TINSELS POV....
The house had running water.
That was the first thing I noticed. I turned the tap in the bathroom and just stood there, watching it run clear and cold into a sink that didn't have rust stains. I let it go for ten minutes. Maybe more. Because I could. Because there was no Aunty outside timing me. Because the door locked from the inside and the key was in my hand.
The second thing I noticed was the phone.
It sat on the counter like a bomb. Apple logo. Brand new. No dents, no cracks, no history. I picked it up with fingers that still had dirt under the nails. My hands looked wrong holding it. Too rough. Too real.
_Hello._
_Select language._
English.
Passcode: 0-4-0-8. April 8. Today.
The home screen was blank. No apps except the default ones. No messages. No contacts. No photos. Just the weather widget: _cuvianni, 31°C. Sunny._
I'd forgotten what sunny felt like. Aunty's house had boards on the windows. Panther Way only had night.
I charged it first. Sat on the edge of the bed that was too soft and watched the battery crawl from red to green. Every percent felt like proof I existed again. Like I could be called. Could be found. Could _leave_.
Three days. That's how long I lasted in the blue house.
Three days of flinching every time the refrigerator hummed. Three days of sleeping with the phone under my pillow because if I lost it, I lost everything. Three days of eating bread and peanut butter bought with cash that wasn't mine and tasting guilt with every bite.
Three days of staring at the email Zack sent:
_Subject: Employment Confirmation_
_Tinsel Monroe_
_Position: Personal Staff – Mr. G. Hale_
_Start Date: Immediate_
_Report to: Zack Iwere, Executive Assistant_
Personal staff. Right.
Personal staff get schedules. They get a desk. They get yelled at for being late.
Personal staff don't get houses with yellow flowers on the porch. Personal staff don't get phones with the date they met you as the passcode.
On day four, I put on the jeans I'd washed in the sink and the shirt I bought at the corner shop with his money. I braided my hair back. Looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.
I looked the same. Blood was gone. Dirt was gone. But my eyes were still the same. Bright. Tiny. Tired. The ones he saw when he walked past me to get in that SUV.
I picked up the black card. Typed the number.
It rang once.
"Zack." Not a question. Not a greeting. Just the name. Male. Calm. Tired.
"I need to see him," I said. I'd practiced it in the mirror. My voice didn't shake.
A pause. I heard a keyboard. Fast. Like he was pulling something up. Like he was already expecting me.
"Mr. Hale isn't taking visitors," Zack said. Corporate. Flat.
"Not Mr. Hale," I said. "Greg. The one who knows how to break sticks without cutting himself. The one who sat at my fire."
Another pause. Longer. Then the typing stopped.
"Address," Zack said.
I gave him the blue house.
"Stay there," he said.
The line died.
Twenty-three minutes later, a car pulled up. Black SUV. Not the same one from Panther Way. This one was newer. The driver didn't get out. He just rolled down the window.
"Miss Monroe?"
I nodded. Didn't trust my voice.
He popped the back door. Didn't open it for me. Didn't speak again.
I got in.
Hale Tower looked exactly like it did online. Glass and steel and arrogance, twenty-seven stories of _I own this city_ jutting into the sky. His name was on the side in letters bigger than I was. _HALE._
The lobby was cold enough to hang meat. Marble floors. Marble walls. Marble woman at the marble desk who looked at my thrift-shop shirt and my clean but cheap jeans and decided I was lost.
"Name?" she said, not looking up.
"Tinsel Monroe."
She typed. Frowned. Typed again. "You're not in the system."
"Call Zack."
That made her look up. Really look. She saw something in my face — I don't know what … and picked up the phone.
"Mr. Finnson, there's a… yes. Tinsel Monroe. She says…" Her eyes flicked to me. "Yes, sir."
She hung up. Printed a badge without another word. Visitor – T. Monroe. No photo. No title.
"27th floor," she said. "East elevator. He'll meet you."
The elevator was all mirrors and silence. I watched myself go up. 1. 2. 15. 23. 27. My ears popped. The doors opened.
Zack was waiting.
He was younger than I pictured. 23, maybe 24. Black hair, pushed back like he'd been running his hands through it. Suit that fits him like he was born in it. Eyes that had seen too many board meetings and not enough sleep.
He didn't smile. Didn't frown. Just looked at me like I was a math problem he'd been working on for four days.
"You're her," he said.
"You're Zack," I said.
He nodded once. "He's not here."
I laughed. It came out sharp. "Bullshit."
That almost got him. Corner of his mouth twitched. Gone before it was real.
"He's in a board meeting," Zack said. "Quarterly review. I've been there for three hours. He does that when there's something he doesn't want to deal with."
"Me," I said.
Zack didn't deny it. Didn't confirm it. Just stepped to the side and motioned down the hall. Glass walls. Offices with names on them. People moving fast, talking into headsets, carrying tablets. Nobody looked at me. I was invisible. Again.
"Why?" I asked. We were walking. My sneakers were too loud on the floor.
"Why what?"
I held up the phone. "This. The house. The cash. The 'personal staff' email. Why, if he doesn't want to deal with me?"
Zack stopped outside a set of double doors. No name on them. He looked out at the city instead of at me. Twenty-seven floors up, Civanni looked clean. Organized. Like a model. You couldn't see Panther Street From here.
"Because you walked out of that gas station with nothing," Zack said finally. "No phone. No shoes. No tomorrow. And he doesn't leave people with nothing. Not since…" He cut himself off. Shook his head. "Doesn't matter."
"He left me," I said.
"No," Zack said, and now he did look at me. "He left …Hale_ with you. Greg was the one at that fire. Greg's the one who told the driver 'make sure she's safe' at 5:43am before any of us were awake. You think that was protocol?"
I didn't have an answer. Because I'd been asking myself the same thing for four days.
Zack hit a panel on the wall. The double doors unlocked with a quiet click.
"He'll be out at ten," Zack said. "Board meetings always run over, but he'll cut this one short. He does, when he knows."
"Know what?"
"That you're here."
Zack stepped back. Didn't follow me in. "You can wait. Or you can leave. He won't stop you either way. That's the difference between them."
"Between who?"
"Greg and Mr. Hale," Zack said. "One of them will ask you to stay."
Then he was gone. Just walked away down the hall, back to wherever executive assistants go when they're done lighting fires.
The office was empty. Huge. A desk the size of my old bedroom. Chairs that probably cost more than Aunty's whole house. And the window.
Floor to ceiling. The whole city laid out like a map. I could see the port. I could see the bridge. If I pressed my face to the glass and looked southwest, I could maybe see the scar where Panther Way was.
I set the phone on his desk. Screen up. glowing if I touch it.
Next to it, I set the handkerchief. I'd washed it. The blood was out. But G.R.H. was still there, stitched in dark thread. _Gregory Ryan Hale._ I'd googled the middle name.
Personal staff. Right.
I wasn't a staff member. I wasn't a rescue. I wasn't a headline.
I was the girl who told Gregory Hale, "My fire now." And he let me have it.
Now I was in his office.
And I wasn't leaving until he told me, to my face, which one of them bought me a house.
Greg or Mr. Hale.
I sat in his chair. It was warm from the sun.
And I waited.