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My apartment is six blocks away, consisting of nothing but broken streetlights and the occasional car thumping bass loud enough to rattle my ribs. I’m calculating tips in my head, trying to figure out if I can squeeze in another shift on Saturday when I see him.

Mr. Halloway is standing by the front door of my building, jangling his keys.

My stomach drops. I knew this was coming, that I couldn’t dodge him forever. That four days late would turn to five, then six, then an eviction notice pinned to my door while I’m at work. I’ve been rehearsing what to say, the promises I’ll make, and the timeline I know I can’t keep.

“I’m sorry,” I say before he’s even turned around. The words tumble out, pathetic and rehearsed. “I know it’s late. I have most of it. I just need until…”

He blinks at me. “Late?”

“Rent.” The word tastes like ash. “I know. I’m sorry. I can get you the rest by…”

“Fawn.” He holds up a hand, and there’s a weird look on his face. He’s not angry, but confused. “Your rent’s paid. Six months in advance. It was paid in full this afternoon.”

My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

The world tilts sideways, as the cracked sidewalk rushes up to meet me. I grab the railing, fingers white-knuckled, while my breath comes in short gasps that don’t feel like breathing at all.

“Cashier’s check,” he continues. “There was no note. Only your name and unit number.”

“Wait…what?” That’s the only thing I can manage at the moment. “Who?” The word is barely a whisper.

Mr. Halloway shakes his head. “No idea. But whoever it was, they covered you through August.”

He says something else…congratulations, maybe, or something about being lucky, but the blood rushing in my ears drowns it all out. Six months. Someone paid six months of rent, and I can’t think of a single person who would do that.

My mother hasn’t spoken to me in two years, not since I refused to move back home and let her new husband “help me get back on my feet.” Last I heard, my father is somewhere in Florida, working construction when he’s sober enough to hold a hammer. I have no friends with money, no secret benefactors, no fairy godmothers waiting in the wings to save me from my own shitty choices.

My legs carry me up the stairs. My hands unlock the door. I stand in my dark apartment, staring at the water stain on the ceiling, and try to breathe.

The apartment is exactly as it was when I left this morning. Small. Cramped. No Bailey in sight, which is nothing new. There are two small bedrooms, a couch, and a hot plate that serves as a stove. The window doesn’t quite close all the way, letting in the winter chill and the summer humidity. It’s not much, but it’s home, and the cheapest thing I could afford for the two of us.

Now someone else has bought it. Bought me and six months of my life, paid in full, and I don’t know the price tag.

The Winter brothers’ faces surface in the dark behind my eyelids. Those flat, predatory stares. The way they are always watching. The way Ryker’s eyes tracked me tonight, just like that night, cataloging, claiming.

No.

They couldn’t have.

Could they?

They don’t even know where I live. Much less what I owe and how desperate I’ve become. I’m just a server in a cheap diner, a body in a uniform, a nothing in a city full of nothings they’ve already consumed.

But the thought won’t leave. It sits heavy in my gut and stays there, warm and terrifying, while I sit on the edge of my mattress and wait for morning.

I don’t sleep.

I can’t.

Every creak of the building, every car passing on the street below, every shadow shifting across the water stain…I flinch at all of it, waiting for a knock, a call demanding what I know is coming.

Because nothing is free. Six months of rent doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. Someone paid, and someone will want to collect. Not wanting to admit what I know deep down.

And when they do, I’ll have to decide what I’m willing to trade once more to keep a roof over my sister’s and my head, and a few more months of this half life I’ve been clinging to.

The clock on my phone ticks from 3:47 to 3:48, the numbers glowing in the dark, counting down to something I can’t see coming. I pull my knees to my chest, wrap my arms around them, and wait for the sun to rise on a world that suddenly feels much smaller, much darker, and much more owned than it did yesterday.

Morning will bring answers. Or it won’t. Either way, I know with a certainty that settles in my bones like winter that nothing about my life will ever be the same.