Page 2 of Never Trust the Living (Battle Crows MC 7)

Technically, I was supposed to wait for my teacher to dismiss us, but I never did.

And she never got mad that I didn’t wait.

Secretly, she felt bad for me.

All of my clothes, the clean ones anyway, were from her.

I knew that she felt bad about my situation, and I had a feeling she was the reason that CPS was called.

It really was news to me that we might get taken away, though.

I almost made it to the back entrance that would lead to the back of the school, which would then lead me all the way home, when an arm encircled my neck.

I cringed when I heard my brother’s voice say, “You’re not riding the bus today, dork?”

I swallowed hard, feeling the bile rise in my throat.

“N-no,” I stuttered. “I was going to walk.”

My brother’s arm tightened. “You need to shower.”

I needed to shower.

There was a creek on the way home that I sometimes bathed in, but it’d been so cold lately that I didn’t do it as often as I probably should.

“Y-yes,” I continued to stutter.

The arm tightened so tight that I felt my neck crack.

“I have a surprise for you when you get home.” He sounded gleeful. “I left it by your bed.”

I didn’t want to see the surprise.

But I knew I would.

And I was right.

Two long miles, a cold wash in the creek, and a walk back home in my wet clothes later, I found his ‘present.’

It was our cat.

One that’d been dead for a year now because I’d witnessed him murder it.

It was lying on the foot of my bed.

My cat’s eyes were withered, and his hair was falling out in patches. There was a sick sort of liquid on his body, and the smell was horrific.

I closed my eyes and nearly cried.

I’d have to take him out in the one and only blanket that I had.

And this time, bury him somewhere where my brother couldn’t find him.

“I’m sorry, friend,” I whispered as I walked out of the room to hear my brother’s manic laughter. “I’m so sorry he did this to you.”

And that was the story of how I became dirty again.

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