Family

Dabria closes and locks the front door quietly behind her. She stays still and listens for a moment. Nothing. She makes her way upstairs to her bedroom, knowing exactly where to put her weight on the stair to not make a sound. When she enters her room, she puts her sport bag down and turn around to close the door, but gets a shock as her father is standing in the opening.

"I'm just going to bed…" Dabria tries to not sound guilty and reaches for the door handle.

"No. You just came home." Tristram puts his hand on the handle.

Dabria stays silent.

"We have set times for when we leave and when we come home here. Your practice ended hours ago. Where were you?"

Dabria turns around and starts unpacking her training bag.

"Dabria. Where were you?"

Dabria still doesn't say anything. Her father makes his way across the small room and grabs her chin to turn her face towards him.

"I've told you not to spend time with that Syringa kid. She's no good for you."

Dabria shakes him of her, and straightens her back to gain her full length, almost a head taller than him.

"She's my sister. I have the right to see her whenever I want."

He looks down at the half unpacked bag, and picks it up. He turns to leave the room.

"Do this on more time and you won't get off so easy." He slams the door behind him.

Dabria throws the one football shoe that was already out of the bag on the door, and then throws herself on the bed. She puts her hands on her face and lets out a quiet but frustrated sound.

Weekend

The sunrays creep around the corner of the house and break through the window in Bree's room. They hit her in the face, and she squints her eyes as she sits up and shift out of the direct light. She jawns, and picks up her phone. No new messages. She had hopes that one of her new friends might had written. But it's still early, they might reach out during the day.

She goes downstairs, and immediately feels the smell of pancakes. In the kitchen, she finds her aunt, Irma, cooking. They hug each other and say good morning. Bree takes a plate and starts to load it up with pancakes.

"Can we maybe go to the shooting range today?" She asks, with her mouth full of food.

"Maybe you can train with something that you can shoot in the backyard? I have to go to a meeting in town." Irma puts her plate down and sits on the opposite side of the table.

"A meeting? On a saturday?" Bree tries to not sound too disappointed.

"Yes. I will need to leave in an hour, so if you want to do anything in town today that's you shot. There's-"

"- no buses at the weekend. I know. We've lived here for a while now."

Irma finishes her breakfast and stands up. On her way to the sink she passes Bree and kisses her on top of the head.

"I know, I'm sorry. Maybe we can do something fun next weekend."

Bree makes a face that Irma doesn't see. It's not the first time she's heard that. She pokes around her food for a while. Then she hears a buzzing in her pocket. She quickly pick up her phone. She's got a friend request on facebook. She opens the app and sees that it's Sel. Before she can accept it however, Irma snatches the phone out of her hand.

"No phones at the table."

"But-"

"No, finish your breakfast so that I can finish the dishes." Irma nods towards the nearly finished pile of pancakes.

"Fine." Bree eats demonstratively.

Irma goes back to the sink to continue the dishes.

"I want to come with you to town by the way! I'm gonna meet some friends."

Thea awakes to the sound of feet running around outside her room. She sighs and tries to focus her hearing. It's hard to make out anything of the rumbling, but Thea uses logic instead and assumes that it's Bavaz and Jazec that's causing the commotion. She picks up her phone and scrolls through some social media, as the sound continues to move up and down the hallway outside her door. Suddenly there's a hard thud and she hears how on of her brothers curses. She gets up and opens her door. In the hallway she sees Jazec laying on the floor, laughing and rolling around. Bavaz is standing beside him, holding his face, a small amount of blood running through his fingers. Behind Bavas stands Nibs, with her bedroom door open.

"Can you to stop like running around, do that outside our something." Nibs is not happy to have been woken like this.

Jazec stands up and tries to apologize between the laughs as he pulls Bavas with him down the hall and downstairs.

"You just happened to open the door as they ran past you huh?" Thea shakes her head as she asks Nibs.

"What, total accident." Nibs says not so convincingly and shrugs.

Thea goes back into her room, and gets dressed. When she comes downstairs, her father is at the breakfast table, reading the newspaper. He greets Thea and points towards the entry hall with his teacup.

"You mother had to drive Bavas and Jazec to the hospital. They think his nose is broken."

Thea hides her smile and swallows a small laugh.

"Ouch, let's hope not." She says and sits down.

Thea is just finished eating when the doorbell rings. She looks at her dad, but he just shrugs.

"I'm not expecting anyone. Maybe one of the neighbours need something?" He says.

Thea gets up and walks to the door. When she opens it, she sees a small girl standing there. Bree.

"Hi!"

"Hey, sorry to bother you." Bree seems nervous.

"No worries, what's up?"

"Well I wanted to see if you guys wanted to hang out today, but I don't know where any of the others live. I tried to google but yours was the only one I found."

"Ah I see. Yeah well Sel and Dabrias parents aren't hot on people finding them online. They're that type of grown up you know? And honestly I'm not even sure I know where Katkin lives, we never hang out there."

Bree nods and tries to look likes she understands, but it seems a bit weird. A moment of silence passes between them.

"Well come on in, I'll call Dabria and we can see if we can gather the gang. Is it hot outside? We could always try one last dip in the lake before full on autumn?" Thea puts her arm around Bree and brings her inside the house.