howl {district 12}

Her fingers are soft against my palm, snow white pads tracing hearts upon it. She bares a smile that hides a thousand tears, barely contained pain shoved aside for me. I know Mom has told her to try to act okay around me because she's seen the way my shoulders sag when I return home and Juniper cannot even sit up to look at me. She becomes  more of a ghost every day, skin turning nearly translucent as she sinks into our only mattress. It took a long while for my parents to get used to sleeping on the floor, but it was worth not seeing their baby girl waste away on wood planks. 

"How are you?" I coo, as if I don't already know the answer will be a lie. Her own desperate attempt to spare my feelings because I'm shit at hiding the pain which chokes the words before they leave my throat. 

"I feel better than before." She closes her eyes, grasping my thumb tightly and pressing her head against the pillow. She doesn't. We both know it and we won't acknowledge it. I use my free hand to shift position, sitting on the balls of my feet so that I can take in every part of her pale silhouette. Juniper nearly blends into the cotton sheets now, dark hair striking against her skin. Gently grasping a thinning strand, I move it out of her eyes because I doubt she has enough strength left to do it herself. 

"I- I managed to get another dose of secret potion." Raw grief leaks from the corners of my eyes, falling onto the fingers still locked around my thumb. It rolls down the back of her hand, settling in the crook of her arm until I wipe it away. "The one that made you feel better last time?" 

"I thought you wouldn't be able to get it until next week!" She opens one eye, regarding the vial within my palm dubiously. 

"Don't worry about that. Let's sing a song, alright?" I give her a forced grin, humming the tune as she sung the lyrics to her favorite rhyme.  Prying her fingers off of me, I join the melody a few seconds after. Row, row, row your boat - row, row row your boat... Her brows furrow in concentration, attempting to keep time while I sing against her. Trying not to falter in my own lyrics, I slip the needle into the small hole in the vial, hands shaking as I pull back on the plunger. Derek had remained annoyingly vague when describing the drug, only insisting that it'd help her. I'd made the choice that if it killed her, it would do it faster than whatever was pulling her deeper into weakness every day. 

There's still a tiny scab from the last vein I'd hit, I don't think mom or dad would have noticed it among the bruises that line her body. Her blood is eager to escape its cage, rushing to the surface at even the slightest bump. They don't hurt her, I think, but I can't bring myself to ask. 

She whimpers when I manage to push the thin metal into her vein. I pull back a bit on the plunger, just like Derek had told me to (else you're riskin' injecting air into 'er veins, bett'r safe than sorry.) The blood almost resembles a deep purple, but it disappears in one swift motion as I slowly release the potion. Her face twists, jaw clenching in obvious discomfort. Derek told me it feels like a fire spreading throughout every part of your body. It's like feeling the blood flow through your veins and it hurts a 'fuckton'. 

I pull out the needle, wrapping her arm in an old sock and pulling the covers up to her chin. "It'll make you sleepy like last time, okay? Try to get some sleep." Then, I pocket the evidence and run far, far away. I'm always too scared to watch her fall asleep because I could very well be witnessing my sister die.I'm not ready to see anyone die, especially not her.

------

"Did I ever tell ya you got a pretty face, Howl?" Harper raises the bottle in his palm, sloshing half of the contents onto his pants and half into his mouth. The guys love to get smashed after a successful run, though I reckon they get high enough off the power without the added liquid. I've never drank enough to get truly shitfaced like the rest of the guild, but I've noticed the cheap liquor helps to take an edge off when I'm too worried about everything. I press my lips against the glass, forcing bitter liquid down my throat and regard the red-haired man with unfocused eyes. 

"Only when you're rip-roaring drunk." There's a natural growl to my tone whenever i'm not around Juniper, probably because I can't stand anyone but the little girl.

"So every night?" Derek pipes up, a chorus of guffaws and laughs follow his words. The blonde looks all too satisfied with himself. Annoyed breathe escaping my lips, I throw the bottle beside me, holding my palms a few centimeters away from the fire we all gathered around. 

"That's cuz he's got oneee." Harper slurs, "Until he opens 'is mouth!" 

I sneer at the older man, moving my lips mockingly in his direction. "Fuckin' shame ain't it?" the guild always gives me shit for my appearance. They insist I look cute and innocent until I open my mouth and tear one of them to shreds for being an absolute dumbass. "Maybe if you weren't so annoying I wouldn't talk as much." 

"Wouldn't that be a dream." Harper cackles, ruffling my hair affectionately. He wasn't much older than me, twenty to my sixteen but he viewed the whole of the thieves guild as his kids. You've gotta be close to go around breaking into factories and upper-class houses. It takes all of us to get around undetected and we can back one another up if we get caught. A few boys have been hauled off since I started a few months ago, but I wasn't close enough to them to care. It was dangerous work but it paid well, and Derek had connections. He'd been supplying me with medicine for Juniper as much as he could without putting his own neck under the blade. I don't want to know how deep that kid is into this life 'cause I couldn't deal with having to worry about another person. "But what would we do without our wolf in sheep's clothing?" 

"Probably what you did when I wasn't here seven months ago?" I push the man away, hugging myself. 

"This is why we can't have a moment Howwwwwl." The drunk man slaps the back of my head, goading another round of hysterical laughter from the others. 

In spite of myself, I smile too.

------

Mom used to work as a teacher before Juniper got real bad. I remember a time (so long ago my memory has become fuzzy) that we played together out on the grass. When she didn't wheeze every time she breathed and I could hug her without fear of breaking her. Dad didn't have grey hair then, because he didn't pull extra hours at the mines. We'd all sit down for dinner on the weekends and I would tell them all about my latest dream. I used to have really vivid dreams, some that stay with me to this day. On my sixth birthday, my parents pulled all their money together to get me a journal. It's filled with crude drawings and shaky letters about every adventure I went on without leaving the spot next to the fireplace that I call my room. 

I've never slept in a bed, my parents just couldn't afford it. Mom got pregnant when she was my age and her parents threw her out of the house. She and my dad bought this place on a miner's wage and they couldn't afford much else. Dad's parents helped for a while, sending over spare rations while Mom looked for a job but when they passed away it was just me, mom and dad with no one to help. They say I almost died my first winter, that my nose was runny and my chest rattled just like Juniper's does now. Mom says she cried and cried over me for so long, every night begging someone to help me. I got better and I've never been sick since. Sometimes I wonder if mom hadn't prayed so hard for me to get better, if Juniper would have gotten sick at all.

I was nine years old when Juniper came along. Mom and Dad fought a lot at that time, they were never the same after she was born. The way Dad looked at Mom was different, not with the love I'd grown up with, but betrayal and something a whole lot darker. They got distant over the years, their kisses before bed becoming stale and forced until they stopped altogether. I heard them screaming one night from my vantage point on the floor, Dad told her that he only stayed for me and that he hadn't loved her since he found out. 

Mom slept on the floor with me that night. 

I don't ask because I don't want to know. 

Dad works a lot in the mines now, and even when he doesn't he stays out. He didn't even stop when Juniper got sick so Mom had to quit and take care of her full time. When he does come home it's real late, his shirt is always sloppily done and his hair is mussed. The strong scent of alcohol consumes me as he'll wrap his arms around me and tell me he loves me before stumbling off to his corner of the living room, far away from mom. I've come to terms with the fact that they hate each other, and I accept it because they love me. As long as neither of them leave I don't care. Not a lot of the kids I talk to still have both parents and i'll be damned if I become one of them. If dad only stays for me then so be it because I need him to stay. 

They've been so distracted since Juniper was born but they always made an effort to stay connected with me. Every morning I would show them my dream journal and they would come up with the stupidest interpretations, trying to tell my future from nonsensical things. (You will meet an alligator at noon for tea because one chased you in your dream! Spoooky!) (Mom, that's ridiculous.) (The stars don't lie, Howl!) (No Janet the kid's right, you took a wrong turn at the buildings made of clouds, it'll be at midnight!) Every single morning, without fail. It was what I went to bed excited about. A moment with the both of them, together. Happy.  No matter how short or how stupid our conversation was.

I stopped writing in my journal five months ago. 

They haven't noticed.