Chapter 14
Lottie
The lecture hall smells faintly of salt and the sea, a reminder of why I had chosen marine biology in the first place.
Even as the Professor discusses the migratory patterns of humpback whales, my mind drifts.
Part of me is still tangled in last night, in the memory of Archer’s hands and the way his possessiveness made my chest ache.
Zara nudges my shoulder with a grin. “Lottie, you’re spacing out again. Earth to Lottie.”
I blink, trying to focus. “Sorry… just thinking.”
She leaned closer, her green eyes sparkling. “Thinking about your boyfriends, aren’t you?”
I flush, caught off guard. “Maybe,” I admit, letting my shoulders relax slightly. “But totally not the time.”
Zara chuckles, flipping her notebook page to a new one. “Fair enough. Though you should’ve noticed what the Professor was doing to me.” She tilts her head, pretending to take notes. “He keeps glancing at me, Lottie.”
I roll my eyes, leaning back in my chair. “He’s not exactly subtle.”
Her grin widens. “I mean, it’s flattering, and he’s a genius, so I’m not complaining.”
I laugh softly, shaking my head. “I guess some people like being chased,” I mutter, pen scribbling against the paper.
“Not chased,” she says, smirking. “Appreciated.”
Before I can tease her more, Professor Langston walks down the aisle, stopping in front of her.
His hands awkwardly tuck into his pockets, and he clears his throat.
“Miss Harper,” he says, voice low, hesitant, like he’s not sure how to start.
“You seem… a little distracted today. Not by the lecture, I assume?”
Zara’s hands clutch her notebook tighter. “Sorry, Professor. I’m paying attention… mostly.”
He shifts, scratching the back of his neck. “Right… well, try not to get too distracted. Important things might slip by otherwise.”
He offers her a small, awkward smile—then a subtle, almost shy wink—before continuing down the aisle, mumbling something about “trouble in class.”
Zara exhales quietly, letting her shoulders drop. She glances at me, eyes wide and embarrassed. “He… he’s kind of… I don’t know. I think he’s… maybe trying to be… nice?”
I laugh softly. “Clumsy, shy, and flustered. Sounds like someone you’d like.”
She lets out a small, nervous giggle, hiding behind her notebook again. “I… I don’t know. I mean… maybe.”
I loop my arm through hers as we pack up our things. Stepping out into the hallway, then part ways since she has another class. I make my way outside, ready to get home and have a nap.
I step out of the lecture hall, my bag digging into my shoulder, and the warm afternoon sun hits my face. Students drift past, laughing about assignments and the ocean—the ordinary life I wish I could sink into. And then I see her.
Tracey.
She’s leaning against the brick wall near the parking lot, cigarette dangling from one hand, a cheap bottle in the other. The smell of smoke mixes with something cloyingly sweet, like rotten candy.
Her clothes hang off her thin frame, stained and rumpled, and her glazed eyes lock onto me the moment I appear.
“Well, well… look who decided to show up,” she drawls. “Scarlett, is that you?”
The name hits like a punch.
Scarlett.
A name from when I had to disappear into silence to survive him. I breathe out slowly, forcing myself to be steady. “What do you want?” My voice is tight.
Her lips curl into a slow, lazy sneer. “So, the dud speaks.”
Her eyes dart around, unfocused, glassy. She drags hard on the cigarette, flicks ash carelessly, shakes her head like it will clear her thoughts, but it doesn’t. It never did.
“You think you can just waltz through life, leave me with a mess,” she mutters, voice thick and slurred, “take what isn’t yours… and not pay for it? Ten thousand! Ten thousand dollars, and it’s gone! Where’s my money, Scarlett, huh?”
I flinch because her money is the money that was paid for my pain.
Little Bird.
My stomach knots at the memory of him, but I focus, keeping my eyes on her, everything Claire taught me humming at the back of my mind.
“I didn’t take anything from you,” I say carefully.
“Don’t lie to me!” she screeches, her voice cracking. “Scarlett… you took it! Stole it! Lorenzo…”
My stomach tightens painfully at the sound of his name. Lorenzo. She sways slightly, bottle clutched tight, cigarette loose.
Her eyes glitter, manic. “He… he told me where you’d be. Said I could collect… get you for him… and he’d give me more… more money.”
I step back. “You’re lying,” My voice shakes, betraying the panic rising inside me. “Why would he send you?”
Tracey laughs, harsh and jagged, and it makes me flinch.
“Lying? Me? Oh, Scarlett… don’t be na?ve.
You think I don’t know what he wants? You think I don’t know what I can get?
” She sways, “Money, favors… whatever. You were supposed to make everything easier… but look at you. New hair. New life, and here I am cleaning up your mess.”
I swallow, gripping my backpack strap like a lifeline.
“You think I’ll let you hand me over to him willingly?
You know he raped me. And because he wiped your debts clean and paid you some money, it was suddenly okay?
I was no longer your daughter… I was your pawn. Someone you sacrificed for profit.”
Tracey sneers, waving the cigarette like a weapon.
“Pawn?” she spits. “Oh, don’t flatter yourself.
I never cared about you. All you ever did was whine or cry about how unfair life was.
I did what I had to do. Drugs. Money. A favor here, a favor there.
Twenty grand in my pocket. You were just convenient. ”
I choke back the panic I can feel clawing at my throat. “I’m not yours to sell. I’m not Scarlett anymore…” My knees threaten to buckle. “I won’t go to him. Ever.”
Tracey snarls, tipping back the bottle for a sloppy swig. “You think you can say no? You’re my daughter, my ticket. Don’t get clever and think you can get out of this. You owe me for raising you.” Years of neglect and cruelty are etched into every line of her thin face as she sneers at me.
I force the words out, refusing to cower to her. “I never owed you anything. You abused me. You sold me. I’m Lottie now. The daughter you knew? The scared one who couldn’t talk. She’s dead.”
Tracey’s face twists in disbelief. “Lottie? Scarlett? What does it matter? You’re still my daughter. You’re still the same person, and if Lorenzo wants you… Well, you’re going to be his bride.”
I stumble back, struggling to breathe, words barely forming. The years of silence I’d forced on myself to survive come roaring back.
Every syllable feels like fire, and I can’t say half of what I want. I want to scream at her, tell her the years she stole from me, the voice she tried to crush… but it comes out as a broken whisper, raw and shaking. “I’m not your daughter. No mother would treat their kid this way.”
Suddenly, a presence comes from behind me, and a sharp crack cuts through the air. Tracey’s head snaps to the side as a hard hand strikes her cheek.
She stumbles, cigarette dropping, bottle tipping.
I gasp, flinching, as Claire steps forward.
Every inch of her radiates control and danger.
“The only good thing you’ve ever done in your pathetic little life,” Claire says the words slowly…
deadly like a snake waiting to strike, “is give birth to my daughter.”
Tracey’s shock is written all over her face. She clutches her cheek, swaying, her bravado gone. “Y-you—”
Claire steps closer. “Touch her again. Speak one more word about handing her over to that prick. One move, one breath near her… and you won’t just regret it. You’ll wish you were dead before you ever thought about hurting her again.”
Tracey collapses to her knees, trembling. Relief claws at my chest. Claire is here. For the first time in years, someone is standing between me and her.
Tracey’s lips tremble, but her defiance flares. “You… what are you gonna do? Kill me?” she spits, wobbling to her feet, bottle raised like a weapon. “You think you’re going to be able to stop me? She’s mine! You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t do!”
Claire doesn’t flinch. Her eyes narrow, cold, and for a moment, I think she’s going to kill her right here, in front of everyone. “One step closer, Tracey,” she mutters, “and you’ll regret it more than you’ve ever regretted anything in your pathetic life.”
Tracey swings the bottle, wild, unsteady, and I flinch, but Claire moves like a shadow… Quick, precise, just like she taught me. She deflects it with a sharp kick, sending the bottle skidding across the pavement. Tracey swears, lunging forward with hands raised, eyes wild.
“You think I’m afraid of you?” Tracey screams, voice cracking. “I raised her! I did what I had to do to survive!”
Claire steps closer, each movement measured, deliberate. “I told you that you’re done. You chose drugs over your daughter. She was never yours, because no mother would sacrifice their child for their own gain.”
Tracey freezes for a heartbeat, the words sinking in, but only barely. Her chest heaves, eyes flicking between Claire and me, hunting for weakness. “She’s nothing,” she spits, voice shaking with anger and something darker, “always acting so perfect. Do you really think she’s worth all this fuss?”
Claire doesn’t flinch, her gaze locked on Tracey. She gets into her space, crowding her against the wall. “Worth something?” she repeats slowly. “She’s my daughter. She’s worth everything.”
Tracey staggers, wiping sweat from her face, a manic grin twisting her features.
Her voice cracks with fury. “She’s worth nothing!
” she spits, venom dripping from every word.
“She’s never been anything. She’s just a tool.
A ticket. Lorenzo uses her, and I take what I can.
She has never been worth a damn thing to me. ”
Her words hit me like a punch to the chest. My knees threaten to buckle, my breath catching, but Claire doesn’t flinch. Her expression changes slowly, terrifyingly, from controlled fury to something darker.
Her pupils narrow, the air around her seeming to tighten. I’ve seen Claire angry before, protective—but this is different.
This is raw, uncontainable rage. “You are done,” she says, voice low and deliberate, carrying the weight of every threat she has ever made. “You ever come here again, and I will kill you. Do you understand me?”
Tracey laughs, bitter and unhinged, and her voice is loud enough to draw glances from passing students, but she doesn’t care.
“Kill me?” she hisses, shaking her head.
“You really think she’s worth that? Worth anything at all?
She’s just a pawn. A girl to be used up by Lorenzo.
A piece in his games, and if you think saving her matters, if you think she’s anything more than what we made her, you’re a fool. You are a fool to care about her.”
Something in Claire snaps. I see the red flare in her eyes, the way her hands clench, the almost imperceptible tremor that betrays the power coiling inside her. She doesn’t hesitate. The world narrows to her movement.
She moves faster than Tracey can react, a shadow striking, and everything changes in an instant. The sound of a body hitting the pavement is loud. Tracey’s eyes widen in shock, the sneer wiped clean from her face. I stand frozen, my chest heaving, my mind caught between disbelief and relief.
Claire doesn’t breathe heavily, doesn’t move. She stands over Tracey, calm now, but the lethal edge of who she is stays. She turns to me, voice steady, low. “She will never touch you again. Not ever.”
Claire pulls out her phone, while I stare down at Tracey’s unconscious body. I hear her muttering to Will… I think… about needing some trash cleaned up, and then she’s back. Arms around my shoulders, leading me away.