For Nevermore Season 1

window, trying to work up the courage to start her day. Though she got six hours of sleep, it felt more like four. Her head was throbbing, again, and she was feeling groggy. Today was gonna be a long day. She reached for her bottle of pills, palmed one into her mouth, and then took a sip of water from the water bottle on her nightstand.
    A pill a day keeps the voices away.
    She lay back down, figuring she had about 10 minutes before she needed to start getting ready. Josie didn’t have to be to work for another hour, so Noella had time to maybe catch a catnap.
    She was debating whether or not it was better to just get up, or catch a few more Z’s, and have to go through the whole waking up thing all over again. A knock on the door bolted her upright in bed. She could practically smell the oh gross of Randy’s Old Spice on the other side.
    He pounded on the door again, then yelled, “You ready yet? I’ve gotta get to work. I’m taking you to school, and we’re outta’ here in five.”
    Noella’s feet hit the carpet. What? Nobody told me! She opened the door and poked her head into the hallway where Randy was standing, dressed in his uniform and ready to go.
    “I thought Aunt Josie was taking me to school, today. How am I supposed to shower and get ready in five minutes?!”
    “Nope, she’s come down with something and is laid up in bed, so now you get to ride with me in the cruiser.”
    Great.
    Just what she needed: to be driven to school with her aunt’s boyfriend in the police cruiser, again. Last time he dropped her off, she tried to keep her head down and sneak out of the car unnoticed. Randy, being the big jerk he was, waited until she was halfway out of the car and “accidentally” blurted the siren. Right in front of all the kids hanging out in front of the school. They all looked, pointed, and laughed. It was so humiliating! Given her history, and the events from two years earlier, the last thing Noella needed was to be brought to school in a cop car. It reminded people of the things she hoped they’d someday forget if she could manage to fly under the radar long enough.
    “I wish someone woulda told me I had to be up early,” she said.
    “Oh, I’m sorry, Missy. I’ll tell Josie to try and schedule her sickness in advance from now on so Princess Noella’s not inconvenienced.”
    Princess Noella?! She hated when he said crap like that. She was about as far as you could be from a princess, especially given all the rich, stuck-up snobs in her school. Those girls are princesses!
    Randy’s voice cracked into a laugh. “Get up, giddy-up, and get in the shower. No one was ever around to wake me and I learned to unbury my head from the covers just fine. Five minutes is more than enough time. It’s not like you’ve got more than four outfits. Pick one, rub some Teen Spirit on your stink patches, and get downstairs before I turn the engine.”
    “10 minutes, Randy.” Noella growled. “You’re telling me you couldn’t have given me 10 minutes?”
    Anger flashed on his face and his voice went electric. “Excuse me? Is that how you talk to someone offering to do something nice for you? Sheesh, kids today are so ungrateful!”
    Noella stared at Randy, holding his eyes and making him gaze into the hate she could never voice. Sometimes, she wished he would just hit her, so maybe Josie would wake up and see what a jerk he was. But Randy had been too cool to ever let his anger get that out of hand. He somehow managed to snow Josie over, balancing his verbal abuse evenly with this charm, but Noella could see, maybe even feel, the monster lurking below, the monster that fed on their misery and drank theirs like a drunk in an alley. Between his erratic mood swings, obsessive compulsive attention to detail, and penchant for ruling the roost like a prison warden, their lives always revolved around not doing anything to set Randy off. It was like constantly walking on a carpet of eggshells. And for some reason this morning, she felt like dancing all over them and cracking them to powder, just to see if she could push him over the edge.
    His flash of anger vanished, replaced by a wide, faux smile barely masking his contempt. “Well, you could just take the bus,” he said, his smile a hook, waiting to see what it might catch.
    “You know I don’t like to take the bus,” Noella said.
    “That’s your fault. You just need to learn how to stand up to those bitches. Problem with you, Noella, other than