Drop of Magic (Malec)

Bonus Chapter (9) Lucky

So as I promised, here's Magnus' upbringing. Sorry for the short, very late chapter. Midterms are kicking my ass.

Thank you all so much for 10K! I'm honestly in awe of you, I have the best readers ever. Please enjoy this chapter, vote, and comment!

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(Magnus POV)

Moonlight filters through the partially shattered glass. It gives the eerie, pale light a haphazard, ominous feel. As if the entire night sky has just splintered into a million pieces in front of me.

I don't ask what happened to the last child the Rodriguez's fostered. I think it's best if I don't know.

This house will mark the 2nd this year. 7th over all. This family will be yet another notch on my proverbial bed post. I don't expect to stay long, whether that's their choice or my own, but this place, like all the others before, doesn't feel like a home. I don't really know what a home should feel like, but I assume I'll know once I get there. Someday.

Mr. Rodriguez comes into the room behind me, footsteps neither soft nor heavy, just loud enough to sound his entrance.

"How are you settling in?" He asks in a deep tenor, urging me to turn around.

His eyes land on my untouched bag of belongings- a mixture of clothes and small items I've managed to keep throughout the many moves.

"Good," I reply simply. After the third home, I lost the motivation to play nice. To pretend like this is going to work out.

"You haven't touched your things," He points out, nodding at the bag. I shrug, staring down at my socks that are seconds away from falling to pieces, tucked beneath a pair of pretty messy blue jeans, all frayed at the bottoms. "You're not settling at all, Magnus." He scolds and I swallow thickly, hating that undertone in his voice. It's a mixture of anger, disappointment, and warning that I've come to know too well.

"I'm sorry," it's a knee jerk reaction, I know this, something I say too often to be normal, something that holds no meaning anymore.

"Don't be," he sighs, passing a calloused hand over his aging face. "Just...just get some sleep." He mumbles, turning and swinging the door closed behind him.

Instead, I turn back to the fractured window, staring out and trying to decipher the sharp fissures from stars.

***

It doesn't take long.

It never does.

Mrs. Rodriguez is a small, soft spoken woman. I'm sure, if not for her husband, she'd be a lovely lady, with a surplus of children, maybe her own, maybe fostered, or adopted. She's the motherly type.

But her husband is the problem.

Mr. Rodriguez is a tough man who likes order. I learn this quickly. He has rules upon rules and consequences that are both review and new to me.

It's a Friday when it happens first.

And it's every day after.

If I fail to put the dishes away on time. If the floors don't shine. If I bought the wrong kind of soap. If I'm late coming home from school. If I go too bed too early. If I go to bed too late.

Too soon, everything I do becomes a reason to be punished.

It's by far the worst house I've lived in.

My bedroom isn't bad in size, but the floor creaks, and I'm positive it's that way purely to inform Mr. Rodriguez if I so much as shift in the night.