The Debt I Never Chose

I wake up on the floor. The cold from the tile has soaked into my back, and my ribs ache from where they landed against the leg of a table last night. I don't remember falling asleep. I just remember Renner's voice, sharp and mean, telling me I ruined dinner again by breathing too loud. I sit up slow. My whole body argues with me. There's a collar around my neck, thick and gray, with a small light that blinks red when it's working right. It's always working right. I haven't felt my wolf in three years. Not a whisper. Not a growl. Just silence, like she packed up and left me here alone. I push myself to my feet and start on the floors before anyone wakes up. That's the job today. Floors, then the kitchen, then whatever else gets thrown at me. I used to ask why. I stopped asking a long time ago. My father used to be Beta before he died. My mother too, before the accident. I was six. I don't remember most of it just a loud crash, and then Renner's face, older than mine, staring at me like I was something broken that should have been fixed before it hurt anyone. He never forgave me for it. I don't think he ever will. The house wakes up around me. Doors slam. Someone laughs upstairs. Nobody looks at me twice, because I've gotten good at being invisible. Invisible doesn't get hit as much. By afternoon my hands are raw from the cold water and the bleach. I stop for one second by the window to look outside, at the gray sky over Thornfield, at the wolves running free in the field past the fence. I used to be able to do that. Run. Feel the wind under my paws instead of just my feet. I don't remember what that felt like anymore. That night, after the dishes, after the yelling, after Renner tells me I'm lucky he even lets me live here, I climb up to the roof through the old attic window. Nobody checks on me at night. Nobody checks on me ever. I sit on the edge, feet hanging over the drop, and I look down at the ground far below. I'm not thinking about jumping. Not really. I just want to know, for one quiet minute, if it would matter. If anyone down there would even look up. I stay until my hands go numb from the cold, and then I climb back inside, because morning always comes whether I'm ready for it or not.