Family

The calming scent of camomile rises from the mug on the table, spreading across the room. Harmony watches the smoke dance like a snake before disappearing as if it never was. Despite reminding herself repeatedly that it was all in her head, the heat from the cup, as warm as Dylan's body was, disgusts her. Harmony swallows the urge to vomit.

As aggravating as the school's mysteries, is the tattooed teacher's refusal to explain anything, like being left in a desert to dig for water with bleeding, dry hands.

The tattoo sleeved teacher sits opposite to Harmony. "I'm Mr. Robinson, I should be teaching you combat tomorrow; but if you don't feel up to it I'll have a word with Mr. Bates."

Curled within herself, Harmony examines the teacher's dorm room, it's equipped with a Hd screen, a personal kitchen, bathroom, living room, and a balcony at the back - A house within a school. Are all the teacher's living like this? Harmony wonders.

She sits on a framed photo of a family of blonds, a young son, and his parents. When Harmony looks back at Mr. Robinson, his attention is on the same picture; but his expression has gone blue and sorrowful.

Interestingly, the place smells like cherries, alcohol, and women's hair products, and a curling iron reflects from the bathroom mirror, meanwhile; Mr. Robinson smells like he spends a lot of time around guns, dead bodies, and babies.

The lack of evidence that the tattooed teacher lives here feeds Harmony's suspicions. She can tell that whoever really did stay in this dorm is a heavy drinker who washes their clothes frequently, and would likely have an intoxicating scent of washing up liquid. Her imagination is becoming frighteningly uncontrollable, like fire. "How do I know you're real?" The Half-wolf, like a camera, monitors the teacher's every movement, waiting for a sign that she needs to run.

"How can you know if anything's real?" His reply alarms Harmony and he notices her discomfort, "I'd get in trouble for telling you this, but all I can say is this school isn't safe for you."

However, Harmony doesn't trust his words, after all, he's her enemy, a hunter.

"I know it's hard to trust me. You can stay here as long as you need. It's my sister's dorm so don't break anything, she's not very forgiving." He leaves a pair of keys by the door before leaving.

Alone again, the wails and groans from the boiler send the hair's on Harmony's arm on edge. Creeks and footsteps from upstairs drill into Harmony's back, stroking her spine so her legs become wobbly.

Harmony runs to the door, and calls the teacher back, embarrassingly having reverted to a child who's scared of the dark and can't sleep without her parents, "I don't want to be alone."

Expecting Mr. Robinson to laugh at her, she looks up, waiting for his lips to curve into a mocking grin. Instead, he leads Harmony back inside, and they settle into their sofas after he prepares more tea.

Now on the phone, a joyful tone, like honey, spreads all over Mr. Robinson's harsh exterior. A worried woman's voice on the other end becomes calmer when he explains his absence. The call ends with "Bye, love you too."

A ghostly awkwardness haunts the two, tightening Harmony's throat so that she can't swallow her guilt for keeping Mr Robinson away from his wife, or from lifting her hand to drink her tea which is getting cold. Like being wrapped in clingfilm.

Her heart stiffens when she shuffles in her chair and the noise seemed to her, louder than it is.

Harmony keeps as still as a portrait.

"I was told you sent one of my best students to the infirmary." Harmony's face coils in confusion. The tattooed teacher clarifies, "Nina Shaw." Her guilt thickens, it settles at the base of her throat as if she had swallowed a stubborn ball of cotton refusing to go down. She remains quiet, not because she feels Nina doesn't deserve it, but because she doesn't want Mr. Robinson to feel like he failed as a teacher. "Who taught you to fight," he asks with curious eyes.

His question turns the crank on Harmony's passion, she springs to life like a doll, "Alvita, she's the best fighter in my family." A burnt taste appears as Harmony re-evaluates her definition of family. Not many in her pack favour her, but Alvita is like an older sister.

Harmony's mind melts into the past.

_________________________

Olive oil soaked the air.

The door shut, leaving Harmony in the shadow of a giant. She knew it was too late to call Dylan back. Her legs crumbled like biscuits under the intense gaze of Alvita who was twice her size and stood by the only exit. The great she-wolf walked ahead. Harmony looked back at the un-guarded door before following, her steps like mice, wavered between continuing forwards or running back to Dylan and giving up on fixing her hair.

"Bring a stool with you," The she-wolf commanded suddenly in a mild jamaican accent, making Harmony jump.

Alvita set the shower hose. At first, it released freezing cold water, then scorching hot water, till she found the right balance. Harmony kneeled in front of the bathtub, her head positioned in the tub. The water ran over Harmony's head like silk, while Alvita massaged the shampoo into her scalp, taking prolonged breaks to gently and extremely carefully detangle Harmony's hair. Her patience and focus surprised Harmony.

"Your mother never taught you how to do your hair?" Alvita's voice, although drowned by the running water, was as audible and fierce as a gong.

"Usually my mum or dad would do it for me, but dad taught me to style an afro." Rays of pride shone from Harmony, despite her timidness.

She could never imagine that the same hands which carefully parted knots in her hair, would later be throwing men and women across the park.

No other sparring partner could make Alvita's heart race faster than Randy, her husband.

______________________

Harmony's eyes open at the call of frying eggs and toast, she stretches the sleep away, before following her nose to the kitchen, Dad? But instead, she discovers the blond tattooed teacher tossing an omelet, "Mr. Robinson, you can cook?" No one in the pack knew how to turn on a cooker, Harmony would either have to prepare meals herself with what she was given or live off dead animals like everyone else.

He stays facing the stove, "Someone had to learn."

"What do you mean?" Harmony asks.

"With our mum gone, and our father busy killing werewolves, I took on all parental duties to take care of my sister." He props the food on two plates, carefully so as not to leave a stain of oil. "She still refuses to pick up an apron or touch the cooker, I have to visit often to make sure she hasn't starved herself on beer or wine."

Harmony imagines life with an older sister looking after her. The lonely nights where her father was at the restaurant would have been spent laughing at funny videos with a cup of hot chocolate at 1am, gossiping about her favourite tv shows, and sharing the monthly downsides to being a werewolf - not the full moon.

If she could redo her life Harmony would ask for the same father, however; when it came to puberty, she would retreat into herself and search for answers online. Unfortunately the internet didn't understand the body of a female werewolf either. It wasn't until she became desperate that she finally threw up all her questions and worries she had been hiding. She was so scared she thought she was going to die from an incurable genetic disease .

Harmony pulls her muscles together, embarrassed by the memory, she recoils from her thoughts.

Mr robinson accepts the silence as he continues devouring his breakfast.

A battle between fear and curiosity begins in her mind. "Do you like being a hunter?" Harmony finally asks after a moment of contemplation.

He answers with a mouth full of omelet, "There's not much room in our line of work for emotions. You kill then move on, otherwise, it breaks you." He takes a bite of toast. "The only exception is those people who hate werewolves to the core." His voice quietens to a whisper, " or those who aren't human." Harmony's attentive ears catch his words.

'Our line of work' does attending a werewolf hunting school automatically make her a hunter? She wonders, rejecting the idea repeatedly, with a stomach-turning disgust like it's a spider. "Why did you save me?"

"You ask a lot of questions." He opens and closes cupboards in search of washing up liquid. Looking as if his arm is being eaten, he reaches far into the back, and brings out a yellow bottle of liquid soap.

"Your a teacher," Harmony replies, still picking at her breakfast and cutting off small bites with her fork. Since seeing all those bodies in the ally, she hasn't been able to eat much. The reek of the place is like a shadow.

"Mostly by circumstance." He grins. Harmony bites her tongue, holding back the several questions sprouting in her mind, they'd be enough to cover a field; however, before she could form the words, he interjects, " "I'm filling in for your actual teacher, Miss Aylin Robinson, my sister not my wife."

Just as he releases those words from his lips, Wila fades in, she releases an ear-bleeding wail before falling on her knees in tears, startling Harmony. Unlike Harmony, who's eardrums nearly burst, Mr Robinson continues washing his plate without even looking in Wila's direction. He can't see her. At Harmony withdraws the trust her teacher had gained. Although she doesn't want to doubt the person who saved her, he just became her top suspect.