Nightshade

Maya's phone buzzed. 3:47 AM.

She shifted on the Honda Civic's back seat, vertebrae popping like bubble wrap as she tried to find an angle that didn't feel like slow torture. Her hip bone ground against the seat's worn fabric, the foam long since compressed into uselessness. The car smelled like failure—stale fast food wrappers from three days ago, clothes that needed washing two weeks back, and the sour musk of a body she couldn't properly wash.

Sleep-deprived and wired, she'd chewed her lip raw somewhere around midnight, a nervous habit she'd picked up in prison. Copper on her tongue now—not the worst blood she'd tasted. That honor belonged to the night Ethan backhanded her into the sink and she'd spit red and told herself it was a mistake. An accident. He hadn't meant it.

She'd believed a lot of lies back then.

Seattle rain drummed on the roof, a constant percussion that had started to feel like mockery. Two nights in this parking garage. The concrete structure blocked the worst of the weather, and the security cameras on Level 3 had been broken since before she'd found this spot. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered in an arrhythmic pattern that had invaded her dreams—when she managed to sleep at all. One more night, maybe two, then she'd have to move before someone complained. Before the police came. Before another mark went on whatever invisible record kept tracking her failures.

No new messages. No missed calls. Just the relentless march of time in a life with nowhere to go.

Maya pulled the thin blanket tighter around her shoulders. The fabric was scratchy against her neck, a discount store purchase from before everything fell apart. Prison had been cold too, but at least there she'd had a mattress. A schedule. Three meals a day, even if the food had tasted like cardboard soaked in regret. She'd hated every minute of those three years—the strip searches that made her feel hollow, the constant surveillance that stripped away any sense of self, the guards who looked through her like she was already a ghost.

But at least she'd known what came next. Wake up. Survive. Sleep. Repeat.

Now? Now she had sixty-eight dollars, a car that needed gas more than she needed food, and a phone full of rejection emails.

She opened her inbox. The list had grown since yesterday. Her thumb hovered over each one, a small funeral for a small hope.

*Thank you for your interest in the barista position, but we've decided to move forward with other candidates.*

Delete.

*We appreciate you applying to our housekeeping team. Unfortunately, after reviewing your background check—*

Delete. Her chest tightened. Background check. Two words that had become a death sentence.

*Due to the volume of applicants, we are unable to offer you an interview at this time. We encourage you to apply again in the future when—*

Delete. Delete. Delete.

Her stomach growled, loud enough to echo in the silent car. A hollow ache that had graduated from annoyance to constant companion. The last meal had been a dollar menu burger eighteen hours ago. She'd made it last, eating half and saving the rest in the glove compartment, but hunger didn't negotiate. Hunger just took. It had started taking pieces of her—the fat from her cheeks, the strength from her legs, the sharpness from her thoughts.

Sometimes she caught herself staring at nothing for minutes at a time, unable to remember what she'd been thinking about.

Sixty-eight dollars. Gas was forty to fill the tank. That left twenty-eight for food, for toiletries, for the phone bill that would come due in a week. The math never worked. It hadn't worked since she'd walked out of the Washington Corrections Center for Women with a plastic bag of belongings and no one waiting at the gate.