The Lupian Chronicles - The Wolf Series

Adara

Her name was Adara, and she was broken. That’s the thought she woke up with every morning. She didn’t need to tell herself that, it had been beaten into her ever since she could remember. Her mother, Juniper, was a weak woman. Nobody knew what had happened in her life to make her that way, she didn’t talk about the past at all.

The only family Adara had in this cold world was her mother and her stepfather, Ramos. She didn’t remember hugs or kisses or even birthday parties. Soon she would be seventeen, and then it was just one more year until she could leave – if they let her leave.

She didn’t have many memories from her childhood, almost like something or someone had made her forget, and sometimes she felt that someone inside her was missing. It was something that always felt just outside her reach and at times she wondered if she was going crazy.

At first, it was just Adara and Juniper, alone in a small apartment. If she didn’t do the laundry or clean the apartment, it simply wouldn’t have been done. Adara had been only five years old, and yet she had no choice but to look after her mother.

When Juniper lost her job, the depression had really set in. It was during that time that she met Ramos. She married him so abruptly that Adara barely had time to learn his name. Then the moving started. They moved around a lot and Adara was fairly sure that they had lived in almost every state.

Adara had no friends; she probably never had any. Things went from bad to worse after the wedding, and Juniper blamed Adara for it. Ashen-faced and drunk most of the time, she was actually a pretty pathetic mother to her.

Trouble stalked Ramos, yet Juniper didn’t seem to care enough to do something about it. Gambling, debts, fights, and drinking, you name it, and it was a problem Ramos had.

In a normal family situation, Adara would’ve grown up with love, nurture, and friends. Everything she knew was taught to her by Juniper and Ramos. They were always whispering together and when she walked into the room, they would stop abruptly and stare at her with animosity in their eyes. Adara wondered what it was that she had done that made them hate her so intensely.

It started with normal spankings, over silly things, like Adara finishing the milk with her morning cereal. Ramos had a very short temper, and Juniper was too wasted to notice. Adara soon learned that the more she cried and screamed, the more Ramos enjoyed torturing her.

Afterward, he would be contrite and apologize to Juniper. She would forgive him each time since – as she told Adara one day – he was all that they had, and he looked after them.

Juniper had made it clear that she could never tell anyone what was happening in their house. Without Ramos, they would be homeless. She also told Adara that cruel people would take her away, people worse than Ramos.

Adara loved her mother, despite her weakness, despite having to take every punch on her behalf, she loved her enough to keep the secret.

The bad times started to increase and there was never enough money for everything. A family was supposed to take care of each other, all of them. Adara just had them. Ramos had started with a shove or a push if she didn’t move out of his way fast enough, and Juniper seemed to either not notice or not care, so he started doing it more often.

Juniper was beautiful, but also very cruel. Adara was her verbal punching bag; the only good thing was that they left her alone most of the time. They went out drinking, or stealing, or whatever it was that they did together, and she would be left at home … alone.

That had been heaven on earth for her. She could take a bath without worrying about a beating. Usually, she spent that time cleaning up after them, and praying that it would be good enough that she would be allowed to skip the abuse for just one day.

Adara soon learned to become invisible. She would sit at the back of each class, never doing too well or too poorly, never drawing attention to herself, ever. She didn’t partake in any sports, social activities, cultural activities, or extra lessons.

She was just there, going through the motions. She was sure that nobody even noticed when she stopped going to school, since they upped and moved so regularly. Nobody ever had a chance to get to know her well enough to miss her.

She looked around her bare bedroom. She had done the laundry and washed the dishes. She had cleaned every inch of that place that she had to call home. She had very little to keep herself busy with, other than homework and reading the few books she kept hidden away.

They didn’t like her to have anything that she could call her own. All of her clothes were from thrift stores, and she didn’t own a phone or a computer. It was a luxury that she didn’t deserve. She had no access to any social media sites, because when you were invisible, you didn’t advertise your life.

It was raining hard that night, a beautiful thunderstorm amidst all the terror to come. She heard them return home shortly after midnight, laughing and bumping into furniture. Her body tensed; it was a natural reaction for her when she heard them coming.

“Adara!” Juniper shouted up the stairs. “Get down here now!”

Adara got out of bed and put on her threadbare robe. She hurried down the stairs, toward the kitchen where she could hear them talking. “Hello, Mother. Father.” Adara’s voice was meek, and she kept her eyes on the floor. She wasn’t allowed to look them in the eye, it was a sign of disrespect and one of many reasons she would get a beating for.

“Ramos is hungry. Make him something to eat,” she snapped at Adara.

Adara made him an omelet as that was the quickest thing to make, and they had some eggs in the fridge. She was thankful for her paid lunches at school, since groceries were rarely at the top of their list as a necessity. Adara put the plate down in front of Ramos. He looked up and slapped her hard across her face. There were instant tears in her eyes, but she didn’t dare shout out or make a sound.

“Where is the damned fork and knife? You expect me to eat with my hands?” Juniper burst out laughing as Adara quickly placed a fork and knife beside his plate.

“I’m sorry, Father,” she said, and retreated to the back door of the kitchen. She would have to wait until he finished eating so she could clean up after him.

Adara washed his dishes, dried them, and put them away. She let the tears silently roll down her cheeks as she went back to bed. School started in a few hours, then she would have the bliss of being unnoticed and not in anyone’s way.