The sun was already brutal by mid-morning, baking the construction site into a haze of dust and sweat. Liam hauled another load of rebar, muscles screaming the same old song they'd sung for years. One foot in front of the other. Drop. Turn. Repeat. No complaints. No breaks longer than it took to swallow warm water from a dented bottle.
His phone buzzed in the pocket of his work pants—once, twice, insistent. He ignored it at first. Calls during shifts got you yelled at or worse. But it kept going, a frantic vibration that cut through the clang of metal and the foreman's shouts.
He wiped his hands on his thighs, pulled it out. Unknown number.
He answered anyway.
"Liam?" Zola's voice was small, cracked, terrified. "It's me. I… I borrowed Mrs. Kwan's phone downstairs. The landlord—he's here. He's throwing our stuff out. Everything. He says we're three weeks behind again and he's done waiting."
Liam's stomach dropped like a stone through thin ice.
"Where are you right now?"
"Outside. On the steps. He's got the door open and he's tossing Mama's old box—the one with her pictures—and my sketchbooks. Liam, he threw my rabbit. The one you fixed for me last year."
Her voice broke on the last word.
Then came the cough.
Not the little dry one she got sometimes. This was deep, wet, rattling. The kind that meant her lungs were filling up again, the sickle cell crisis creeping in like black mold. She tried to stifle it, but he heard the wheeze, the gasp at the end.
"Zola. Breathe slow. I'm coming. Stay with Mrs. Kwan. Don't move."
"I'm scared," she whispered. Another cough tore through the line. "It hurts."
He was already moving—dropping the rebar where it lay, ignoring Tobin's shout of "Atta! Where the hell—" He sprinted for the gate, boots pounding cracked asphalt.
The street outside the site was a blur of carts, horns, bodies. He darted between them, heart slamming against his ribs.
He didn't see the delivery van until it was too late.
It clipped him hard—rear bumper to his left hip, spinning him into the gutter. Pain exploded white-hot up his side, ribs cracking against the curb. The driver didn't even stop; just a flash of taillights and a curse yelled out the window.
Liam rolled to his knees. Blood trickled from a gash above his eyebrow, warm down his temple. His left leg buckled when he tried to stand, but he forced it straight. Zola's cough echoed in his skull louder than the traffic.
He ran anyway.
Limping, bleeding, lungs burning. Three blocks. Four. He flagged a passing passenger moto—the kind with the cracked red helmet and no questions asked. Tossed the last of his day's pay into the driver's hand.
"Lower Districts. Carver's Row. Fast."
The bike roared. Wind stung the cut on his face. Every jolt sent fresh knives through his ribs.
They screeched to a stop outside the tenement. Their things were already on the sidewalk: the thin mattress dragged out, Zola's sketchbooks scattered like dead leaves, the little wooden box that held their mother's things—photos, the pink ribbon, a cheap silver bracelet—split open, contents spilling into the dirt.
Zola sat on the bottom step, knees pulled to her chest, face streaked with tears and dust. She saw him and scrambled up, throwing herself against him.
He caught her despite the pain, held her tight. She was shaking, coughing into his shirt.
The landlord—Mr. Gorran, fat, red-faced, arms crossed—stood in the doorway like he owned the whole damn building.
"Rent's late again, boy. I warned you last month. I got people waiting who can pay on time."
Liam set Zola behind him gently. His voice came out hoarse. "Please. Just one more week. I've got work lined up. I'll have it by Friday."
Gorran laughed, short and ugly. "You said that last time. And the time before. Look at you—bleeding, limping, still broke. Get your shit and go."
Zola started crying harder, fists balled in Liam's shirt. "We don't have anywhere else. Please. My brother works so hard. He's hurt right now because he ran here for me."
Gorran's eyes flicked to her, then away. "Not my problem, little girl. Street's full of sob stories."
Liam stepped forward, voice low, shaking with something dangerous. "One week. I'll double it. Triple. Whatever you want."
Gorran spat on the ground between them. "Get gone before I call the watch."
Liam stared at him a long second. Then he knelt, started gathering their things—Zola's rabbit first, brushing dirt off its ears, pressing it into her arms. She clung to it like a lifeline.
He picked up the broken box last. The photo of their mother—dark skin, bright smile, hair braided with beads—stared up at him from the cracked frame. He tucked it against his chest.
Zola's sobs were quieter now, the kind that hurt more because they were exhausted.
Liam carried what he could. Zola walked beside him, clutching her sketchbook to her chest, coughing every few steps.
They had nowhere to go.
So he went to the last place on earth he wanted to be.
The Altef Central Guild compound loomed at the end of Guild Row—tall iron gates, banners snapping in the wind, the faint hum of magic in the air like static before lightning. Guards in silver-trimmed cloaks eyed him as he approached, bloodied, limping, Zola's hand in his.
He asked for Elias Atta.
They made him wait in the outer courtyard for twenty minutes. Rain started then—cold, slanting, turning the cobblestones slick.
Finally Elias appeared.
Tall, white-skinned, silver threading his dark hair, Guild coat immaculate. He looked down at Liam like he was inspecting something left on his shoe.
"What is this?" Elias said flatly.
Liam swallowed blood and rainwater. "We're being evicted. Zola's sick—really sick. Coughing blood. We need a place. Just for a week. I'll pay you back. I swear."
Elias's eyes flicked to Zola. She stared up at him, eyes wide, hopeful despite everything.
Then back to Liam.
"You're bleeding on my courtyard," he said.
"I got hit by a car running to her. Landlord threw us out. We have nothing."
Elias exhaled, slow, disgusted. "You have nothing because you're nothing. No spark. No magic. You let her be taken—your mother—because you stood there like a useless statue. I told you then: you'd never amount to anything. Look at you. Still proving me right."
Liam's fists clenched. Rain dripped from his hair, stinging the cut.
Elias continued, voice cold as steel. "Maybe I'd feel something for the girl. She didn't choose her blood. You did. Or rather—you didn't. You were born defective. Stupid enough to think hard work fixes what nature broke."
Zola whimpered. Liam pulled her closer.
Elias turned away. "Don't come here again begging. You're not my problem."
The gates closed behind him with a clang.
Liam stood in the rain, neon signs from the surrounding streets flickering across wet stone: [RETRIEVER GUILD – BOUNTIES POSTED DAILY, HELL ANTS – GLANDS FETCH 50 SILVER EACH, SCAVENGERS WELCOME – NO MAGIC REQUIRED.]
The poster flapped in the wind, ink bleeding but still legible.
Hell Ant glands. Two days to cure most coughs, fevers, bacterial rot. Enough silver to pay rent for months. Enough to buy medicine that actually worked.
Liam looked down at Zola. She was shivering, lips blue, eyes glassy with fever and tears.
He wiped rain and blood from her cheek with his thumb.
"I'm going to fix this," he said. Voice low. Raw. "I promise."
She nodded, too tired to speak.
He turned toward the Guild recruitment office—smaller door, side entrance, the one for the bottom-feeders.
He walked through the rain, limping, bleeding, soaked to the bone, carrying his sister and the last pieces of their mother.
Life had pushed him.
And he was finally pushing back.