CHAPTER THREE: Welcome to the Bottom

Ava didn't look back. She had no phone, no coat, no money. Just a ruined dress and blood drying sticky on her palms.

The bus wheezed up. She climbed in, bare feet black on the metal steps. The fluorescent light made her look like a ghost—torn silk and wild hair. The other passengers stared, then looked away. Nobody sat near her.

She pressed her forehead to the window, let the vibration rattle her skull. Every bump was Ryan's voice. Placeholder. Every pothole was her father's door slamming. Decorative. She dug her nails into her thigh until it hurt worse than the memory.

The bus emptied out. Neighborhoods changed—glass towers to cracked concrete, BMWs to busted Neon signs. The kind of place where you settled scores with fists, not lawyers.

"End of the line."

The driver's voice dragged her out. She stood on wet asphalt, still barefoot. The pavement was ice and glass. She walked until she found a teenager leaning against tagged brick.

"Is there a doctor around here?"

The teen looked at her dress. Her feet. "You lost, princess?"

"Doctor," she said. Not a question.

He pointed. "Crown and Claw but don’t expect magazines in the waiting room."

The Crown and Claw looked like a place you'd dump a body, not heal one. Steel door, no windows. Inside smelled like antiseptic and something burned.

Inside, a man sat behind a desk, stitching a gash on someone's arm. He didn't look up. Didn't flinch. The patient—a brawler twice Ava's size—was sweating, cursing, bleeding onto the linoleum, and the man's hands never shook.

Silas Vane.

Every wolf knew the name. Lead Enforcer, once. Next Great Alpha, once. Then—nothing.

"I'm looking for the doctor," Ava said.

Silas tied off the suture. Snipped the thread with teeth that looked like they'd done worse. Finally looked up.

His eyes were gray. Not warm, not cold. Just gray, like a sky that couldn't decide to storm. They moved from her damp hair down to her bare, blackened feet. Assessing. Pricing.

"We don't do cosmetic work," he said.

"I'm not—"

"You're Ava Hale." He tossed the bloody gauze in a bin. "Saw the video. Nice swing." A pause. "Stupid. But nice."

He turned a tablet around. The video was already playing. A girl in black silk, screaming, rock coming down on glass. Again. Again.

The headline: Hale Heiress Humiliated.

Blackwood-Vale Merger Leaves 'Placeholder' in Rain.

Silas didn't smile. Just watched her face crumble.

"Nice swing, Ava Hale." He set the tablet down.

"Most rich girls faint. You committed a felony."

Her throat burned. She stepped forward anyway, left bloody footprints on his floor.

"Was. Not anymore." She leaned over the desk, close enough to smell the smoke on his collar. "That girl's dead. I'm what crawled out. I need a job," she said.

"You need a hospital." He stood. Six-four, built like he'd been carved from the concrete outside.

"You're bleeding on my floor."

"I need to learn." She stepped closer. Her feet hurt. Everything hurt. But the pain was distant, like it belonged to someone else. "How to fight. How to survive being nothing. You survived it.

Teach me."

Silas studied her. The blood on her cheek. The glass in her palm. The nothing in her expression that used to be soft.

He laughed. Not friendly. The sound of a man who'd heard too many last requests.

"Pick up that mop," he said, nodding to the corner. "Clean the floor. If you can handle the smell without puking, we'll talk."

Ava looked at the mop. The bucket. The filth—blood and antiseptic and dirt that didn't wash off.

Three hours ago, she'd worn eight thousand dollars of silk.

She picked it up.

The handle was rough against her palm, the cuts, the reality of what she was doing. She didn't flinch. She'd already broken the most expensive thing she'd ever touched. What was a little grime?

"There's a room in the back," Silas said, not looking at her. "Used to belong to a guy who didn't make it. You can have it."

Ava didn't say thank you. Nice girls said thank you.

She just started mopping.

Silas watches her for a while. Then he sat back down and picked up his needle, like she'd already stopped existing.