Dina’s POV
“Wake up!”
I jumped up, ready to fight for my life as the loud voice boomed off the walls in my bedroom. But my feet got tangled in the sheets and I face-planted the floor. I groaned and rubbed my throbbing nose. Damn! Thank the goddess for werewolf healing otherwise, I was sure I would be needing a nose job.
“DINA!” the voice called again, annoyance clear in his tone now, and just like that, two strong arms grabbed me and hauled me off the floor. “Stop messing around and get up!”
“Wha----?!” I muttered still half asleep and trying to get a grasp at what was going on around me. Finally, I managed to turn around and mentally let out another groan as I finally recognized who the voice belonged to. It was my older brother – and mock guardian – Dylan. He was running around in the dark, grabbing whatever he could get his hands on and stuffing it into a bag. Now, normal people might become slightly freaked out by the sight of their brother stealing anything and everything with the slightest pawn potential, but honestly, after five years of dealing with this shit, I’d gotten used to it.
I groaned out loud this time and without a backward glance, I walked back to the bed and let myself fall into the warm covers again.
Dylan had issues.
Although he was older than me by several years and was supposed to be my guardian, he apparently didn’t have what it took to get his shit together. He was always running away from loan sharks, mobsters, or some other shitty “get rich fast”-deal that had gone bad. He would be talking big, throw his dick around and then disappear for months at the time doing--- Goddess only knew what! And then - out of the blue - he’d show up like this: running around in our old home, looking for anything he could sell.
Well, whatever it was he’d gotten into this time, I wasn’t about to---
“Come on!”
He shouted right into my ear, making me jump just about a mile in the air. Yet I’d barely gotten vertical, before I noticed his big body disappearing out the door, leaving me none the wiser about what the heck I was supposed to be doing.
Except going back to sleep apparently…
Knowing that if I pissed him off, he’d just get physical with me - and I do mean VERY physical! - I forced myself off the bed. Our parents had died in a car crash five years ago along with our baby brother, Dug. And although werewolves do heal quicker and generally aren’t that easy to kill, there are some injuries that not even the wolf can walk away from. Which had left me alone with Dylan, who’d “luckily” been 18 at the time and had gotten custody of me.
Not that he actually cared about me or anything. But he did enjoy collecting all the benefits he got out of the deal. While he was out doing his thing, I barely got by scraping rock bottom. As in dumpster-diving behind large malls and making my own clothes. Luckily you could lie online and created a separate bank account and since I was - not to brag - a rather talented artist, I made enough money to cover the bills.
“Dylan?” I asked, careful with my tone as not to piss him off. “What are you---?”
I almost crashed into him again when he came back, this time with a big duffle bag and--- and I finally became wide awake when I noticed that he was emptying my drawers and closet into the duffel bag.
“What are you doing?” I gasped as I jumped over and tried to pull the bag out of his hands. I mean, sure I’d gotten used to Dylan’s behavior over time. He had no regard for personal space, stuff, or even money. He’d long since emptied the savings our parent’s made for us and anything that had any value, he pawned off somewhere. Our parent’s bedroom was empty and everything that Dug had owned was gone. Even some of my stuff had disappeared over time.
Now, I could hate him for it, and in a way I did, but--- I didn’t. In a way, I couldn’t… Most of the time, I even covered for him. Lied to social workers and what shit not, just to keep us together. He was an asshole and a shitty brother at best, but… What can I say? He was family. The ONLY family I had.