Karyn took the bus.

She would have walked through fire before accepting a ride from David's little reclamation project, so she stood at the corner in the cold and waited, her backpack cutting into her shoulders, watching the Ford sedan reverse out of the driveway with Jadyn in the passenger seat looking like he'd already won something.

Crestview Prep swallowed her thirty minutes later. The main hallway was already at a standstill.

She knew before she even reached the administrative office. The way the crowd had stopped moving. The way the whispers traveled like sparks.

The heavy glass door swung open and Jadyn walked out.

He'd done something to the uniform—loosened the tie, left the top button undone, made it look effortless in a way that took actual effort. Three girls walking past him collided with each other. One dropped her textbook. He crouched, picked it up, handed it back with a smile so warm it was practically a medical event.

Karyn watched from the shadow of the stairwell, arms crossed, jaw tight.

He knew she was there. She could tell by the slight, deliberate way he waited one extra beat before looking up—the way a chess player waits for their opponent to commit before moving.

When he finally found her in the crowd, he raised his printed schedule and gave it a slow, mocking wave.

She turned and walked up the stairs.

By lunch, Korey had found him.

Karyn spotted her brother from across the quad, practically levitating with excitement, waving his thin arm at Jadyn in the center of a circle of expensive sneakers and casual cruelty. The rich kids were laughing at something Jadyn had said, and then Korey called out and the laughter stopped and the looks began—that cold, microscopic inspection that children of money gave to things they considered beneath notice.

Jadyn didn't hesitate. He pushed through the crowd and threw an arm around Korey's shoulders.

"This is my little brother," he announced. Like it was already decided. Like Korey already belonged to him.

The crowd melted. Girls cooed. Korey's face lit up like sunrise.

Something cracked open in Karyn's chest—not warmth. Something closer to rage dressed up as grief.

She crossed the quad in thirty seconds and grabbed Korey's wrist.

"Medication," she said flatly, not looking at Jadyn.

Jadyn looked down at Korey with enormous, manufactured concern. "Take care of yourself, buddy."

In the empty science corridor, Karyn turned Korey around. "Stay away from him."

"You're just mean!" Korey yanked his wrist back, his voice cracking. "He actually likes me. You're jealous."

He ran. His sneakers squeaked against the linoleum and the sound of it—small, retreating, trusting all the wrong things—burned the back of Karyn's throat.

"Having trouble keeping your family in line?"

The voice came from the chemistry lab doorway. Jadyn was leaning against the lockers at the end of the hall, hands in his pockets, watching her with the quiet, amused satisfaction of a man who has just confirmed a theory.

He'd followed them. He'd stood there and watched her brother reject her and called it entertainment.

Karyn looked at him for one long, steady moment. Then she turned and walked away.

She didn't let herself run. But it was close.

The black Audi was always too clean.

It waited two blocks from school every afternoon, tucked under a different tree each day—Hank's attempt at subtlety. Karyn adjusted her baseball cap, kept her eyes down, and walked quickly, as if the faster she moved, the less real all of it was.

Hank held the door. The cabin sealed around her like a vault: cedar and cool leather and the absolute silence of money insulating itself from the world.

Her phone vibrated before she'd even caught her breath.

Restricted number.

She pressed it to her ear and rearranged her voice. Softened it. Made it compliant.

"Hello?"

"How was school today." Not a question. Eduardo never asked questions—he issued statements and waited to see what you did with them.

"Fine." She watched the street slide past the tinted window. "Just normal classes."

She didn't mention the new foster brother. Didn't mention Jadyn moving into her house, sitting at her table, threading himself into her family like wire through bone. Lying to Eduardo was Russian roulette, but the alternative—the questions, the cold calculation behind his eyes when he decided something was a problem he needed to solve—was worse.

"I'll be back in the country next week," Eduardo said. "Be ready."

The line went dead.

Karyn sat in the silence of his car for the remaining blocks, her knuckles white against her thigh. She thanked Hank and stepped out a street away from home, the way she always did, and walked the rest of the way back into her other life.

The front door was cracked open.

Through the gap: David laughing. Jadyn's voice, low and respectful, curling around the older man's ego like smoke. Sharon's pleased hum from the kitchen.

Karyn stood on the dark porch and didn't go in.

For a moment—just one—she let herself feel it. The suffocation of it. The complete absence of anywhere safe to stand.

Then she put her key in the lock and walked through the door.