The Rules of Survival (Mercer #1)

RoS Chapter Three

My stomach churned in dread. The only reason we'd survived this long was because I budgeted very carefully, and my budget didn't include alcohol. I sniffed the air experimentally. Or cigarettes.

"Did she bring home anything else?" I opened the last cupboard on the left. Empty as well.

"Nope. I asked about dinner for the kids and she threw a fit." He indicated the battlefield of broken, mismatched dinner sets. "Then she retreated to her room with her carton of smokes and a fresh bottle."

"Please tell me you're kidding," I breathed. Teresa was no mother of the year, but not even she would be so cruel to her own flesh and blood, would she? Of course, the derisive snort I had to bite back immediately after that thought said it all, didn't it.

"Did she at least leave the change lying around somewhere so I can go and get some food?"

I grabbed his arm to check his watch. It was just after eight. Supermarkets would be open for at least another hour. We could all go. It would give the kids something to do, get their minds off what a horrible week it'd been.

Mycha gave a humorless chuckle. "What change?"

I blanched. "She spent it all on alcohol and smokes?"

"She's got two more bags in her room."

A noise escaped me before I could stop it, equal parts despair and incredulity. Teresa's selfishness meant everyone would be going hungry tonight, tomorrow, maybe even the day after. I would have gladly broken out the food stamps – oh wait, Teresa had bartered this month's away to a lady whose husband was a raging alcoholic, scoring herself a few bottles of peach schnapps as payment.

Clenching my teeth together, I tried to get my addled brain to come up with a solution. I had to fix this, which meant I had to find money before we all starved to death.

Mycha put a comforting arm around my shoulders but I shrugged him off, anger replacing helplessness. He opened his mouth to say something but I stormed off down the short hallway, heading towards the door at the end. Without bothering to knock I flung it open.

The door hit the wall and bounced back, and I stuck my foot out to stop it from smacking me in the face. Teresa Mercer was splayed out over the bed, still in her funeral clothes. Not even the resounding thump of my foot connecting with the cheap, hollow wood roused her from her drunken stupor.

The room was just big enough to house a double bed and small set of drawers. It was the bigger of the two bedrooms with a closet lining the left wall. Unfortunately the bed prevented it from opening, relegating the space to storage for the few items we never used.

"Teresa," I called from the doorway.

Nothing. Not even a grunt. She was out for the count, hugging an empty bottle. It was probably for the best; all I'd succeed in accomplishing by waking her was starting World War III. And without Kalen at my back, or leading the battle as was his preference, it just wasn't worth the hassle.

My fleeting anger fizzled and died, exhaustion taking its place. Spying the black plastic bags on top of the dresser, I decided if we couldn't have food, there was no way she was getting her booze and smokes. As soon as I stepped into the room I had to swallow my gag reflex against the stench of regurgitated whisky. I stopped so abruptly Mycha crashed into me from behind. His hand snapped out, fingers digging grooves into my biceps.

He was staring at Teresa wide-eyed and open mouthed, and why wouldn't he be? It was Kalen and I who tended her when she'd been on one of her drinking binges, who held her hair out of the way as she threw up that week's grocery money, who changed her sheets so she wasn't sleeping in a pool of her own vomit. The kids had never seen her like this. They got the incredibly-hungover-but-presentable version fit for company.