I wanted a job.

I mulled it over after another quiet morning in the kitchen. Nothing in this house, except what had been brought from my apartment, was mine. The Alpha Supreme had said nothing about it, but I didn't like the shift in control. Money meant I could leave whenever I wanted and my sparse savings tucked away upstairs would only bring me so far.

I could have lived on the streets again, hiding under bridges. Cold and wary - knowing that my claws could gut an attacker, but sleeplessness still plagued me.

I left in the morning, dressed in my most normal pair of clothes. Normal as in, no bedazzled ducks or rain-clouds on my raincoat. I left a note in the kitchen for Lux and stepped out into the sunlight. It was early still as I walked through the housing estate and out into the town.

There were shops spread out around me; shops where I could work. Clothes shops. Children's little boutiques and toy-shops. That shop with shining clips. I didn't try that one. I was afraid that I'd end up nabbing something on the sly. The café? I imagined being snapped at. Snarled at. No.

Eventually, as people began to move, I found my way to the town-hall. It was the same old routine this time around, only now I hadn't been living on the side of the road for months. The town-hall was old and drafty and an older woman was fussing over a leaky radiator as I stepped inside.

She looked up as I walked inside, eyes crinkled and warm. "Hello dear."

She distinctly smelled of mint. There was no Lycan in her blood and as I neared, I saw the faded scar clamped onto her neck. Wearing an old cardigan and slip on shoes, she looked as if she would break if I sneezed in her direction. I eyed the arching ceilings and the cold draft. "I'm looking for a job."

She examined me critically. "You're one of the newcomers to our little town, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"You know the Alpha wouldn't see you starve?" She said kindly.

"His money isn't my money." I told her frankly. "And I don't like to sit around."

Her attention flickered to my neck. To my own branding mark that would not look as faded as hers. "Did you bring any school or college certs with you."

The same old shame burned my cheeks. "I actually... I didn't finish school, but I'm not..." Stupid. "I'm a good worker. I cleaned in my last job and I never missed a day."

Her lips thinned but that kindness in her eyes did not fade. She held out her hand to me, her joints swollen and awkward. Gingerly, I took her hand and let her shake it, feeling her bones like fragile stems of glass beneath my grip. "My name is Trudie."

"I'm Nova."

Trudie smiled softly. "Nova Blue Linden. Anyone who knows Supreme Alpha Young knows who you are. A lot of us would never have the lives we have today if it wasn't for you."

"Are you close to the Alpha then?" I tucked my hands close to me, eyeing the drafty hall behind her.

"I am a listening ear." She said. "He's been good to me and he bears a lot of weight on his shoulders. I listen to people who need someone to listen. If you are looking for a job...well, I tend to the town-hall and set it up for meetings and gatherings. Usually, I'm able to do it on my own, but I'm getting old and weak. I might need some help some-days. I don't want the place to fall into disrepair just because I'm slow. The children throw plays here, we have music performances in the summer and we have...gatherings for addicts and victims of the Law."

"I could help you with that." I told her. The Law. I wasn't the only one it had harmed.

"I know you could," Trudie's smile held a hint of a secret. "But I will have to clear it by the hall's owner first."

Lordie. Who could that be? "The Alpha Supreme?"

"I doubt he would say no to you." Trudie stepped away from me, waving a hand for me to follow her. "We have the children coming down to practice their summer-play. Help me take out some chairs and clear the stage for them."

The stage was nothing like the one Lainly theatre. The curtains were old and heavy and there were props tucked away in the back doing nothing but gathering dust. There was an pokey kitchen with a leaky tap and rattling pipes. I helped Trudie carry out the chairs and clear the mess of the stage. She didn't talk much as she worked, but hummed under her breath. I liked it. The silence.

The shame still lingered. No school cert. No college cert.

It usually didn't impinge on my daily-life. I had sixteen years of schooling, but I had no practice with reading or writing in the white room and the lack of practice still haunted me.

I only spent an hour in there before Trudie shooed me, but I left with a spring in my step. Even if I had a little gig cleaning in the town-hall, it would be mine. Overjoyed by my progress, I stopped by the trinket shop. Knick-Knacks was empty of customers as I slipped inside, but a sour-faced teenager sat at the counter. She just nodded a chin at me and I scoured the shop, wide-eyed at the array of colour.

I settled on a hair-band decorated with little shimmering strawberries. A damned treasure. I slipped it onto my head as I stepped inside and headed to the coffee-shop with a skip in my step. By the time I wandered back to the house, it was nearly the afternoon. I had drank a full black coffee as I walked the park, keeping to the fringes where people were sparse.

I bought another coffee on the way back – a small one – sipping on it. This felt nice. Peaceful. I didn't trust it to stay like this for long, but even I couldn't be morose and dreary with the sun shining, a coffee in my hand and a hairband of strawberries nestled in my badly dyed hair.

The house was quiet as I stepped inside, but I heard laughter out in the garden.

I wandered towards the backdoor, coffee in hand. A grand window stretched across the hall that hugged the back and I stared out at the immaculate green, looking for Lux and the Alpha.

Lux was there, kneeling at a flower-bed. The man sitting at least six metres from her, was not the Alpha.

Panic pinched my throat, but even as it did, Lux laughed at something he said to her. Were my hands jittery from coffee or fear? He looked different from the way he had in the park – this mate of Lux's. Now he was smiling easily, offering suggestions to his mate whose hands were stained with soil.

"I've been keeping an eye on them." His voice appeared so suddenly, his approach so quiet that I jumped, swirling around. I was rarely snuck up on. Rarely surprised by someone approaching my unprotected back. He held a tray in his hands, little plates packed with sandwiches and two glasses of ice-tea. "I just left to go to the kitchen."

I swallowed the lump in my throat. Fright, tart and overwhelming, clouded my senses. His heavy brows sloped. "Did I frighten you?"

My smile was pinched, but I reached for the hairband nestled in my hair. Bright, garish red. "I didn't hear you."

"Oh." Easton cocked his head. "I didn't think of that."

Lux's laughter echoed from outside. I lingered, wanting to give her an extension on her happiness. If there was a whisper of fear, I would be tearing through that door.

"I had to watch my back for a long time." I told him frankly. "A long time in a place where people would drive a hand through my back for my organs, for my heart. To get me unawares for ....anything really. I don't like it when someone big and strong comes up behind me and I don't hear them."

He waited for a long moment. "I didn't realise."

"You spent years dismantling a monarchy. Surely you learned to watch your back." I plucked a glass of ice-tea from the tray. "Lux can have the other one."

A touch of humour curled at his mouth. "I spent years watching my back. I had enemies, but I had people to watch my back. Has anyone watched yours?"

"Lux." I answered quickly. "As small as she is, she's always watched my back."

"And before that?"

I sipped the ice-tea. "I made sure people knew better than approach my back. It took some time, but they learned."

"I guessed as much," Easton side-stepped me, pulling across the sliding door. "You wouldn't be alive otherwise."

Lux looked up as we stepped outside, beaming wide. My lips twitched, before my attention cut to the large male sitting opposite her. Nicolas. Large shoulders, strong hands. Stinking of Lycan. "Here you go, Lux." I plucked the second ice-tea from the tray and handed it to her. "That's for you."

Nicolas rose to greet me and I noticed that he was just an inch or two taller than me. "Hello again, Nova."

"There isn't any ice-tea left for you. Are you thirsty?" My voice was curt.

Uncertainly, he glanced at Lux and then the Alpha Supreme. "Well, yeah."

"Pity." I sipped the ice-tea. "I guess we just have to hope that you have tiny bit of self-control over your basic desires."

Easton coughed behind me and Lux just smiled at her iced-tea. Nicolas' cheeks flushed red and I walked past him, dragging a chair so that I was sitting as the point in a newly formed triangle. Then, the Alpha pulled out a chair and set the tray down on a small garden table.

I faced Nicolas and stared. Taking in the wrinkles in his clothes. The dark circles under his startingly green eyes. "What do you work as, Nicolas?"

"I'm a teacher." He cleared his throat, uncomfortable as he glanced at me. "Secondary school level."

"What do you teach?"

"Maths, geography and physical education." He answered swiftly.

I caught the amused smile Lux shared with the Alpha, but I didn't trust either of them to grill him like he needed to be. "And how long have you been teaching?"

"About six years in a permanent position." He brushed a hand along his leg. "Alpacina Secondary school is a reputable school. Full of promising students, both human and Lycan."

"Nice. And your college experience? Top of the class? Class clown? The one who had too much attitude and too little talent."

Nicolas' cheeks flushed. "Well, college was a wild time. And years ago for me now. What college did you go to maybe we..."

Easton cleared his throat.

My teeth set and the Lycan's gaze, which had rarely shifted from me, sharpened. I couldn't manage a smile and even though Nicolas didn't know what I was, he began to fold in one himself ever so slightly. "So, another fault. You don't think before you speak."

"What's my other fault?" He asked.

"Other fault?" I cut back, just as quick. "You think you only have one other?"

Lux cleared her throat and the slight noise shifted Nicolas' whole focus. His face softened, his lips curving up slightly as if the small sound itself was a cry from the heavens. Ick. It unnerved me to know that everyone would know what happened to me. Well, a rough over-view. They knew the Supreme's 'mate' had been taken by the Ravi. Now I was back, stitched together by harsh words and dark paranoia.

I fell silent as Lux began to talk again, her kind and warm voice swelling in the garden that had turned frigid. Harsh words and paranoid. That's all I was. Why bother trying to pretend I was anything good or worthy of this world?

---------------------------------------------------------------------

A nightmare took me when I was awake.

I stood in the shower, water sluicing over my face. The water was warm on my skin, settling into my bones deliciously. I sighed into the steam, nails scraping my scalp as I scrubbed out the shampoo. Dinner was being made downstairs, but the walls were too thick, too padded for me to hear them. Especially with the water.

I reached for the handle of the shower and turned it.

Instead of turning off, the water turned to pure ice.

Frigid water closing over my hair, my face. My nose and mouth.

I choked.

And my thoughts pinched tight. The world funnelled. Everything was too much. Water in my nose. My lungs burning, so painful that I could my ribs had shattered inwards. My wrist burned, weighed down by metal shackles.

White surrounded me.

A hand pressed onto the top of my bald head, keeping my face underwater.

I struggled. Drowning.

Long, awkward legs kicked out, harsh against the metal container they had shoved me into. Filled to the brim with icy water.

The hand holding my head was rough. Nails cut into my skin.

I blinked in the shower, unsure of where I was. A shaking hand flipped the shower off but the dripping water from my body only made it worse. Naked, I stumbled out of the shower. Long, muscled legs couldn't hold my weight.

The tiles were cold as I sunk down onto them, huddled in the corner of the bathroom with my knees tucked tight to my chest. Drowning.

I could breathe underwater now. I couldn't be drowned. But that didn't stop the memories. Or were they memories. They laughed when they drowned me and scolded me when I passed out again and again. Blamed me because their experiments hadn't been taken. I had cried and begged when I saw those vats of water.

It was nearly as bad as the lightening room.

My fingers flexed, talons shredding skin and I sunk them into my legs. The pain, sharp and hot, cut through my scattering thoughts. The scent of blood cleared my senses. The healing scars along my legs – the bullet wounds cut into me by another one of the Ravi's creations, split open.

It wept, the blood. Wept like I did, sitting on the bathroom floor. A huddled, naked, shaking mess of a woman. 'They had drowned me,' I thought. A strange thing to focus on when the list of their offences ran for eight long years. Drowning had been only a fraction. There had been broken bones. Isolation. Mind game and the Mad-Maze.

And the lightening.

Not a whisper of sunlight, or colour or music.

As my mind slowly cleared and my claws retreated, I was glad that I was in the bathroom. That I hadn't smelled the fresh air and collapsed into a shuddering mess. That I hadn't lunged for the Alpha's throat when he crept up behind me so silently.

I stayed in the bathroom, watching as the wounds I had made knitted themselves together. The bullet wounds were stubborn and lingered, chasms of open flesh that leaked out onto the tiles.

I would need a doctor.

Slowly, I got up onto my feet and threw a towel around my body. The bathroom door cracked open and I stared out into the empty hallway. The sound of the other three was distant. The rattle of a pot. The low sound of Lux's laughter. Yes. Nicolas was staying for dinner.

I had wanted to say no, but Lux made it too hard. All bright eyed and hopeful.

So, I called his name. I knew that he would hear me.

"Easton?"

It took a moment for me to hear him, but his steps were definite this time as he approached – he was letting me know that he was coming. He spotted my head, peeking around the door and his face crinkled in concern. "Nova?"

"I -..." there was blood running down my legs, pooling warmly around my feet. "I split my stitches."

He saw the blood on my fingers. His pace did not shift. Nothing indicated the panic that made his heart thunder inside his chest. Slow and calm, he said. "That's okay. Do you have underwear on?"

"No." I was marking his beautiful door-frames. A mark of my finger-prints. Even if I left this place, my scent would be embedded in the wood.

"Do you need me to help you do that?" He asked.

"No." I retreated and pulled on a fresh pair of underwear and just a t-shirt thrown over my upper-half. More for him, than me. Modesty was another thing they had taken from me.

I stepped out into the hall and his attention shifted straight to the split wounds on my thigh. His lips pressed tight, but his voice remained calm. "I will call Doctor Helia. It will be okay."

I didn't really believe him, but I let him show me how to bind the wound with strips of cloth that he ripped with frightening accuracy. I didn't believe him as he reassured me, keeping his voice low because I didn't want to alarm Lux. She wandered up, but he sent her back down at my request.

She would be worried. I hated the thought of that more.

Doctor Helia didn't come, but Darren did. He didn't believe me when I told him it had been an accident, but he said nothing about it. He restitched the wounds there in the bathroom. I didn't want painkillers. I didn't want a cloudy mind. Swaddled in bandages and dressed in a loose pair of shorts, I sat on the edge of the bathtub as Easton scrubbed the tiles.

"I can do that," I clucked my tongue, awkward all of a sudden. "I can clean up my own mess."

"I know." He scrubbed the blood – again, as if he had done it a thousand times.

"You could get someone to do it for you." I said. "You're the Alpha Supreme."

"I know."

Downstairs, it was only Lux and Darren now. Nicolas had been shooed home when Darren arrived. Even though they were strangers, Lux had no problem with trying to get to know him. They would be – could be – good friends.

"I don't usually do that." I said frankly. "If you're wondering."

He sat back onto his haunches, finally looking to me. "It wasn't an accident."

Not a question.

Easton nodded. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

For the tiniest second, I wanted to. Wanted to tell him of their laughter. The Sirens they ripped apart so that I could breathe underwater. The first time they shoved my head under water and the sides of my throat slit open. After that, something had changed in me. Not only the ability to breathe underwater, but the way I moved. Looked. A bit of Siren had been slotted in.

A bit of Nova taken out.

Then, common sense returned. I hadn't survived this long by spilling my thoughts like I was leaky tap. So I told him something else instead. Another thing that had occurred to me. Something that Ravi had taken from me – but I could take back.

I had the freedom to do that. What was stopping me?

"I want a job," I told him. "And...I want to finish school."

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Until next time, SaoiMarie.