Chapter 1: Drowning in Debt

The eviction notice felt like sandpaper between my fingers. Red letters screamed at me from the cheap paper: FINAL WARNING - PAYMENT DUE IMMEDIATELY - $4,000.

I sat on the edge of my mattress....the only piece of furniture left in my studio apartment.....and tried to remember when everything went to shit.

No. That was a lie. I knew exactly when.

Six months ago. The night they brought what was left of my father home in a body bag.

Beta Marcus Thorne of Shadowmere Pack. Strong, respected, loved by everyone who knew him. Gone in a single night. A rogue attack, they said. Brutal. Vicious. The kind of violence that left nothing but blood and questions no one wanted to answer.

My phone buzzed for the fifteenth time that morning. I didn't need to look to know it was another bill collector. They called in shifts now.....hospital, utilities, credit cards I'd maxed out trying to keep Mom alive and a roof over my head. Each call was a reminder that I was failing. Drowning. Suffocating under the weight of debts I could never pay.

I counted the money in my wallet for the third time that hour. Forty-seven dollars. That was it. That was all I had left in the world.

The hospital wanted twelve thousand for Mom's care. The landlord wanted four thousand for back rent. The utility company wanted eight hundred before they shut everything off.

Fifteen thousand, eight hundred dollars total.

I had forty-seven.

The math didn't work. It never worked. No matter how many times I counted, no matter how many miracles I prayed for, the numbers didn't change.

My stomach growled, sharp and insistent. When was the last time I'd eaten? Yesterday? The day before? Food was a luxury I couldn't afford anymore. Every dollar went to trying to keep Mom alive, trying to keep this shitty apartment, trying to survive one more day.

I stood on shaking legs and walked to the bathroom. The mirror showed me exactly what I'd become: too thin, cheekbones too sharp, dark circles under my eyes that no amount of sleep could fix. My hair hung limp and dull past my shoulders. My skin was pale, almost gray.

I looked like I was dying.

Maybe I was.

"I'm sorry, Dad," I whispered to my reflection, my voice cracking. "I'm so fucking sorry. I'm failing her. I'm failing both of you."

My father had been everything to me. The only one who never made me feel broken for being wolfless. The only one who looked at me like I mattered, like I was worth something even without a wolf.

Everyone else saw what I couldn't do. What I couldn't be.

But Dad? He saw me.

And now he was gone.

The funeral flashed through my mind.....the closed casket because there wasn't enough left of him to show. Mom standing beside me, her face blank, her body swaying like she might collapse. The pack offering their condolences with pitying eyes that said what they didn't dare speak aloud: At least he had a good run. At least he died protecting the pack. At least he died with honor.

As if honor meant anything when you were dead.

As if glory filled the hole in your chest where your heart used to be.

Mom hadn't spoken a word at the funeral. Hadn't cried, hadn't screamed, hadn't done anything but stand there like a ghost. I should have known then. Should have seen the warning signs.

But I was drowning in my own grief, trying to hold myself together, trying to be strong enough for both of us.

I failed at that too.

Three months after Dad died, I came home to find Mom unconscious on the kitchen floor, an empty bottle of wolfsbane beside her.

Wolfsbane.....the poison that could kill a wolf in minutes, make them hallucinate, make them forget everything including how to breathe. Mom had been drinking it for weeks, I learned later. Mixing it with alcohol, trying to numb the pain of losing her mate.

I called 911. Rode with her in the ambulance. Watched the doctors pump her stomach, hook her up to machines, tell me with sympathetic eyes that she might never wake up.

"The damage to her system is extensive," the doctor had said. "The wolfsbane, combined with the alcohol and her mate bond breaking... Ms. Thorne, you need to prepare yourself. Even if she wakes up, she may never be the same."

That was three months ago.

She still hadn't woken up.

My phone buzzed again. I grabbed it this time, saw the name on the screen: St. Mercy's Hospital.

My hand shook as I answered. "Hello?"

"Ms. Thorne, this is Carol from the billing department." The voice was professional, detached, like she made these calls a hundred times a day. She probably did. "I'm calling regarding your mother's outstanding balance of twelve thousand, three hundred and forty-seven dollars....."

"I know how much I owe," I interrupted, my voice sharper than I intended.

"Yes, well, I'm afraid we need to discuss payment options. It's been three months since the last payment, and hospital policy...."

"I don't have it." The words tasted like ash. "I don't have any of it. I'm trying, but I lost my job last week and...."

"I understand this is difficult," Carol said, not understanding anything. "But without payment, we'll be forced to transfer your mother to county care at the end of the week."

County care. A sterile white building on the edge of the city where they warehoused the dying. Where patients lay in rows, forgotten, waiting for death because no one could afford to keep them anywhere better. Where the nurses were overworked and underpaid, where the machines were old and the medicine was cheap, where people went to die slowly and alone.

"Please," I heard myself beg, hating the weakness in my voice. "Please, just give me one more week. I'll find the money somehow. Just one more week."

Silence on the other end. Then: "I can give you until Friday. After that, the decision is out of my hands."

"Thank you. Thank you so much....."

She hung up.

Friday. Three days. I had three days to find twelve thousand dollars or Mom would be sent to county care to die.

I sank back down onto my mattress, my whole body shaking. Three days. Twelve thousand dollars. It was impossible. Even if I got a job today.....which I wouldn't, because no one wanted to hire a wolfless.....I couldn't make that much money in three days.

There was no way out. No miracle coming. No salvation.

I was going to lose her.

Just like I lost Dad.

And there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.

I lay back on the mattress, staring at the water-stained ceiling, and let myself imagine what would happen next. Mom would be transferred. I'd be evicted. I'd end up on the streets, another homeless wolfless reject that no pack wanted, no one cared about.

Maybe that would be better. Maybe I deserved it.

Maybe I was always meant to end up with nothing.

The apartment was silent except for the drip of the leaky faucet I couldn't afford to fix and the distant sound of traffic outside. I closed my eyes and tried to remember what it felt like to be happy. To have a family. To have hope.

I couldn't remember anymore.

All I could feel was the crushing weight of failure pressing down on my chest, making it hard to breathe, making it hard to think about anything except the fact that I had forty-seven dollars and needed fifteen thousand and had absolutely no way to bridge that impossible gap.

My phone buzzed again. And again. And again.

I turned it off.

I couldn't handle any more calls today. Couldn't handle any more voices telling me politely, professionally, that I was failing, that I owed money I didn't have, that time was running out.

I already knew.