never cursed your name. whiskey & glass. blitz.

Her hand closes around the key sitting in her palm, shrugging. If her brother wants to do this the hard way then so be it. Let him earn his keep, fucking around with a bobbypin probably stolen from Mom's bedside table.

Easier to dispose of evidence if you put it right back where you found it. She plops the key back into the plant pot on the porch and does a little curtsy for good measure. Taking the piss out of traditions their father quite literally beat into them as children is a fucked up way to cope, but it's their way, their own little language.

A little less fucked up than refusing to speak, she laughs to herself at that thought, gently turning the handle with the sound of a log truck passing along the road. It's all about timing, finding your own hiding spots. In the howl of the wind, in the shadow of a stranger, in secret spots gifted to you by the world. She keeps the door open ever so slightly, escape route, and gets to work.

The kitchen is fifteen steps north, a turn to the left, not a foot out of place. Of course they have carpet, a house like this - she wonders how her parents got so lucky as to be placed on this street and yet so unlucky they get the worst house on it. It'll serve in their favour, she thinks ravenously, wood floors make too much noise.

The pantry doors creak slightly, but it's enough to make her freeze - glance up, wait fifteen seconds, silence, exhale.

Then she begins, grabbing anything she can get her hands on and shoving it into her bag. Eyebrows and a finger at the fridge. Get to work, she instructs.

Whisky never needs to be told twice.

Wide-eyed with panic, a moment passes that feels like an hour. Silence, then the panic melts into a scowl.

Fucking idiot. Can't take my brother anywhere, and beer of all things? The same poison that rots our father's brain and clouds his eyes til he's half-blind and shaking with madness is going to get us killed and a drop didn't even reach our lips.

I eye the bottle with a look that could shatter it, were Whiskey's hands not wrapped so tightly around its neck. He's got Mom's face, her features, but in the dull humming of the refrigerator lights he looks like Dad and I hate it. Put it back, I scowl again, lips twitching with disgust. Glass makes too much noise.

Except me. I don't make a sound - until something above us does and a gasp slips through my lips before I can lift my fingers up to cram it back into my mouth.

I'm lightning, shutting the pantry door with one hand and slinging my spoils over my back with the other in one movement. There's fifteen steps to the door but the stairs stand above eight of them. If we're getting out of this unscathed we've got to be quick.

Another thud, faster, faster, I bolt back in the direction we came from - and I swear if Whiskey gets out of here with a bottle still in his hand I'll beat him bloody with it myself.