As if it had been a choice.
"Your status in the pack," Garrett continued, and his voice shifted back to the cold, clinical tone of an alpha dispensing orders, "will remain oga. I cannot take the risk of elevating you, Lilith. If the Blackwoods find out that you’ve been restored to a higher rank, they may interpret it as disrespect. As a slight against their authority."
He paused, letting that land.
"They may decide that your punishnt wasn’t sufficient. That our pack deserves a stronger lesson." He looked at the three elders. They nodded in agreent. No sympathy. No doubt. Just the cold calculation of survival.
"You and your mother will remain oga," Garrett said flatly. "You will remain in oga housing. You will work oga assignnts. You will accept oga status and all that it entails. This is not negotiable."
Lilith felt sothing inside her go very still.
She’d known this was coming. Had understood on so level that returning to Shadowre ant returning to nothing. That being released by the Blackwoods didn’t an redemption, it ant she was still the traitor’s daughter. Still marked. Still unwanted.
But hearing it stated so plainly, so coldly, so absolutely final was different from suspecting it.
"However," Garrett said, and there was sothing in his voice that suggested what ca next was even worse, "there is another matter we need to discuss."
He set the letter down and folded his hands on the desk.
"During your ti at the Blackwood estate, they covered all of your mother’s dical expenses. All hospital bills. All treatnts. Everything." He paused. "That was part of the agreent. A gesture of goodwill from Alpha Nicholas to ensure your cooperation."
Lilith’s stomach dropped.
"Now that the agreent has ended," Garrett continued, "we have no guarantee that they will continue to cover those expenses. In fact, Alpha Nicholas’s letter makes no ntion of ongoing financial support. Which suggests...."
"The bills stop," Lilith said. Her voice was rough from disuse. From crying. From not speaking for hours.
"Yes," Garrett confird. "The bills stop. As of the end of this month, your mother’s dical care will beco your responsibility again."
The elders watched her. No expression. No judgnt visible. They simply observed, like she was an interesting specin under glass.
"The hospital has inford that your mother’s current treatnt plan costs approximately four thousand dollars per month," Garrett said. He stated it like a fact. Like a number that didn’t represent her mother’s survival. "That includes her room, her care, her dications, the monitoring equipnt. Everything required to keep her alive."
Four thousand dollars.
Lilith’s oga wages barely covered six hundred. She’d been working garbage duty for two months and had barely been able to afford rent. Four thousand dollars might as well be a million.
"Starting next month," Garrett continued, "you will need to find a way to cover those costs. You can request additional work assignnts. You can petition for higher-paying positions if you believe you’re qualified. The pack is willing to provide opportunities for you to earn."
He was being generous. She understood that. He was offering her a chance to work her way out of the debt instead of simply turning off her mother’s life support and letting her die.
But it was still a trap. Still a cage. Still a way of ensuring that she would never have any freedom, any peace, any life outside of desperate scrambling to keep her mother alive.
"Do you understand what I’m telling you?" Garrett asked.
Lilith nodded.
"I need to hear you say it," he said. Still cold. Still clinical. Still the voice of an alpha speaking to an oga.
"I understand," Lilith said quietly. "The bills are my responsibility starting next month. I need to figure out how to pay for my mother’s care."
"Good," Garrett said. He stood from his chair, indicating that the eting was over. "I suggest you begin exploring your options imdiately. The pack will cooperate with any reasonable request for additional work. But I cannot protect you if you fall behind on paynts. The hospital has its own policies about what happens when bills go unpaid."
Transfer to county care.
Where people went to die slowly.
Lilith understood perfectly.
"You’re dismissed," Garrett said.
She turned toward the door.
"Lilith," he called out. She paused at the threshold without turning back. "Welco ho."
The words were ant to sound kind. They landed like a condemnation.
She left without responding.
The hallway outside Garrett’s office was empty.
Lilith walked through it without seeing it, her mind already calculating. Four thousand a month. Her oga wages. The cost of rent. The cost of food. The cost of surviving.
She’d done the math three months ago when she’d first been demoted. Had understood then that there was no path forward that didn’t involve her mother dying. The only variable had been whether it would be quick or slow.
Now she understood that the Blackwoods had given her a reprieve. A temporary one. A month of breathing room before the bills ca due again and the trap snapped shut permanently.
Unless sothing changed.
Unless she found a way to earn more money. Unless she was elevated out of oga status, though Garrett had made it clear that wasn’t happening. Unless sothing fundantally shifted in her circumstances.
She was back where she’d started.
Desperate. Broken. Alone.
Except she wasn’t quite the sa girl who’d left Shadowre three weeks ago. That girl had been naive about what the world could do to her. That girl had believed that if she was willing to sacrifice enough, sothing would be saved.
This girl....the one walking through the pack corridors with her head held high despite the weight crushing down on her, understood that sacrifice ant nothing. That the world took what it wanted and offered nothing in return. That survival was a luxury most people couldn’t afford.
This girl was dangerous because she had nothing left to lose.
Lilith pushed open the door to the stairwell and started climbing. Not toward the elevator. Not toward the hospital where her mother lay unconscious. But toward the oga housing complex on the edge of pack territory.
She needed to think.
She needed to plan.
She needed to figure out how to keep her mother alive when the world was actively working to let her die.
And as she walked, she felt sothing settle inside her chest. A coldness. A clarity. A determination that went beyond survival.
She would figure this out.
She would find a way.
And if she couldn’t, if the math truly had no solution, then she would make the people responsible for this understand exactly what they’d taken from her.
The thought should have frightened her.
Instead, it felt like the first true thing she’d felt since arriving back in Shadowre.
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