Finally, they got home. Benson helped Audrey with her bags, the house hadn't changed.
Paint peeled near the frame. The bell rang too loud.
Nancy opened the door and stopped.
Behind her, the woman Audrey had learned to call mother stared as if calculating loss.
"You're here," Nancy said.
"Yes."
No hug. No step aside.
"Why didn't you stay in school?" her stepmother asked.
"Can I come in first?"
They moved aside without touching her bags.
Inside, the air smelled stale. Old cleaner. Something damp underneath.
Audrey sat in the chair by the window.
"Don't sit there," her stepmother snapped. "We just cleaned it."
Audrey stood immediately.
"I finished high school," she said. "I came back to prepare for college."
Nancy folded her arms. "And your father?"
Silence spread through the room.
"We weren't expecting you," her stepmother said. "You'll sleep in the basement."
Nancy opened the door herself.
The stairs descended into cool air. Dust. Rot. A single bulb hanging bare.
Audrey carried her suitcase down.
The door closed behind her.
The lock clicked.
She stood there, listening to the house settle above her.
Then, upstairs, a drawer slid open.
Paper rustled.
Audrey placed her hand flat against the basement wall and waited. The basement door didn't just close; it groaned on its hinges before the latch clicked home like a hammer cocking.
Audrey stood on the top step. The air rising from below tasted of wet earth and ancient, forgotten dust. It was three degrees colder than the hallway she'd just left.
She descended. The wood felt soft under her feet, spongy with rot. At the bottom, a single bulb hung from a frayed wire, casting a sickly yellow circle on the floor.
Her suitcase sat in the center of the room, looking small and battered against the vast, gray expanse of the concrete.
Where is Dad?
The question wasn't a thought; it was a physical ache in her throat.
She didn't unpack. She walked to the small sink in the corner. The faucet shrieked when she turned it. The water came out a rusty brown before clearing into a freezing stream that made her knuckles throb. She splashed her face, the cold shocking the heat of the city out of her skin.
Above her, the floorboards creaked. Heavy, deliberate steps.
Nancy.
Audrey dried her hands on her skirt. She looked at the walls—stained with salt blooms and streaks of black mold. She didn't cry. Crying was for people who had a floor to fall on that wasn't made of stone.
Morning arrived as a sliver of gray light through a window at street level, no wider than a mail slot. Audrey's back was a map of knots. The mattress was a thin wafer of foam that did nothing to soften the ribs of the concrete beneath.
She climbed the stairs silently. She'd learned the language of the house overnight—which boards screamed and which stayed quiet.
In the kitchen, the air was thick with the smell of boiled tea leaves and a sharp, medicinal spice. Mrs. Evelyn stood at the stove. Her spine, once a straight line of iron, was now a question mark.
"Auntie," Audrey whispered.
Mrs. Evelyn jumped, the wooden spoon clattering against the pot. She didn't look Audrey in the eye. She looked at the steam rising from the kettle.
"Where is my father?"
The spoon stopped moving. Mrs. Evelyn's hand trembled, a fine, rhythmic shake. "I don't know anything about that, my dear. Not a thing."
"Auntie, look at me."
"The tea is burning," the old woman muttered, turning back to the stove. Her shoulders were hunched, a physical shield against the question.
Audrey backed out of the kitchen. Her chest felt tight, like a band of wire was being twisted around her ribs.
Outside, the gatekeeper, Uncle Ben, was sweeping the driveway. The broom made a dry, rhythmic scritch-scritch sound against the pavement.
"Uncle Ben," Audrey said, stepping into the light. "My dad. Where did they take him?"
Ben didn't stop sweeping. He kept his head down, his eyes fixed on a pile of dead leaves. "I'm not allowed, ma. Orders. I'm not allowed to speak on it."
Allowed. The word was a cage.
Audrey turned and saw Nancy leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed. Her eyes were hard, flat discs.
"You're wasting your breath," Nancy said. "The help knows better than to gossip with a charity case."
"He's my father, Nancy. This is his house."
"Is it?" Nancy walked toward her, her heels clicking—not with the power of the woman at the airport, but with a petty, sharp arrogance. "Check the deed, Audrey. Or better yet, check the basement. That's your world now. Get used to the dark."
The door slammed.
Audrey's hands curled into fists until her short nails bit into her palms. She didn't go back inside. She walked.
The city was a blur of noise. She went from one glass tower to the next, her resume—creased and smelling of basement damp—clutched in her hand.
"We need ten years' experience." "The position was filled an hour ago." "Try the agency down the street."
By 4:00 PM, her heels were raw, the skin worn down to the red. She stepped out of a lobby, the wind whipping a stray hair across her mouth. She tasted salt and exhaust.
She turned the corner, head down, and hit a solid wall of human.
"For the love of—"
The man stopped.
Austin Rutherford looked down at her. He was wearing a different suit—midnight blue, the fabric so smooth it looked like liquid. He smelled of expensive soap and something sharp, like crushed juniper.
"You," he said. The word was a sigh of genuine irritation. "Is this a strategy? Following me until I give you a job or a check?"
Audrey didn't back up. She felt the sting of her blistered heels and the weight of the silence in her father's house.
"Do you think the world revolves around your schedule?" she snapped. Her voice was huskier than usual, worn thin by the day. "I'm looking for a job. This is a sidewalk. People walk on it."
Austin's eyes flicked down to her resume, then to her shoes. One of the heels was slightly crooked. A flash of something—pity, maybe, or just observation—crossed his face before it was replaced by a cold, professional mask.
"This city eats people who 'walk,'" he said. His phone buzzed in his hand, a frantic, persistent vibration. "If you want to survive, you learn to run. Or you stay out of the way of those who do."
He stepped around her without waiting for a reply.
Audrey watched him go. He moved through the crowd like a shark through water—the sea just parted for him.
She looked down at her resume. There was a thumbprint of grime on the corner.
"I'm not staying out of the way," she whispered to the empty air.
The basement felt smaller that night.
Audrey reached for her bag, the one she'd tucked under the small wooden table.
It was gone.
She heard a floorboard groan directly above her head. She ran up the stairs, the wood groaning under her weight.
In the living room, Nancy was on her knees. Audrey's suitcase was flipped open. Her small roll of cash—the survival money she'd saved for three years—was clutched in Nancy's hand.
"Put it back," Audrey said. Her voice was a low, vibrating growl.
Nancy didn't even look guilty. She looked bored. "Consider it rent. Lilian says you're a drain on the pantry."
"That's my money. Give it to me." Audrey lunged.
She didn't see the hand coming.
The slap was a crack of thunder in the quiet room. Audrey's head snapped to the left. The world blurred. Her cheek didn't just hurt; it burned with a white-hot, pulsing heat that made her vision swim.
Lilian stood there, her hand still raised, her face a mask of cold fury.
"How dare you touch her?" Lilian hissed. "You come into this house, uninvited, smelling of the gutter, and you accuse my daughter of stealing?"
Audrey stood still. Her ear was ringing, a high, thin whistle. She tasted blood where her tooth had nipped her inner lip.
She didn't argue. She didn't scream.
She looked at Nancy, who was smiling—a small, sharp curve of the lips.
Audrey reached down, picked up the three bills Nancy had dropped, and walked back to the basement door.
Once inside, she didn't turn on the light. She knelt in the dark and felt the floorboards until she found the one that wobbled. She pried it up with her fingernails.
She slid the remaining cash into the hollow space.
Above her, the house went quiet. Then, the sound of the basement door locking from the outside.
Click.
Audrey pressed her hand flat against the cold concrete floor.
"Run," she whispered, remembering Austin's voice. "I'm going to run right over you."