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The voice on the other end makes me jerk back to reality with a sickening lurch.
It’s my mom.Fuck.
We don’t speak very often anymore. Usually, I screen her calls better, not answering when I’m not in the mood to deal with her, but I wasn’t thinking this time.
My fingers tighten around the phone, and I keep the knife clutched in my other hand, as if holding it will somehow keep me grounded during this conversation.
“Hi, Mom. What’s up?” I ask, trying to sound neutral until I know what she wants.
“Nothing, baby. I’m just calling to check up on you,” she replies. “I know you’ve been busy with school, and that things have to be rough with tuition and all. Those places really overcharge, considering they can’t even guarantee you a job when you graduate.”
I roll my eyes but relax just a little. She’s clearly in one of her ‘be a good mom’ phases, where she showers me with love and affection, pretending like all the times she’s stolen from me and manipulated me haven’t happened.
Those phases never seem to last very long, but I can’t seem to bring myself to tell her to fuck off when they do happen. Because it feels nice, having someone care. Even if it’s just temporary.
“I’m working it out,” I tell her. “Picking up extra shifts when I can. I think it’s going to be okay.”
There’s no way in hell I can tell her that the money has been taken care of, or how.
“Are you sure? I can try to help you with your school costs if you need me to.”
“That’s okay, Mom. I’ve got it covered.”
She makes a soft noise, but she doesn’t sound annoyed. Yet. “You always say that. We’re family, Willow. Family helps each other.”
Hearing those words makes me grind my teeth a little. That’s what she always says.Family helps each other. She used to say it when I caught her going through my purse, or when she asked me not to say anything to the people from school who came sniffing around when I was younger, wondering why I was never in class.
It always seemed to be me helping her, though, never the other way around. But whenever I got upset about it, she’d remind me that she was all I had in the world. That she gave me a roof over my head and food to eat, so I owed her for that.
“I know,” I hear myself say, the words falling from my lips on autopilot. “If I need you, I’ll call. Bye, Mom.”
I end the call and then take a deep breath, shoving my phone back into my pocket and the knife back into my bag before heading across campus to the bus stop.
As I go, I keep glancing side to side, half expecting the third Voronin brother to jump out of a bush somewhere. Victor is the only one I haven’t had an encounter with yet, so it feels almost inevitable.
Malice promised I wasn’t going to see any of them again…
But somehow, I don’t think that’s true.
10
WILLOW
A coupleof weeks go by, and just like Malice said, I don’t see the three brothers at all during that time.
Even so, there are times when I can’t help but feel like I’m being… watched.
It feels like even though I don’t see them, they can see me.
Surprisingly, my grades have been improving a lot, and it makes me realize how thin I was stretching myself before. I was always so tired and worn down, and now that I’m not going straight from school to work long hours at Sapphire, I’ve actually had time to study and get a reasonable amount of sleep.
On a Thursday almost a month after my first encounter with the brothers, I show up to school early to do the final bit of prep for the presentation I’ve been working on with April and the rest of our group. By the time I walk into my history class, I feel completely ready to go.
We stand up in front of the class and present our research, and when I have to talk about my part, I’m only a little nervous because I realize I actually do know my stuff for this.
“Well done,” Professor Walsh says when we’re done, and April glances my way with a sour look on her face.
I can tell she’s been counting down the days until I was supposed to get thrown out of school for not being able to pay, but it didn’t happen. So me doing well on the project, not giving her a chance to mock or belittle me, clearly pisses her off.
