I've spent almost all of my life living in the dirt poor part of Corus. We're all working class people struggling to get by. We're common sense people; the mentality is to spend what you have to and save the rest for when you really need it. Unless, of course, you're addicted to drugs, which a lot of people are. The current drug of choice is hotblood wine. People take wine, mix in various chemicals that react within the body and then pump so much adrenaline through your body it's amazing people don't just keel over and die from their hearts stopping.

My mother had once dated a man who loved it. I don't remember his name, but I remember what he used to do. I was young, and we were still living on Mutt Piddle Lane, the poor neighborhood of the Lower City, which is definitely saying something. When he would come home, I would hide while most of my other siblings would get out of the house as fast as they could without him noticing. I always stayed because I felt guilty, like I was abandoning her and forcing her to face fate alone. Nilo, of course, felt the same way, only about me. He told me once that everything's better when you have a friend there with you, a motto he still firmly believes in. Anyway, mom's man used to come in, crabby and smelling like alcohol. Sometimes he would throw up all over the floor, other times he would yell a lot and get really angry over nothing.

See, nothing me mom ever did seemed good enough for him. Dinner was too cold, the next day too hot. The house was messy, which shouldn't have mattered seeing as he didn't live with us, but apparently it did. One moment he was happy and cheery, giving mom gifts, the next he turned sad and angry and bitter. Then, when he was crossed, he would smack us, not hard enough to leave a mark, mind, just hard enough to get his point across. That lasted a month, after that, he didn't care and we were bruised often enough. By then my brothers and sisters had avoided him at all costs, so it was just me and mom, and Nilo when I couldn't make him leave hanging around the house when he was there.

It was one of those nights that changed my life forever. I was working on my homework and Nilo was with me when he came in, smelling like hotblood wine and sweating like the pig he was. My sisters and other brother were out, I can't remember where. Naturally, Nilo and I hid behind the couch, which believe it or not was a very effective hiding place, see, it was so old that the back had come off on one half of it, so we could take out a cushion and hide in to hole and never be found. It was beautiful, unless someone sat down. Anyway, we couldn't understand what the hell he was saying, he was slurring so bad, but we could understand mom. She told him to leave, and never come back. She said she couldn't be with a man who treated her and her family so bad, but he just laughed.

You must uderstand, there are so many bad relationships going on, so many who are abused, the Dogs can't help them all. He knew she wasn't going to be helped by anyone, and he knew she was alone, totally and completely. He understood, in his wine-muddled mind, that he was stronger than her, and that he could do whatever he wanted because no one was coming. No one could stop him, and because of that she ended up being beaten to death that night. He didn't know that Nilo and I were hidden in the couch, that we knew what he was doing. I held Nilo tight and made him close his eyes and ears. He was young enough that he doesn't remember much of it, just hazy memories of fear and cries for help. I remember it all, and I will never, ever forget it.

Mom's murderer took everything of value that we had, most of it was jewelry that he had given her and money we had saved. No doubt he would go and buy more wine, or perhaps give it to that other mot I know he was treating just as bad. And then he left. I cried, long and hard. I couldn't leave mom alone, but I couldn't keep Nilo in the room too. He couldn't understand where his mommy was; mom was beyond recognition. I didn't want her to face her fate alone, I wanted her to know that I was with her, but I also knew that she was now in a place that I couldn't go and that whatever she had to face, she had to face it the worst way, alone.

So I did the hardest thing I've ever done. I left mom alone, and ran to Tansy's. Tansy was my best friend in the whole world, and I left Nilo with her mom. No explanation, nothing. I knew she would figure it out soon enough, especially because Nilo couldn't stop shrieking "mommy!" at the top of his longs. It seemed that the paralyzing fear he had felt before was gone. I left, to do what, I had no idea. I just know that I had to move, and I had to move now. I needed to something, he needed to pay, and I would make him. So I ran to what I knew was his favorite stripper bar and snuck in through a side door. I found a spot to the right of the stage with a clear view of the room behind some plants; I was prepared to wait days until he came in that door. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait more than an hour and a half. Not that I would have noticed if not for the clock directly across the room from me, I was so angry I was completely numb. My eyes were so cold they had the sensation of burning; it was the most peculiar feeling.

He staggered in but left within a half hour. Apparently he couldn't stay in one place for long, for I followed him in and out of strip clubs, bars, alleys and finally, to his home. He lived in a beaten up row house, probably owned by Crookshank. It was a dilapidated structure with broken windows and more weeds and bushes in the tiny yard than I had ever seen. Combined, the two factors made it absurdly easy to hide and watch him. When he got to the front door, it opened and a huge disgusted man yanked him in. I knew his face, he'd been wanted for the longest time, and the tattoos covering his shaved head were a dead giveaway. Apparently, the tattooed man was the ringleader of a gang that the Dogs couldn't sniff out. I stayed long enough to verify that this was, in fact, where mom's killer lived and then I left to find Dogs.

After awhile of running towards the headquarters, I say to Cops patrolling. They didn't believe me, so I left them, furious. By now, I was not in my right mind. I was angry at the world for not listening to those who need help, confused by what had happened to my mother and determined that her murderer would pay, which was why I rashly did what I did next. I was running down a street, when I saw a patrol car driving towards me. I stepped in front of it and it screeched to a halt. The driver leapt out, confused and angry. "Do you have any idea what could have just happened?"

I didn't even gratify that with a reply, I just told him, simply, that I knew where the gang was, and if he wanted them, to follow me. The man, in his late 30s then, stared at me. He looked at me and it seemed like he was searching for something. By now I was so angry that I just glared at him as if everything that had happened was his fault until he nodded solemnly, to the protest of his partner. So I turned and started walking away, and he followed me, while his partner locked the car and ran to catch up. It took us a decent amount of time; my feet by now were sore and bleeding a little. He offered to carry me, I was still young, but I just glared at him and he didn't mention it again.

I showed him the house, and told him that one of the men in there had killed my mom. He promised me that he would make the man pay for his actions under the law. I waited until the man brought reinforcements and arrested everyone inside the house, including my mom's killer. The moment I saw him, it told the nearest Dog and then turned tail and ran. As long as that man would pay for what he did, I felt as though I had no more part in what happened. I miscalculated, though. The dog followed me much like I had followed mom's man before, turns out the man who had first helped me had issued orders that if I were to leave he was to follow me.

Three days later, he showed up at Tansy's, where we had been staying because mom was still in our place, and introduced himself as the Lord Provost. Apparently I had saved his job, and a month later after mom's burial, we were all formally adopted into his family as his children.