Amber

I expected the day to be no different than usual when I woke up on the edge of my mattress, under my threadbare blanket. The scuffs on the walls were all too familiar, as was the shabbiness of the few items carefully set in their places. But as miserable as it was to look at, I'd prefer to stay in the unkempt little room than face what was outside of it.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of doing that. I swung my legs down to the floor and quickly dressed. I wasn't fast enough.

"Amber!" The harping screech of my name echoed from below. Not wasting time, I hurried down before she had a chance to get even angrier with me. I rushed through my door, down the hall, and down the stairs.

As I rounded the corner into the kitchen, Mrs. Lyndon was already in there, starting breakfast. One glance at her slightly greying brown hair and pinched face was enough to show what a bad mood she was in, which never boded well for me. I hurried to help her, hoping that I wouldn't get in too much trouble for not making it down first.

Apologies wouldn't help me if she was already worked up, so my best bet was to keep busy and hope she got sidetracked out of her mood. I kept my head down as I began chopping vegetables for the omelettes. She cast me a dirty look which I studiously pretended not to notice.

Twenty minutes later, breakfast was ready and I brought everything out to serve the family. Mrs. Lyndon took her place at the opposite end of the table from her husband. Their younger son, Jesse, was off on some hunter business, and it was unfortunate that he hadn't taken his older brother, Jasper, along with him, because Jasper looked me over in a way that made me feel deeply uncomfortable. I hurried back into the kitchen to get away before he could say anything. Or try anything

He lingered in my mind like a difficult stain as I quickly ate a small portion of the food, enough to keep my going, but not enough to draw Mrs. Lyndon's ire. Brown haired and square jawed, Jasper was a couple of years older than me and he had been cruel to me as far back as I could remember. He'd always enjoyed putting me down or lording it over me, but the last couple of years he had been getting more personal than I was happy to tolerate. It was one thing if he said unpleasant things or hit me, it was another thing, a much worse thing, when he let those creepy, hooded eyes wander over me like a threat that I didn't really understand but instinctively knew to fear.

I hated it when he did that.

I hated him.

I hated all of them.

Maybe, I even hated myself.

The Lyndon family were hunters of the supernatural, the group of extraordinary humans who stood between humanity and the monsters lurking in the darkness beyond the light of civilization. Growing up as an orphan in their midst, I had heard all the stories of the glory and power of the hunters, and I could easily recite the impressive tales from memory.

My own experience had been less glorious. The Lyndons had taken me in as a toddler, mistreated me as an unpaid servant as they allegedly raised me beside their sons, and none of the other hunters had ever lifted even a finger to intervene in my miserable existence.

How could the hunters protect the world from supernatural monsters when they could not even protect me from the cold monsters in their midst?

Three times already I had tried to run away and leave the hunter life behind me, but each time I had been brought back to safety and had been severely punished for daring to try to find my way to freedom.

I started washing the dishes.

"Amber."

I glanced towards the sound of my name. Mrs. Lyndon had a scowl etched across her thin face, the cruel eyes narrowed as she glared at me. Not a good sign.

I tried to shrink down and look pitiful. It was easy, because after years of this misery I could not help but fear her when she got into a mood. Although my pathetic posture did not seem to have any effect on lessening my punishment, past experience taught me that any show of pride would be met with an attempt to break it.

And they had broken it, degree by degree, until I no longer felt I had the will to stand up to them. It wasn't worth the fight anymore. All I could do now was bury my resentment and try to avoid more punishment by acting meek. And maybe, just maybe, someday I would get my chance to escape, even though I was having more and more trouble believing it would come.

She crossed her arms. "What did I do to deserve such disrespect?"

"Nothing, Mrs. Lyndon." Everything, but telling her that would only get me slapped, or worse.

"Then why were you late this morning?"

"I'm sorry. It was an accident."

"An accident? And you expect me to believe that?"

The question was a trap with only wrong answers to choose from. I would either have to disagree with her which would make her angrier or admit fault which would make her feel justified in her anger. I kept my mouth shut and tried to make myself look smaller and weaker by sagging my shoulders and looking at the floor.

"Sorry." If I were lucky, maybe I'd still manage to calm her down.

I was rewarded with a slap across the side of my face, but it was just one and not that hard, so I might get out of the morning almost unscathed. She could have done more damage if she had wanted to. Hunters were far stronger than average humans.

"We took in a common human child, we fed you, we clothed you, we raised you like you were our own, and how do you repay us? With sloth and contempt? All we've ever asked is that you pull your weight, but you can't even manage that, can you?"

I stopped listening to her rant and tried to fade into the background. I hated her, but there was nothing I could do about that. I was outnumbered and overpowered amongst the hunters, and they'd proven they had no intention of letting me go.

Finally, she finished her diatribe so I could go back to my work. My cheek hurt, but it probably would not bruise, at least not much. It would be easy to cover it up for the assembly tonight. The Lyndons had no qualms about treating me harshly, but my supposed adoptive mother still insisted on me hiding the evidence of her behaviours. None of the other hunters wanted confirmation of the abuse, maybe because then they might have to acknowledge and rectify the situation if they did know.

Once I finished in the kitchen, I started cleaning the floors. Mr. Lyndon and Jasper had gone to deal with hunter business or something and Mrs. Lyndon had gone to meet with someone, so I let down my guard with the luxury of being left alone.

My chores took me the entire morning and half the afternoon. Afterwards, I washed up and put on my best clothing, my second hand female hunter uniform. As a normal human, they had never bothered to actually train me in hunter techniques, but as part of the clan I had still been expected to wear the formal attire for assemblies ever since I had turned sixteen, or at least as close to sixteen as they could estimate without knowing my actual birthday. Sixteen, that magic age when children became adults in hunter society. Of course, in those four years since I'd been technically an adult, I had been granted none of the freedoms the others had gained.

I dressed in the standard stuffy black cloth that was somewhere between a business skirt and a military uniform. I hated it, but the consequences of disobeying made open rebellion not worth it.

I applied tan concealer to the spot on my face that was just faintly discoloured until it matched my skin almost perfectly. There were other, older bruises, but they were covered by my clothing, other than the one on the side of my knee that was almost gone.

Since I was a reasonably fast healer, it might be faded enough that no one would notice if my skirt did ride up a bit, but it was not worth what Mrs. Lyndon might do if she caught me showing off injuries, so I applied more concealer there, too.

At last, I was ready. In the kitchen, I put the finishing touches on supper, and then I ate in the corner of the kitchen. The sounds of the family eating from the dining room reached me, but only made me happier to be alone.

Finally, they finished, and it was time to go. I obediently got into the backseat of Mr. Lyndon's car and spent the ride looking resolutely out the window while ignoring Jasper who sat far too close for my comfort. He was getting worse all the time. I much preferred those times when he was absent due to hunter missions.

I was relieved when we got there. I responded to anyone who spoke to me with quiet, noncommittal responses. I watched everyone covertly as we walked into the assembly hall and sat with my family.

The leader of the hunters, Sigmund Triste, walked to the front of the hall and began speaking. I could tell his words were supposed to be rousing and inspire pride in the hunters and maybe they did, but I was immune, because I was not really one of them. I was an inside observer, a second class citizen, because my parentage was not of the lofty hunters like the rest of them.

For the millionth time, I wondered why they didn't just dump me in a human orphanage when they found me and be done with it. My life probably would not have been worse, and then they wouldn't have had to waste their precious resources on a useless normal human like me.

It was not my fault that I was not as strong as the pureblood hunters. It was not my fault that they had decided to keep me on a whim.

And then I noticed Mrs. Lyndon was giving me a dirty look. Could she tell that I had been daydreaming? I forced my attention back to the leader of the hunters and tried to look like I really cared about his hunter supremacy ideals.

—————

I could not wait to get back to my room once we got back to the house, but before I could hide for the night I had to clean up the rest of the mess from supper. The car I rode in got back first, so I hurried to the kitchen and hoped that she would decide not to interrupt my work with a lecture or worse.

My relief washed over me when the sound of her sharp voice, accompanied by the sound of Mr. Lyndon's, faded as they went up the stairs. The house grew quiet other than the sounds of the dishes as I placed them in their proper locations. Hopefully she would forget her irritation by tomorrow and let me work in peace.

I was about to hang up the frying pan when a noise behind me made me jump. I spun around and saw Jasper standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Tall and broad and classically handsome, I had heard girls whispering about how much they liked his curling brown hair and his dark brown eyes.

They did not know him like I did.

"Do you need something?" I squeaked. Let him be here for a glass of water or something, I desperately hoped.

"Oh, definitely."

His tone of voice set off warning bells in my mind. It reminded me of when he used to push me around when we were little, but the expression on his face was even worse than those days.

He was like a brother to me, if a brother meant someone familiar to me who I feared and loathed.

He was not looking at me like he was my adoptive brother.

Jasper stepped closer and the sound of blood rushed in my ears.

"Well, please don't let me stop you," I said. My voice was unnaturally high. I backed away, cognizant of the location of the back door, just in the hallway outside the second entrance to the kitchen behind me.

"You definitely won't stop me," he agreed.

I did not wait for him to move, I dropped the pan as I dashed to the door. Since I had caught him off guard, I gained a split second head start.

He was a hunter, but I had always managed well in the darkness and there was some light from the partial moon. If I could get to the trees, I might have a cha—