• Without a word more, she slid the paper towards him and waited as he picked it up between beefy fingers and studied it with the patience of a surgeon. He looked up into her sapphire eyes, saw the determination and hope there, also, the tiny scattering of fear.
    “You’re hired.”
    “Oh, thank you sir.”
    “Now don’t you get all formal on me. Name’s Hector but folks here call me Hec.”
    “Yes sir, I mean Hec. What should I do now?”
    “What about school?”
    He made her gape mentally and wish she’d use a more grown up tone with him, since he saw through her adult impersonation, there was no hope for it but to go along with the flow.
    “It’s the holidays now, Hec.”
    The man named Hec clucked his tongue, sounding rather like a chicken, and he wrote something down on another piece of paper.
    “You can work from 7am to 3pm.”
    She felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach.
    “But I can work for longer hours than that, Hec.”
    Hec shook his head yet again and flipped open the little fold in the paper to reveal Professor Rowan’s neat and unmistakenable handwriting. If she focused, she could make out the words, “more rest”, “easier job”, “too dedicated” and she smiled, it was so typical of Professor Rowan.
    “Now, even though the time for your new shift is over, I’m going to teach you the basics in our kitchen.”
    With that, she found herself being dragged off to meet the crew before she learnt various techniques and advices about each job being handled in the restaurant. Many of them smiled at the simple pleasure that bloomed on her face whenever she saw them skilfully whip up scrumptious food for the customers.
    She strolled back home, struggling to repeat the steps of each of the ten over dishes mentally and wasn’t even alert enough to notice the shadow following her as she would have normally done. She turned down another alleyway, paused and with her mind still half on the recipes, checked out her mirror.
    She saw the man reflected inside and a mixture of terror and rage overcame her, she fought to keep that feeling of power, that ugly animal feeling locked up but it refused to obey. Still, she fought for control, a battle in which she was severally disadvantaged. Her hand reached up to grab her necklace, the last thing she had to remember her parents by, particularly her mother. The bond between the two had been strong and it had hurt when she left; a pain worse than torture in hell.
    That was also when she saw it, the ugly monster inside her for the first time. It had frightened, hurt and destroyed. But she picked up the remains and with a heavy heart, carried her little sister and herself away, her little sister of three.
    They had gone through several towns, living off what they could get, until Professor Rowan had kindly helped them out and they settled down in Herinodia for good.
    She fought to keep her control over the beast and her necklace began to glow. She suddenly felt her back being rammed into the concrete wall and she looked up, saw the man from before with a dagger on her throat.
    “Your money or your life.” He rasped and she relaxed her hold on the beast long enough for a sudden surge of power to blast the man off his feet before she pulled her the hood of her hoodie jacket up and continued on, practically melting into the shadows, the crystal on her necklace glowing softly.
    “Aurelia, you’re back.” A teenaged girl of around thirteen called as she ran towards the girl. Aurelia hugged her sister as she darted into her arms.
    “Isola, have you been good today?” She teased as Isola pulled a face before both broke into laughter. Isola danced into the kitchen of the apartment Professor Rowan had been nice enough to give to them and brought out a cup of hot chocolate which she offered to Aurelia, who was seated in the chair of the dining set they recently purchased. She took the offered cup with a smile and drank deep.
    “I swear you oughta start your own cafe, your hot chocolate would take the world by a storm.” Isola blushed, her own smile overwhelming.