"What kind of decisions."
Dr. Reeves held her gaze. "The kind where they transfer her to county care to free up the hospital bed for soone who might actually recover."
County care. Where people went to die slowly and alone because no one could afford to keep them anywhere better.
"How long," Lilith asked. "How long before they make that decision."
"I don’t know. Weeks, maybe. A month or two if you’re lucky." Dr. Reeves closed the folder. "I’m sorry. I wish I had better news."
She picked up her dical bag and moved toward the door.
"Dr. Reeves," Lilith said.
The doctor paused.
"Do you believe my father was a traitor?"
Dr. Reeves looked at her for a long mont. Her expression gave nothing away.
"What I believe doesn’t matter," she said finally. "What matters is what the pack believes. What the Blackwoods believe." She paused. "And right now, they believe Victor betrayed everyone. Whether that’s true or not is irrelevant to your current situation."
"That’s not an answer."
"No," Dr. Reeves agreed. "It’s not."
Then she left.
Lilith stood in the kitchen of her childhood ho and tried to process what she’d just been told.
Her mother might never wake up.
And even if she did, she might wake up to find herself in county care because the pack had decided she wasn’t worth the resources anymore.
Weeks. Maybe a month or two.
That’s how long Lilith had to figure out how to save her.
How to pay dical bills she couldn’t afford.
How to survive as an oga with no status and no protection.
How to do the impossible with nothing.
She looked around the kitchen one last ti.
Then she went back upstairs to finish packing.
***
Friday morning ca too quickly.
Lilith stood on the front porch of the Beta residence with her two bags and watched a family she barely knew start moving their belongings inside.
The new Beta...a man nad Carson from one of the northern packs who’d recently transferred to Shadowre, nodded at her politely as he carried a box past.
His mate, a blonde woman with kind eyes, paused. "I’m sorry about your father," she said quietly.
Lilith nodded. Didn’t trust herself to speak.
"And I’m sorry about...." The woman gestured vaguely at the house. "All of this. It doesn’t seem fair."
"It’s not," Lilith said. Her voice ca out flat. "But thank you."
The woman looked like she wanted to say more, but her mate called for her and she went inside.
Lilith picked up her bags and walked away from the house where she’d grown up.
She didn’t look back.
The oga housing complex was on the eastern edge of pack territory.
As far from the main residential area as possible while still technically being pack land. A series of rundown buildings that looked like they’d been condemned everywhere except here, where ogas didn’t get a choice about living conditions.
Lilith found her unit on the second floor.
The housing coordinator had called it an apartnt.
He’d lied.
It was a room. Eight feet by ten feet. A single narrow window that overlooked the dumpsters behind the building. A mattress on the floor that looked like it had seen better days.....probably several decades ago. A lamp with a broken shade. No bathroom in the unit itself; she’d have to use the communal one down the hall.
This was what oga status looked like.
She set her bags down and looked around at what her life had beco.
From a spacious bedroom in the Beta residence to this.
From respected daughter to oga.
From everything to nothing.
She sat on the mattress, it was lumpy and slled faintly of mildew, and pulled out the one photo she’d managed to take from the house.
Her, her mother, and her father. Taken two years ago at the pack’s sumr festival. All three of them laughing, her father’s arm around both of them, pulling them close.
They looked so happy.
So whole.
So completely unaware that in two years everything would be destroyed.
She stared at the photo until her vision blurred.
Then she carefully wrapped it in a shirt and tucked it at the bottom of her bag where it would be safe.
A knock on her door made her look up.
She opened it to find a woman in her thirties standing there....thin, tired-looking, with the particular wariness of soone who’d been oga long enough to know how the system worked.
"You’re the new girl," the woman said. "The one who used to be Beta."
"Yes."
"I’m Dora." She held out a piece of paper. "This is your work assignnt. You start Monday."
Lilith took the paper and read it.
* PACK WORK ASSIGNNT Na: Lilith
* Status: Oga
* Assignnt: Sanitation Services - Waste Managent.
* Start Date: Monday, 6 AM
* Report to: Owen Briggs, Pack Services Coordinator
Waste managent.
Garbage duty.
"Everyone starts with sanitation," Dora said, reading her expression. "It’s how they test you. See if you break." She paused. "Most ogas do."
"I won’t," Lilith said quietly.
Dora studied her for a mont. "You know what they’re saying about your father, right? About what he did?"
"He didn’t do it."
"Doesn’t matter if he did or didn’t." Dora’s voice was matter-of-fact. Not cruel, just honest. "What matters is that’s what everyone believes. And that ans they’re going to make your life hell just for being his daughter."
"They’re already making my life hell."
"This is just the beginning." Dora turned to leave, then paused. "Advice from soone who’s been oga for five years? Keep your head down. Do your work. Don’t give them any excuses to make it worse." She looked back at Lilith. "And don’t expect anyone to help you. Down here, it’s every oga for themselves."
She left.
Lilith looked around her tiny room one more ti.
Then she lay down on the lumpy mattress and stared at the water-stained ceiling.
Two months ago, she’d been Beta Victor’s daughter.
Protected. Respected. Safe.
Now she was oga.
The lowest rank. The unwanted. The one everyone else looked down on.
And sowhere across town, her mother lay unconscious in a hospital bed, the mate bond broken, possibly never to wake again.
Lilith closed her eyes.
I’ll survive this, she told herself. Sohow. I’ll figure it out.
She had to.
Because the alternative was unthinkable.
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