POV: Liora Hayes
The clock on the grease-stained wall of the Golden Spoon diner was mocking me. 3:00 AM.
I had been on my feet for a whole eighteen hours. My ankles were swollen, my back felt like it was being poked with hot needles, and my uniform…a faded pink polyester mess…smelled like a mix of old fries and the cheap floral perfume I used to hide the scent of my poverty.
This was my third double-shift in a row. I had to do it. Every cent, every nickel left under a plate, every pity-tip from a truck driver was another minute of oxygen for my mother.
"Liora! Table six is waving their menu. Move it or I'm docking your break!" Joe, my manager, barked from the kitchen. Joe was a man who sweated grease and had a heart made of gravel.
"I'm on it, Joe," I whispered. My voice was scratchy, worn down to nothing.
I grabbed the glass coffee pot and headed toward the booth. My vision blurred for a second. The neon "Open" sign in the window flickered, casting a sickly red light over the empty tables. The diner was a graveyard at this hour, frequented only by those who had nowhere else to go and those who didn't want to be found.
As I poured the coffee for a tired-looking man in a flannel shirt, my phone vibrated in my pocket. It wasn't a text. It was a long, steady buzz.
The hospital.
My heart did a slow, painful roll in my chest. I set the pot down with trembling hands and ducked behind the pie display.
"Hello?" I answered, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"Is this Liora Hayes, daughter of Mara Hayes?" The voice was sharp and efficient. It reminded me of a paper cut…thin and painful.
"Yes. Is she okay? Did something happen?"
"I'm calling from the patient accounts and billing department at St. Jude's," the woman said. I could hear the clicking of a keyboard on her end. "We've received the final notice from your insurance provider. They are categorizing your mother's cardiac maintenance and the required valve surgery as a 'pre-existing complication' due to her chronic history. The claim has been denied."
I felt the air leave my lungs. "Denied?! But... she's already in the ICU. She's on a ventilator. They can't just deny it now."
"The current balance, including the arrears from her last stay, is $512,400.67," she continued, her tone as flat as if she were reading a grocery list. "To keep her in the private cardiac wing and maintain her spot on the surgery list, we require a good-faith deposit of $50,000 by 9:00 AM tomorrow. Otherwise, we will have to move her to the county public ward."
"The public ward?" My voice rose to a panicked pitch. "The nurse told me they don't have the same monitoring equipment there. She could have a stroke! She's stable, but she's fragile. You can't move her!"
"Nine o'clock, Miss Hayes. If the payment isn't processed, the transfer order is automatic. Have a nice night."
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone. Half a million dollars. I didn't even have fifty dollars in my savings account. I had been skipping meals for two weeks just to pay for the bus pass to get to the hospital.
"Liora! What did I say about the phone?" Joe was suddenly right behind me. He snatched the phone from my hand. "Are you on the clock or are you on a social call?"
"Joe, please," I gasped, reaching for the phone. My eyes were stinging with hot, angry tears. "That was the hospital. My mom... they're going to move her. I need to make a call. I need to find a way…."
"I don't care about your ways!" Joe yelled, his face turning a dark shade of purple. "I've got customers waiting, a floor that needs mopping, and you're standing here crying like a kid. You've been distracted for weeks. You're slow. You're depressing the customers. I'm done."
He threw my phone onto the counter. It skidded across the laminate and hit the floor.
"You're fired, Liora. Get your stuff and get out of here girl"
"Joe, you can't," I pleaded, my voice breaking. "This job is all I have. I'll work the night shifts. I'll do the dishes. Please, just don't fire me."
"I just did. Out! Before I call the cops for trespassing or something "
I stood there, paralyzed. The man in the flannel shirt looked away, embarrassed by the scene. I slowly reached down and picked up my phone. The screen was cracked. A jagged line ran through the middle of the time, splitting the world in half.
I walked to the back, grabbed my old, thin jacket, and stepped out the back door.
The winter storm had arrived in full force. The rain was freezing, turning into slush the moment it hit the ground. I didn't have an umbrella. I didn't even have a scarf. I just had the thin polyester of my uniform and the crushing weight of $512,000.
I walked toward the bus stop, my shoes soaking through within seconds. My mind was racing. Who could I call? My aunt had already stopped answering my letters. My friends from high school had moved away, their lives full of weddings and promotions while mine was stuck in a loop of medicine and misery.
I was alone.
I stopped at the edge of the curb, waiting for the light to change. The city was dark, the skyscrapers looking like jagged teeth against the sky. One building stood out…the Luminaire Corp headquarters. It was a spire of glass and light, glowing with the kind of wealth that didn't know what it felt like to be hungry.
The "Ice King" lived up there. Darian Volkov. I'd seen him on the news. He was the man who bought and sold companies like they were toys. He was the man who had everything while I was losing the only thing that mattered.
Suddenly, a pair of bright, white headlights cut through the rain.
A massive black town car, sleek and silent as a predator, sped toward the intersection. It didn't slow down for the puddle at the curb.
Splash.
A wave of icy, dirty gutter water hit me full-on. It soaked my hair, my face, and my thin jacket. I gasped, the cold knocking the wind out of me. I stood there, dripping, shivering, and utterly humiliated.
The car slowed down for a moment. Just a few feet away from me.
Through the tinted glass of the rear window, I saw the silhouette of a man. The window rolled down just an inch…barely enough to see out. I saw a pair of eyes. They weren't kind. They weren't sorry. They were a piercing, frozen blue. They looked at me not as a person, but as an obstacle. A speck of dust on a windshield.
He didn't say a word. He didn't offer an apology. The window rolled back up, sealing him away in his warm, leather-scented world.
The car accelerated, its red taillights disappearing into the mist like the eyes of a demon.
I stood in the freezing rain, trembling so hard my teeth rattled. I looked down at my cracked phone.
I had no job. I had no home. And in six hours, I was going to lose my mother.
I didn't know then that the man in the car was the only person who could save me. And I didn't know that his price would be much higher than half a million dollars.
He wanted a child. And he wanted me to be the one to give it to him.