Garret stiffened, but Roxanne let out a loud, rattling laugh that quickly turned into a wince. "Fair enough. I feel terrible." She gestured with a silver-ringed hand. "Come here, kid."
Riley hesitated, then took two steps forward.
"They told me you ran," Roxanne said, her gaze analyzing the thin, shivering girl. "Why?"
"Because of the cops," Riley answered honestly. "I don't exist out there. If they caught me, they would have thrown me back into the system. The system is worse than the streets."
Roxanne nodded slowly, understanding the cold math of survival. She reached over to her bedside table. Resting beside a plastic water pitcher was a small, heavy object. She picked it up and held it out to Riley.
It was a heavy, custom-engraved Zippo lighter, bearing the winged death head on one side and a single word engraved on the other: Family.
"The streets take everything they can from you," Roxanne said softly. "They teach you to look away because caring gets you killed. But you didn't look away. You risked your freedom for a stranger who had nothing to give you but blood on your hands."
Riley looked down at the lighter, her thumb tracing the cool metal.
"You're seventeen," Roxanne continued. "You're a ghost. But ghosts get cold, Riley. You don't have to be invisible anymore." She looked up at Garret, who gave a single, firm nod. "There's a room above the clubhouse. It's warm, it's dry, and no cop in this city is stupid enough to knock on that door without a battalion. You want a job? You sweep the garage. You want to eat? You eat with us."
Riley’s throat tightened. For three years, she had fought just to survive the next night. The concept of tomorrow—let alone a safe one—felt like a foreign language.
"Why?" Riley asked, a tear finally cutting through the grime on her cheek.
"Because in our world, debts are paid in full," Roxanne said, sinking back into her pillows, her eyes never leaving Riley's. "And because the streets might harden you... but they didn't break you. You're one of us now. If you want to be."
Riley looked at the lighter. She looked at Garret, who stood like a sentinel by the door, and then at the matriarch who had just rewritten the rules of her life.
She closed her fist around the metal, dropping the lighter into her pocket.
"When do I start sweeping?" Riley asked.
Outside, the Seattle rain continued to hang in the air, cold and unforgiving. But for the first time in three years, Riley couldn't feel the chill.