The Family Curse (Cursed Wanderers Series: Book 1)

Chapter 17 - The Futility of Argumentation

Chapter 17

The Futility of Argumentation

FOR THE REST OF the day, well of the weekend really I acted like a bratty teenager and stayed hidden in my room.

I was giving everyone the silence treatment. Well, especially to Stick-Up-His-Ass-Hugo, grandmother dearest and not-so-father-of-the-year.

I was often rude. Well, scratch that, I was pretty much always rude, but Kostyantyn had not deserved the treatment Matvei and Hugo had given him. How dare they just kick him out like that and not even slightly acknowledge the fact that he saved my bony ass? Who made Hugo the judge of who should or should not be here? He had serious issues with that. Maybe the whole house was his tree and he'd marked this place as his territory and we should have smelled his pee splashed around the property. Stupid idiot. One second, he seemed nice, bringing me a dream catcher—that was stuffed at the very back my still pretty empty closet now—and others he was going bunkers and cursing everyone telling them they shouldn't be here.

When you're always saying that people shouldn't be where you are, maybe it's you that should get out of the way, bitch, get out of the way.

This whole fiasco was bringing back the rage I always felt when I was in Detroit, because nothing ever made sense and nothing was ever fair and I never had a say about anything. I was kind of being dramatic here, I was definitely far away from the questionable foster homes I had visited in my prime childhood, but I couldn't help being bothered with how Matvei hadn't even thanked Kostyantyn.

Sure, I was the last gal to trust the guy—anyone who seemed to groom more than me was always a little iffy in my book, and yeah that basically covered everyone, whatever—but still the way they had acted was totally uncalled for. Without Kostyantyn, I had no idea what I would have done. And now that he was gone again, leaving me in the middle of trying to show me how to protect myself, it just felt wrong.

Maybe I felt the same unease I used to feel in Detroit because back then I was so often defenceless. Sure, here I was attacked on a mental level, not on a physical one, but it was messing me up just as much. I knew how to deal with bruises. I didn't know how to deal with freaky people that controlled my dreams and could choke me to death without even touching me.

On Sunday night, instead of just popping his head in my room and dropping a meal on my desk by the door, Matvei knocked and walked into the room.

I nodded my chin at him, with the most gangsta attitude I could muster "S'up?"

He looked pretty darn uncomfortable. Serves him right. The guy knocked up my mother, never raised me, abandoned me with Detroit thugs and then he snapped at a guy that was trying to help me when I was attacked because of the family business.

Be uncomfortable.

Oh, wow, I hadn't realized I still had so much anger pent up like that. Interesting.

"Hmm, well, I just came in to say you can skip school tomorrow if you want, after everything that happened," Matvei told me, barely able to look directly in my eyes.

"Oh yeah, hey thank god Kostyantyn was there to protect me in those creepy, murderous dream, right," I told him with a sweet grin.

I should seriously dial it down. I had no right to complain. For the first time in my life I was living with people that seemingly wanted me around and weren't trying to sell me for crack. I shouldn't be complaining. I should be cleaning their bathroom floors with my tongue.