She considers that for a long time, long enough that I start to wonder if I should have waited to bring it up.
“Vi, Mom is the reason I stopped talking to you,” she says finally. “Back when your father’s stuff went public. She told me to stay away from you and your family. She said the Renners, both you and your dad, were poison. That getting involved would drag us down.”
“And you listened to her.”
She looks away, avoiding my gaze. “I was scared, Vi. She was all I had. So yeah. I listened.” She picks at the blanket. “Coming here was the first time I ever told her no.”
“Does she know where you are?”
“I left a note. Didn’t say where. Just that I was going and she should not come looking.”
“She came looking anyway.”
“That’s my mom.” Something crosses her face. Not quite a smile but more like the recognition of a pattern of family shit that always repeats. “She’ll be okay. She’s tough.”
“Mara…” I start to say.
“Listen. I’m not going back. I made my choice. Not that I could, anyway. You heard the guys.”
She chose me over her mother.
Then she turns, pulling one leg onto the bed so she’s facing me, the blanket still around her shoulders. I see the surface conversation ending and the real one beginning.
“Tell me… how you ended up with these guys,” she says.
I laugh lightly. I was waiting for this. I knew it would be top of her list.
“It’s an arrangement,” I say. “Only high-level Rotters can do it, at least as far as I know. They record it in some kind of weird ledger. I don’t know why they make it so formal, but it means I belong to them. Exclusively. No one else can claim me, reassign me, trade me. I’m protected.”
“Protected,” Mara repeats. Flat.
“Yeah. That’s a thing around here. You don’t want to be dangling out there, alone.”
“So you’re protected by three guys. Armen, Rogue, and who’s the serious one?”
“Sting. That would be Sting. And yes.”
“The ones who just told me I’m not allowed to leave.”
“Yes, Mara.”
“And this is permanent?” she says skeptically.
I shrug. “Yeah.”
“What does that actually mean? Day to day. What does your life look like?”
I answer slowly, not because I’m hiding things, not exactly, but because the truth is complicated and I’m not sure she’s going to understand.
I tell her about the work shifts. The sorting. The routine that fills the hours and gives the days a shape. I tell her about the hierarchy, the things she saw on the walk in, the deference, the body language. I tell her that being with Armen, Sting, and Rogue puts me at the top of the bottom. Still a Runt. Still the lowest tier. But untouchable within it.
“And them,” Mara says. “The three of them. What are they to you?”
The question is careful. Deliberately open. She’s giving me room to answer however I want. She’s going to judge me. I wish I didn’t care.
“It’s… complicated.”
She rolls her eyes. “Lame answer.”
