03: TRIGGER-HAPPY

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            'You couldn't last until nine a.m. before being sent home?'

I pull my hood up as I trail after him across the forecourt. Unsurprisingly for November in Manchester, it has started to rain.

'I'm not the one who decided to have an assembly first thing in the morning and then force me to attend.' I am the reason they had the assembly in the first place but that is not the point here.

Nicolás glares as I open the gate. 'You pulling the fire alarm for no fucking reason is my fault, is it?'

'If you're volunteering...'

He knows me too well. I've barely taken a step outside the school gates before he grabs my arm. 'Get in the car.'

So I hoist my skateboard back under my arm just as I'm about to drop it to the tarmac.

To make sure I annoy him as much as possible, I jostle the handle of his gleaming Vauxhall like I don't know it's locked. Two can play at this game. Nicolás looks for his keys only when he stands at the driver's side, checks all his pockets until he finally finds them, and "accidentally" presses the lock button. I yank at the handle harder.

The air inside is arctic. I throw my rain-drenched jacket into the backseat but leave my black backpack and skateboard at my feet. 21 Questions by 50 Cent blasts through the speaker when Nicolás turns on the engine and his phone automatically connects to the bluetooth. He punches it off.

My lips twitch. 'Am I grounded?'

The only response I get is an order to put on my seatbelt. This is exactly why I'm in this situation so often and never "do better": Nicolás, just as none of my guardians before him, can't do owt to make me. There's nowt they can threaten me with.

I fold down the visor for the vanity mirror. My eyeliner has smudged in the rain but I don't clean it—it adds to the look, if owt. My makeshift mohawk has gone flat. I twist the front to leave some hair visible and brush the rest back under my hood, then straighten the horseshoe barbell of my right snakebite to make it symmetrical to the left.

The car heating is flaky and the air still nips at my neck when we turn to Claremont Road.

Nicolás glares ahead as though he's trying to shatter the windscreen with willpower alone. 'Some days I'd like to do my job, you know. And not be called into school every five minutes.'

'You're the one forcing me to live with you!'

'You're the one who decided to piss off every foster parent in this city.'

'I consider that an accomplishment.'

'Why is it so hard for you to act like a normal human being?' Nicolás's voice gets away from him. It's a challenge on any day to get him to yell but he edges dangerously near the border now.

Everything bad in his life is your fault.

'Have you considered that I'm not a normal human being, but an evil spirit sent here to torment you?'

The coals lodged somewhere between my lungs and heart broil, spit sparks that don't catch flame but spew smog all the same. It rises to my head.

'Look, I get I've spoilt your life or whatever–'

He scoffs. 'You couldn't spoil my life if ya tried. At most, you're like a mosquito that keeps buzzing in my ear when I'm tryna sleep.'

Smacking the sun visor up, I knot my arms over my chest. The smoke swells, reaches from my chest to my fingertips, and exudes to my stomach where it feeds the swarming larvae.

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