Pacifier

// Isabelle \\

In school I was shy, leaning up against the wall, half hidden behind the lockers, just watching the world from under the rim of my brothers flatcap, waiting for Della.

She was Larrys little sister, though few people ever really made that connection because she looked nothing like him and theyd not been seen together in years. She stood a little taller than me, sort of waif like, silky with chestnut hair which appeared to trickle and flow down her back like water. Light dancing off it.

Her eyes were green, her lips always a little chapped, and in her left eyebrow she had a scar, one many of our peers had nicknamed The Rieds Kiss, though she'd actually been born with it, no thanks to a Reid.

She lived the other side of town, with her grandparents, who had taken her for their own after her mother died. It had happened within months of me losing mine and so, we'd grown close over our school years because no one else had ever understood us, only ever trying to get close to us for one ulterior motive or another.

In our half of Manchester we were untouchable, not because of anything we'd ever done, but because people knew, that if anything happened to us, they'd have the bottlemen to answer to, and so, though we didn't often find ourselves in trouble, people tended to stay away all together.

We were friends because I was the only person who could be safe in the knowledge that The Bottlemen would never choose her over me, and she was safe in the knowledge that they'd never choose me over her.

And we didn't need for anyone else, which was probably a good thing because in our half of Manchester,
everyone either wanted to get into our brothers circle or destroy it and being so young and the way that we were we were people viewed us as an easy way in.

"I don't care if Mondays blue, Tuesdays grey or Wednesday too, Thursday I don't care about you its Friday youre in love!" Della left a frown knitted into my expression as she wiggled her hips and serenaded me across the corridor.

"What?" I asked sleepy, eyes half closed as I dozed against the side of a locker and Della came to a slow sidling stop beside me.

"I've been hearing stories about you," she smirked, "why weren't you in school yesterday?"

"Johnny wanted to wrap me up in cotton wool, why else," I rolled my eyes picking my bag up, swinging it lazily over my shoulder, ready to sidle into class together.

"Were you there then? The other night?"

"Uhuh," I nodded a little vacantly, chewing my pencil in some sort of pathetic nonchalant facade, trying to convince her like everybody else, that I wasn't bothered. That I was a bottleman and violence didn't phase me.

"Shit Izzy that must have been awful, are you okay? Did anything happen to you?"

"Its sound Della," I smirked, "I was fine," I shrugged, "have you heard about Megan?"

"Only bits," she said her tone lowering, "Danny Smiths saying she got shot and Abby Hamiltons saying she's working for the Reids now..."

"When has anyone ever believed owt Abby Hamiltons got to say," I sneered, "it wasn't like that anyway, but Megan had it worst," I shrugged and when I spoke I heard myself, voice a little dead, a little plain. All fear sort of masked, quilted over.

"She's full of shit I know, but she's as close as I get to me brother nowadays isnt she, you know what me nanas like,"

"Yeah," I sighed, "almost as bad as my brother,"

"Your Johnnys never thought about sending you to boarding school though has he,"

"No," i simmered, "that would involve letting me out of his sight for more than the time it takes me to piss," at that she laughed, one of those laughs where you surprise yourself and snort, and then we were laughing more, more than we ought to have been because as we trailed off, quietening to silence, the silence lingered and we became uncomfortably aware of lingering eyes, the rest of our class watching us.