Page 3 of Knot His Beast
A point the universe apparently feels the need to drive home the second I get outside onto the sidewalk because it starts to rain.
Then quickly begins to pour.
Wonderful.
I have a thirty minute walk home when it’s warm and the sky is clear. Raining cats and dogs in October in Galena, Illinois? I might as well kiss the next hour goodbye, and I can definitely count on some sort of illness to make the next few weeks even more fun.
At least, by the time I do actually get home, our crappy apartment is empty and I’m able to get cleaned up and eat in silence.
It’s the only time the silence bothers me, though.
Normally, I love the quiet almost as much as I love the music that usually fills it.
It’s calm. Peaceful. The silence is almost comforting at times.
Except now.
Right now, the quiet of my apartment is foreboding. It’s heavy with anticipation and anxiety. Every inch of space around me is full of it, and it feels like the walls are closing in with each second that ticks by.
I can barely eat as that feeling of doom grows, but I have to. I have to get the chicken and rice down because after tonight, I don’t know when the next decent meal will be.
Walking into an empty apartment is both a blessing and a curse because Mandy isn’t here, but she will be back.
She’ll be back soon, and it’s fifty-fifty if she’ll be alone.
“Octavian!”
I cringe as her crackly voice echoes off the walls, as the front door swings open and snaps back into the frame with a hard slam. I glance at my bedroom door as I quickly wrap up my dinner and hide it in the closet. Saving what’s left will be important whether she’s alone or not because I can tell Mandy is high.
“Octavian, darling, where areyou?”
I rush toward the door and turn the deadbolt, hook the chain, then reach for the padlock and click it into place. I take a few steps back as I hear Mandy start down the hall, her movements staggered but fast as she makes her way toward me. And she’s not alone.
I can hear heavier footsteps landing in longer strides behind her.
Loud. Forceful. Moving with purpose.
She brought home an alpha.
One she’s probably already slept with.
When I left for school, Mandy was coming down off of a bender, one that consisted of pain killers and benzos, and that means she went out looking for an upper at some point while I was gone.
Most likely cocaine or meth, and since she got whatever she was after, she slept with the dealer and brought him home. It’s her preferred method of payment, especially now that she’s blown through the money Gran left me, and I’ve hidden what little I have far away from her.
Mandy has been cut off but that doesn’t mean she’ll go without.
“Octavian?” She softly knocks on my door. “Octy, sweetheart, open the door for Mommy.”
Bile creeps up my throat at her tone, at her choice of words, and my eyes dart around the room.
There’s hardly anything in here anymore, ever since the last time she brought an alpha home. She cleaned out almost everything after I used my encyclopedia to clock herdateupside the head when she let him in here. Now it’s just my bed, a couple milk crates for my clothes, and…
A chair.
I rush toward it, barely pushing down the memories of why she left it in here as I drag it across the room and shove the back under my doorknob.
Backing away, I start wringing my hands, watching the knob shake as Mandy starts to lose her patience.
