Chapter 8

I walked out of the diner's back door into the narrow alleyway, the freezing air instantly hitting the hot skin of my face. One thousand dollars short. I had twelve hours left before the bank closed on Thursday afternoon, and my options had officially reached absolute zero.

I walked back to the apartment, my mind completely numb, my feet moving on pure instinct.

When I let myself in through the front door, the apartment was dark except for the small lamp on the kitchen table.

Katherine was sitting there. She hadn't taken off her school uniform blazer, and her eyes were fixed entirely on the screen of her cheap smartphone. When she heard the door click, she looked up, her expression guarded, the sharp defensive lines around her mouth instantly tightening.

"Well?" she asked, her voice carried a fragile, desperate edge that she tried to cover with her usual hostility.

"Did you fix it? Or should I start packing my things into garbage bags tonight?"

I walked over to the table, took off my heavy jacket, and laid the small stack of cash, my savings book, and Lou's five-hundred-dollar check flat on the wood right in front of her.

"That's one thousand dollars, Katherine," I said.

"That is every single penny I have in the world, plus a personal loan from my boss that I'll be paying off until the spring. It is exactly half of what your school is demanding."

Katherine stared down at the money, her eyes widening slightly. The arrogant, untouchable teenager vanished, replaced entirely by a vulnerable, small girl who realized just how close she was to the edge of the cliff.

"But... the email said the full balance," she whispered, her fingers hovering over the crisp green bills but not touching them. "They won't let me take the midterms with half, Lyra. The dean of students is a monster. She told Sarah Jenkins last semester that the school isn't a charity ward."

"I know what she said," I replied, sitting down across from her, the exhaustion finally settling deep into my marrow.

"Tomorrow morning, at eight o'clock, I am going to walk into that school with this money. I am going to look that dean in the eye, and I am going to make her take it. I will sign whatever payment plan they want for the rest. I will give them my soul if they want it, Kat. But you are going to take those midterms."

Katherine looked up from the money, her blue eyes, the eyes that looked so much like our mother's, the eyes that reminded me so terrifyingly of the man who had left me in the penthouse filling with sudden, silent tears.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice cracking as she looked down at her lap. "I'm sorry I called you pathetic. I just... everyone at that school talks about their ski trips and their new cars, and I'm always the girl whose tuition check bounces. I hate it, Lyra. I hate feeling like we're trash."

I reached across the scarred table and covered her small, cold hands with my own rough, soap-burned ones.

"We are not trash, Katherine," I said, each word a heavy stone of absolute certainty. "We are survivors. And don't you ever let those people make you feel small for being alive."

She didn't pull her hands away this time. She just nodded silently, the tears spilling over her lashes and hitting the dark wool of her school blazer.

I stood up and walked into the small bathroom, locking the door behind me. I pulled the plastic pregnancy test out of my robe pocket and looked at those two bold, pink lines one last time under the flickering fluorescent bulb.

The immediate battle was for Katherine’s school, but the real war was just beginning. In a few months, my body wouldn't be able to hide the truth anymore.

The diner wouldn't want a waitress who couldn't lift the heavy trays, and the neighborhood would start talking. I had to find a way out of this part of town before the twins arrived. I had to disappear completely into the anonymous part of Chicago where Gabriel Kane’s empire could never touch us.

I dropped the test into the very bottom of the trash can, burying it deep beneath the empty soap wrappers and paper towels.

"Just six months," I whispered to my reflection in the stained glass of the medicine cabinet. "Just give me six months to get her through this year, and then we're going dark."

I walked back out, grabbed my stained apron from the kitchen counter, and headed back out into the freezing snow for the midnight shift. The world wasn't going to stop turning just because my heart had broken, and those tables weren't going to wipe themselves.

.....

The following day, I was at Katherine's school, St Jude's Academy.

I kept my hands buried deep inside my pockets, my fingers tightly anchoring the white envelope containing our life savings.

"Sit tight, Lyra," I muttered to myself. My stomach was already churning. I couldn't afford a single display of weakness today.

Dean Vance’s private office was precisely what I expected. A dark mahogany bookshelves stretching to the ceiling, leather chairs that didn't squeak, and a large window overlooking the inner courtyard where girls in pristine plaid skirts were laughing in small groups.

"A partial payment, Miss Olson?" The dean asked. She hadn't touched the envelope I’d placed before her.

"One thousand dollars," I said, holding her formidable gaze with every ounce of defiance I had left. "It is exactly half. I will sign a binding promissory note for the remaining balance, split across the next four weeks. I am picking up double shifts at the diner, and my employer will verify the income."

Dean Vance slowly removed her glasses, letting them dangle from a thin silver chain against her blouse. "St. Jude’s is not an installment-plan institution, Miss Olson. We are a private preparatory academy with a rigorous operational budget. Katherine’s account is already thirty days delinquent. If we grant an exception for every family facing... domestic friction, our standards would collapse within a semester."

"It's not domestic friction," I said, my voice dropping into a dangerous, low register that made her eyebrows twitch upward.

"It’s a temporary gap. My sister is an honor-roll student. She is the top sprinter on your track team. She belongs in this building, Dean Vance. Do not pull her out of her midterms because the banking system doesn't move as fast as your administration."

The older woman looked at me for a long, heavy moment. She was looking for the crack, the tear, the tremor, the plea for charity. But she didn't find one. The humiliation I had suffered at the Kane Plaza twenty-four hours ago had burned away whatever softness remained inside me. I was no longer begging. I was negotiating a terms sheet.

"Four weeks," Dean Vance finally murmured, sliding the envelope into her top desk drawer "If the remaining one thousand dollars is not settled in full by the fifteenth of next month, Katherine will be dropped from our roster permanently. No midterms recorded, no transfer credits issued. Am I entirely clear?"

"Perfectly," I said, standing up before my knees could betray me. "Good morning, Dean."

I walked out of the academy into the crisp morning light, the cold wind hitting my face like a splash of clean water.