The phone on the counter buzzed again and again. Alex's fingers hovered over it, then snatched it up, then dropped it. Dawn's name filled the screen. Missed calls stacking like worry. She paced behind the counter, the pizzeria's oven heat doing little to warm the knot in her chest.
The manager stormed in as if the door were a battleground. "Tell your friend not to bother coming here because she's fired!" he barked, then stomped away.
Alex's smile fell apart into something raw and small. Confusion bunched her brows; then worry folded itself into the lines around her mouth. Dawn wasn't just late, she'd vanished from every plan Alex had for the afternoon. Was she sick? Had something happened?
* * * * * *
Dawn and Daphne raced through the city like two ships in a storm. Dawn's breath ragged in the cold, Daphne's heels clicking like a metronome of panic. They asked everyone they could: cab drivers, delivery boys, the security guard outside a shuttered store. Each "no" was a small blade.
Then Daphne's voice broke, "Adam!" and she closed the distance in two hasty steps, wrapping him in an embrace that looked like desperation disguised as relief. Tears cut tracks down her face. Dawn came up behind them and lay a steadying hand on Daphne's back, the touch saying what words couldn't.
Back inside the house, Daphne's fear turned rough and loud. "What were you planning on doing? Leaving me alone in this world?" Her voice cracked halfway through the sentence, grief and fury braided together.
Adam was hollowed out, eyes distant. He sat like someone who'd been waiting inside a locked room for too long. Dawn could see it: the man's spirit wasn't where his body sat. The temptation to give up, an ugly, whispering tide, had been close enough to touch.
"Can I have a word with him?" Dawn asked, quieting her own racing heart.
"Please. Be my guest," Daphne snapped, and stalked off to her room.
Dawn sat beside Adam. She reached, then pulled her hand back, unsure how to reach a man whose hands were full of someone else's memory.
"Hi," she tried, the greeting thin and human.
Silence answered.
She tried again, softer: "This isn't your fault. You're doing your best."
"My best isn't enough." He rose, retreating into his room, leaving Dawn with the weight of questions that didn't have permission to be asked yet.
She checked her phone. Alex had been calling all afternoon. Dawn slipped out the door without a coat, breath clouding in the winter air as she ran.
* * * * * *
The bell over the pizzeria door jingled and Dawn shoved it open, lungs burning.
"My uniform...where is it?" she demanded, voice rough.
Alex didn't have to say the words. She could see it in the manager's face. Dawn had been fired.
It would have been a blow once. But tonight felt different. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or the way scaled-up wealth felt like borrowed air. She gave Alex a small smile, it was half brave, half brittle.
"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."
Alex worried the corner of the apron between her fingers. "Are you sure?"
Dawn blinked and let the worry in. "I promise. I'm fine." She hugged Alex, a brief, honest hold, and stepped back out into the cold.
* * * * * *
Back at the apartment, groceries still on the counter, a knock came sharp, official. Dawn's stomach flipped.
Two strangers stood at the door: polite, professional, names clipped into their introductions. Child Protective Services.
"We received a call concerning the welfare of the children in this household," the woman said, voice even but not unkind.
Dawn felt her throat go dry. Peige. The thought was a hot coal in her mouth.
"The kids are safe," Dawn said, shoulders straightening. "I'm their guardian."
"Do you have documentation?" the man asked.
She pictured the guardianship papers, folded in a drawer at the landlord's office. She'd planned to fetch them, but life had exploded, and survival had louder priorities.
"They're with me," she lied—truth stretched thin at the edges. "Just… not here."
The woman's face softened for a moment, then professionalism returned. "Without documentation we can't verify guardianship. We need that paperwork as soon as possible."
"And employment?" the man added bluntly. "How are you supporting the children?"
Dawn's mouth went dry. The pizza job was gone, and the Manchester arrangement—what could she tell them about that? Truth would invite more questions than answers.
"Miss Collins, this isn't a removal order yet," the woman said, voice steady. "But unless we receive proof of guardianship and stable income within ten days, we'll have to initiate foster placement."
Ten days. The words struck like a hammer.
From the staircase, Amy's small face appeared, wide and frightened. "Dawn… are they taking us away?"
Dawn dropped to her knees and brushed a crumb of hair from Amy's forehead. "Not if I can help it. I promise."
But inside, fear had teeth.
* * * * * *
At the hospital, Daphne and Adam sat vigil by Ava's bed. Daphne's hand was a lifeline in Adam's grasp.
"Everything's going to be okay," she whispered, though even her whisper shook. "She'd want you to live, to love."
Adam's jaw clenched so hard it ached. "Move on? There's no life without Ava." The words scattered between them like broken glass.
Dawn, elsewhere in the house, made another promise. This one to Amy that they'd shop for New Year's together, that nothing and no one would take them apart. The vows were small and stubborn, the way light is stubborn in a room that's been dark for too long.
* * * * * *
Rage propelled Dawn to Mr. Harrow's door. No answer. She huffed and kept going, Peige, next. Her fist hit the door hard enough that the sound echoed.
Peige opened it with a measured, smug smile and a wineglass still in her hand. "To what do I owe this visit?"
Dawn looked at her and the words spilled out: anger, fear, exhaustion braided into a single rope of sound. "You called CPS. You've been scheming. I will not be played."
Peige's smile never left her lips. "Pipe down, Dawn. You're beginning to sound like your mother. I'm not her."
A flare of fury and grief rose in Dawn's throat. "If you were my mother, I'd have ended things long ago," she spat. "I despise you. When your downfall comes, I'll be dancing."
Dawn stalked away, breath ragged in the cold night air. She felt small and dangerous at once—the kind of combination that can change everything or break it.
She walked home slower this time, listening to the city breathe around her. Ten days was a deadline. The fight had just begun.