The alarm on Lilith’s phone went off at 5 AM.
She wasn’t asleep. Had been lying on the lumpy mattress in the darkness for hours, staring at nothing, her mind running through numbers that didn’t add up.
Four thousand.
That was the number that mattered now. Four thousand dollars a month for her mother’s care. Her oga wages ca to approximately six hundred a month if she worked every available shift. Which ant she was short by thirty-seven hundred dollars.
Every. Single. Month.
She’d done the math a dozen tis since leaving Garrett’s office yesterday. Had approached it from different angles, looking for a solution that didn’t exist. Calculated what would happen if she picked up extra shifts, there weren’t enough hours in a week to cover it. Thought about asking for a promotion to a higher-paying position but Alpha Garrett had made clear that wasn’t happening.
She was trapped in a box with no exit.
Lilith silenced the alarm and forced herself to sit up.
The oga apartnt was cold. The heating system in the building was barely functional, and the pack didn’t consider oga comfort a priority. She pulled on the clothes she’d worn yesterday....black pants, grey shirt, both of which slled faintly of sweat and garbage from her last shift before the Blackwood contract.
Three months. Felt like a lifeti.
She didn’t look at herself in the small mirror as she passed it. Didn’t need to see whatever was written on her face this morning. Instead, she grabbed her work badge, the cheap plastic ID that marked her as oga, as lesser, as property of Shadowre pack, and headed for the door.
The walk to the waste managent facility took twenty minutes.
The sun wasn’t up yet. The pack territory was still grey and cold, the streets mostly empty except for other ogas heading to their various assignnts. Lilith kept her eyes forward, didn’t acknowledge anyone, didn’t invite conversation.
The facility itself was a sprawling operation on the eastern edge of pack land....collection trucks, sorting stations, industrial-sized dumpsters, the sll of decay and decomposition that never quite washed out of clothes.
It was 5:47 AM when she arrived.
Dora was already there.
The overseer stood near the main sorting station, clipboard in hand, assigning work to the ogas who’d arrived early. She was a woman in her fifties, with grey threading through her dark hair, a lean build, and the particular bearing of soone who’d been through the system and co out the other side hardened.
She looked up as Lilith approached.
For a mont, she just stared.
"Lilith," Dora said finally. Her voice carried across the noise of the facility, other ogas moving crates, the beep of trucks backing up, the general chaos of early morning waste managent. "Welco back."
"Thank you," Lilith said.
Dora studied her for a mont longer. Then: "You’re on sorting detail with the morning crew. Station three. Details are on the board."
Lilith nodded and moved toward station three without waiting to be dismissed.
The morning crew consisted of five ogas, two she didn’t recognize, one she vaguely rembered from before the Blackwood contract, and two others who glanced up as she approached.
One of them....a woman in her mid-twenties with kind eyes and dark hair pulled back in a braid...smiled at her.
"Lilith? I’m Emma. I don’t think we’ve t formally, but I rember you from the complex." She shifted over to make room. "How are you doing? Where have you been for the past one month?"
"Work assignnt," Lilith said, which wasn’t technically a lie. The Blackwood contract had been work, in its way. Just not the kind that showed up on pack records as employnt.
Emma didn’t push. "Okay. Well, welco back. If you need anything, let know."
There was genuine warmth in her voice. A lack of judgnt that made Lilith’s throat tighten unexpectedly. She nodded and focused on the work.
Station three was responsible for sorting recyclables from general waste. It was tedious, repetitive work that required focus but allowed your mind to wander. Lilith had done it before, the familiar rhythm ca back quickly. Sort, separate, move to the next piece of garbage.
An hour into the shift, a second woman approached. This one was harder-looking, late twenties, with cold eyes and a set to her jaw that suggested she’d learned not to trust anyone.
"You’re the Beta’s daughter," the woman said. Not a question.
"Yes."
"I’m Cole." The woman watched her work for a mont. "You know what everyone’s saying about you?"
"Probably several things," Lilith said, not looking up from the pile of refuse in front of her.
"They’re saying the Blackwoods wanted you specifically. That you did sothing to piss them off and they took paynt in blood." Cole’s voice was flat, observational. "That you ca back different."
Lilith sorted a plastic bottle into the recyclables bin. Didn’t respond.
"Just so you know," Cole continued, "different gets noticed. And noticed is dangerous for ogas."
She walked away without waiting for a response.
Emma, who’d been working nearby, caught Lilith’s eye. There was sympathy in her expression, the kind that said she understood what Cole had been trying to do. Not threatening exactly, but a reminder that visibility was a liability.
Lilith returned to her work.
The hours passed in a blur of repetitive motion. Sort. Separate. Move forward. The rhythm was almost ditative, except for the part where her brain kept calculating.
Six hundred a month.
Four thousand needed.
The gap was catastrophic.
By noon, her hands were raw. The work gloves helped, but the rough edges of the refuse cut through fabric. By early afternoon, she could feel blood seeping into the cloth.
She didn’t stop working.
At 3 PM, Dora appeared at station three.
"Lilith. Break. My office."
The other ogas glanced at Lilith as she pulled off her gloves and followed Dora toward the small office building attached to the facility. Cole watched with sothing like satisfaction. Emma looked concerned.
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