Free Roaring Up the Wrong Tree by Celia Kyle

family to care so much they want you dead?

Chapter Five
     
    Dreams had always troubled Trista. Good or bad, the annoyance with them always filled her because she knew they weren’t real. She couldn’t revel in a wonderful fantasy that captured her mind as she slept because it was only a matter of time before she opened her eyes and the real world intruded. Of course, she thanked God for the knowledge that nightmares would end the moment she woke.
    Unless it was a memory. Unless it was parts of her past that came calling when her eyes drifted shut. Unless it was a tiny piece of her personal hell that eased forward.
    Then she was in there, deep in the middle of the bloody action.
    Tonight she was thirteen and she learned, not for the first time, that pretty words weren’t always pretty, but claws were always sharp.
    Trista tugged on her favorite shirt and let it wrap around her like a comforting blanket. Next were her baggy jeans and looking at her outfit, she was kinda glad she stuck to wearing black a lot. It meant her mom didn’t have to buy her new clothes for the funeral.
    “Tris, you coming?” Her mom didn’t have to yell. Heck, half the time she whispered so Mrs. Montfort in 1A didn’t bang on her ceiling for them to be quiet.
    “Yeah.” She raised her voice a little louder than her mother’s and then…
    Thump. Thump. Thump.
    Good old Mrs. Montfort.
    Ignoring the banging, she slipped into her ratty sneakers and left the bedroom she shared with her mom. The apartment wasn’t much, none of theirs ever were, but it was home. For now.
    Trudging through the small space, she spied the pictures of her growing up. They lined the small hallway and were scattered throughout the tiny living room. Her mom said poor didn’t mean unhappy, it just meant occasionally hungry.
    Though, with Mr. Scott giving them cash, they weren’t hungry too often. They still didn’t have money for much, not with all the laws they had to duck, but they at least had food to eat.
    She wondered if that’d continue now that he was dead.
    Trista didn’t think so.
    The second she met her mom at the door, she was enveloped in a hug, her mother’s scent wrapping around her like a snug blanket. Her mom always smelled good. Sweet and happy.
    Yeah, happy had a scent. She learned that when she was younger, when she first realized she was different than other kids. It was also when she figured out that hate stunk.
    For now, she’d stick with smelling the happy. She’d be surrounded by the hate soon enough.
    “Ready?” Her mother’s voice vibrated through her and that weird part of her that her mom called hyena, rumbled in pleasure.
    “Yeah.” Trista rubbed her cheek on her mother’s shoulder.
    “Okay, then.” Her mom became all business, stepping away and snagging her purse before opening the door and moving into the hallway.
    The stench of the space hit her like a truck and she sneezed, trying to clear her nose of the aroma. Blech. Someone puked on the stairs again.
    Instead of commenting on it, they stepped around the puddle and kept on going. No sense in complaining when there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Mr. Scott’s money went for food and Mom’s went toward paying the rent. Since her mother got pregnant with Trista in her senior year of high school and barely managed to get her diploma, she wasn’t exactly qualified for much beyond working at the diner in Grayslake and manning the counter at the fast food joint in Boyne Falls.
    And then she couldn’t even work at those all that often because of the stupid bitch in Boyne Falls. Mr. Scott’s wife didn’t like her mom, but the woman couldn’t get around the laws of visitation which meant they were safe. For now.
    Who knew what’d happen after today.
    “Come on, Tris. We’re gonna be late,” her mom called to her as she slid behind the wheel of their clunker. The car looked like it was on its last legs, and it was more rust than metal, but it got them