Page 24 of Shattered Throne
If I didn't go to work, I’d lose my job. If I lost my job, I couldn't pay rent. If I couldn't pay rent, we were on the street.
I'd been on the street before. Once, when I was seventeen and had just aged out of the system, when I'd had nowhere to go and no one to call and had spent three nights sleeping in a bus station before a shelter had space. I remembered the smell of it. The fear. The way people looked through you like you weren't there.
I would not let Zoe experience that.
Which left one option. One terrible, risky, potentially career-ending option.
Zoe would have to come with me.
I'd hide her in the break room. Keep her quiet. Pray that Xavier didn't notice, that no one noticed, that I could make it through one day without my carefully constructed life collapsing around me.
It was insane. It was also the only choice I had. I took a breath, stood up, and walked to Zoe's room. She was still asleep. I knelt beside her bed and brushed the hair from her forehead.
"Zoe. Baby. Time to wake up."
Her dark eyes fluttered open. She blinked at me, confused, still half in whatever dream she'd been having.
"Mommy?"
"Hey, sweetheart. Guess what? Today is a special day."
She rubbed her eyes. "Special how?"
"You get to come on a secret mission with Mommy."
Her whole face changed. The sleepiness vanished, replaced by wide-eyed excitement. She sat up so fast she nearly knocked heads with me.
"A secret mission? Like a spy?"
"Exactly like a spy." I smiled, and it only felt a little bit like lying. "But spies have to be very, very quiet. Can you do that?"
She nodded vigorously. "I can be quiet. I'm the quietest."
"I know you are, baby."
"Will there be snacks?"
"All the snacks you want."
She threw her arms around my neck. "This is the best day ever!"
We packed a bag together. Coloring books, the ones with the princesses and the ones with the dinosaurs, because she couldn't decide. Crayons, the big box with the sharpener built into theback. Headphones, the pink ones with the cat ears. Her favorite blanket, the soft purple one she'd had since she was a baby. Snacks: crackers and cheese sticks, apple slices, and the cookies I'd baked last weekend, enough to survive a siege.
Zoe’s job was to supervise the packing. "We need more cookies, Mommy."
"We have six cookies."
"But what if I get really hungry?"
I added two more cookies. She nodded with satisfaction.
The drive to work was nerve-wracking. I kept glancing at my phone, half-expecting another disaster. A text from work saying I'd been fired preemptively. A call from the school saying there actually was school today, and I'd missed it. Something, anything, to make this day even worse than it already was.
Zoe pressed her face to the window and counted things. "One bus. Two buses. That's a really big truck, Mommy. Do you think it has dinosaurs inside?"
"Could be. You never know."
"I bet it does. I bet it's full of dinosaurs and they're going to the zoo."
