Cinders [Completed]

Chapter 2: The Invitation

I'm already halfway down the stairs when I hear the sound of breaking glass in the kitchen.

The sound sends a flush of cold down my spine - loud noises always do - before I shake it off and scurry to the source of the noise as quickly as possible.

My mother's back faces me, obviously hunched over broken glassware of some sort. The water in the sink, where she was obviously just doing dishes, is still sending out twirling tendrils of heat into the air.

Mom cranes her neck to see that it's me before she exclaims breathlessly, "Hello there Lee."

I internally sigh as a greeting back to her and move forward to the pile of broken glass in the middle of the tiled kitchen floor.

"Hey, mom, it's okay, I can clean it up." I push her hands away from the splintered glass and begin grabbing the larger pieces carefully with my hands, trying to avoid a cut. I wouldn't want the scar.

Dad likes my hands to look clean. He told me that my hands are too beautiful to hurt; they should be kept perfect. He used to put lye in hand soap - "a special soap just for you," he had said to ten-year-old me, and he wrote my name on the container in Sharpie, like a special present - so that it would purge the dirt from the lines of my palms.

"Damn hands," Mom whispers in a light chuckle that thinly veils tears, but she's not talking about mine. She's talking about hers; her hands have turned bony and they shake all the time.

They have for a while. Even as she sits, her body still, her fingers quiver lightly in the air. Unlike mine, her palms are covered in a twisting maze of burned flesh.

Mom tightens her hand into a fist that calms the tremor and I pretend not to notice it.

Mom moves carefully to the kitchen sink, finishing the dishes as I sweep up the remnants of the glass plate.

Dad won't be home for a while; this is my favorite time of day. He takes Jonah with him on his Beta business, because Jonah will be taking over for him when he comes of age. He's only 17, right now, but he already has everything that an upper beta should; strength, diplomacy, power. He's quieter than most kids his age, but everyone just thinks he's reserved in a dignified, stoic way.

He's quiet for other reasons, I think.

I should be training as the next beta, but I don't bring it up. Dad has always wanted Jonah to take his place, and it became the obvious choice after my first shift at 13. I tilt my head down as I throw away the remnants of the plate. I don't like thinking about it.

"Lee, don't you have the Dixons at three?" Mom asks in her shaking voice.

"Yeah, I'm about to head over. Are you and Lucy going to be okay?"

Mom pauses for a moment. I'm glad that she thinks through her answer. It makes it so much easier to believe the lie.

"Yes," she replies eventually.

Alpha Dixon is the upper alpha that my father is beta to. His oldest daughter, Elia, is my long standing best friend. If my chores are done, I get to go see her. Dad doesn't like it, I think.

But I do.

-

"I can't believe you're really starting at the Palace in a few weeks, Lee. I'm never going to get to see you!"

This is what Elia provides instead of a hello. I can't stop myself from smiling at her antics.

She pulls me into her house and leads the way up to her room, collapsing on her canopied bed. I pull the Oreos out of her snack cupboard and come to lie next to her.