets and the drawers and the marble slabs, ran my hands over my face, and noticed them shaking.

"Take your dinner," I managed to get out, "and get lost."

Almost instantly I wished I hadn't said it, wished I could take back the words, and squeezed my eyes close when I heard the microwave door being pulled opening, the dinner plate being scraped out and then the slamming of a door across the kitchen--because this house was barely a house and both of us were trapped here.

Maybe August more than me.

I dug my fingers into my eyes and ran my hands up my face and a blinding flash went before my eyes--Mr Reynolds grabbing a lock of my hair--and I tried to ignore the tremors in my hands.

Walking to the bathroom across the living room, I threw open the door and opened the only cabinet above the sink, rummaging around the first aid kit. I found the pair of scissors and yanked on the hair tie securing my hair in place, letting my hair fall over my shoulders and down to my waist. I grabbed a handful on the left, snapped at it with the scissors, and watched as inches of it--my dark hair--fell on the floor. Only then did the shaking of my hands stop.

Angry and frustrated and exhausted and scared--I couldn't afford to be scared.

August, I thought, was the only reason I was here. I couldn't be scared.

Where else would you be? A sinister voice spoke in my head. What else is truly yours, Alexis?

There was a rattle from outside. I stiffened and walked out, looked around in alarm but nothing was amiss. Another faint rattle from outside and I neared the windows. I gripped the curtains, pried them apart, and stared out at the empty dark street outside.

A car zipped by. There was no one.

No one except the single faint handprint on the fogged window in front of me. One that wasn't mine, not from the inside, but one made from the outside. I trailed my thumb over it and it didn't smudge.

Outside, I thought again.

There was a blur, a flash of carlights zooming past, and I thought I saw a flash of blond hair, but that too was maybe just in my head.

--------
fellas, it is good to see you here :)

(so sorry for the prolonged wait, I'd hoped to start this book on the new year's but no day better than my birthday, I guess :p)

Crystal Xx.