Ava pulled a small wooden stool over and sat down right next to Jerimiah's desk.

She stared at the bouncing stock graphs and the Solitaire cards. It looked so boring. So safe.

After the blood-soaked, anxiety-ridden nightmare of her past life with the Savage family, this dull basement office felt like paradise.

Ava rested her chin in her hands. She looked up at Jerimiah, her eyes shining with determination.

"Dad," Ava said seriously. "I've decided. When I grow up, I want to be an IT manager just like you."

Jerimiah stopped clicking his mouse.

"I can help you run the servers," Ava continued. "We can figure out how to save even more money on the electric bill together."

Jerimiah stared at her. A strange, heavy lump formed in his throat.

He was a man who had built an empire in the criminal underworld. He had ordered hits and toppled syndicates. But hearing this little girl say she wanted to follow in his fake, pathetic footsteps filled him with an overwhelming sense of warmth.

His eyes grew slightly damp. He reached out with his large hand and ruffled her pigtails. "That sounds great, kid. I'll leave the whole business to you."

A sharp, icy scoff echoed from the hallway outside the cracked door.

Before Jerimiah could turn his head, a silver flash tore through the air.

The sound of tearing wind was followed by a violently loud THWACK.

A solid steel tactical throwing knife buried itself three inches deep into the solid oak doorframe, exactly one inch from Jerimiah's right ear.

The red tassel attached to the handle vibrated furiously, emitting a low, deadly hum.

A lock of Jerimiah's hair, cleanly sliced by the blade, drifted down onto his shoulder.

Jerimiah's body turned to stone. The sentimental tears dried up instantly. Cold terror gripped his chest.

Ava screamed. She leaped off the stool, her heart hammering against her ribs.

The door swung wide open. Carrie stood in the hallway. Her face was a mask of pure, unadulterated rage. Her arm was still raised in the throwing position.

There was no way her perfect daughter was going to rot in a basement fixing computers.

Carrie saw the sheer terror on Ava's pale face. Reality crashed back into her brain. The normal protocol.

The murderous rage vanished from Carrie's face in a microsecond. She gasped, covering her mouth with both hands, looking utterly horrified.

She rushed into the room, grabbed the handle of the knife, and yanked it out of the wood. With a flick of her wrist, she hid the blade up her sleeve.

Carrie dropped to her knees in front of Ava. "Oh my god, honey, I am so sorry!" she cried, her voice trembling with fake panic.

"What was that?" Ava gasped, her chest heaving.

"It's a replica from my self-defense class!" Carrie lied smoothly, rushing forward with an expression of exaggerated horror. "One of my students brought it in, and I didn't realize how heavy and sharp the edges were! Oh my gosh, I was just trying to juggle it and it slipped. I am so clumsy, I could have really hurt someone!"

Ava looked at the deep, splintered gash in the solid oak doorframe. Rubber didn't do that.

But she looked into Carrie's wide, apologetic, loving eyes. Ava's brain violently rejected the truth. She needed this family to be normal.

She's just really strong, Ava told herself, forcing her heart rate down. It's a bad neighborhood. She has to practice.

Ava nodded slowly, swallowing the lump of fear. "It's okay, Mom."

Carrie let out a massive sigh of relief. She stood up. She shot Jerimiah a look that promised a slow, agonizing death.

She grabbed Jerimiah by the collar of his flannel shirt. "Jerimiah, honey," she smiled sweetly at Ava. "Your father and I need to have a quick adult conversation in the hallway."

The moment they stepped into the hallway, Carrie slammed Jerimiah against the wall.

She pressed her forearm against his collarbone, pinning him in place.

"Stop filling her head with that peasant garbage," Carrie hissed, her teeth bared.

"It was the protocol!" Jerimiah whispered frantically, holding his hands up. "We agreed to be normal!"

"Normal doesn't mean she becomes a basement-dwelling loser!" Carrie snapped. "She is terrified of the world. She's retreating. We have to send her to school. She needs to establish dominance over her peers."

Jerimiah frowned, his protective instincts flaring. "Public schools are a mess. What if someone bullies her?"

A dark, bloodthirsty shadow crossed Carrie's eyes. "If anyone touches her, I will level the entire building."

Carrie released him. "She is going to Erie International Academy. It's the best."

Jerimiah rubbed his neck. "Carrie, that's a school for billionaires and politicians. We are supposed to be poor."

"Fix it," Carrie ordered, pointing at the study. "Use your keyboard."

Jerimiah sighed. He walked back to his desk and cracked his knuckles. He pulled up a terminal window.

His fingers flew across the keys, a blur of motion. After nearly twenty minutes of tense, rapid typing, he had bypassed Erie Academy's heavily encrypted corporate-grade firewall and found a backdoor into the admissions database.

He inserted Ava's name into the system, bypassing a two-year waitlist. He fabricated a flawless academic record and forged a 'Community Star Diversity Scholarship' to explain their lack of wealth.

He hit enter. The confirmation email popped up.

"Done," Jerimiah said.

"Add Cody," Carrie commanded from the doorway.

Jerimiah froze. "Carrie, Cody is a sociopath. He will kill someone."

"Ava needs a bodyguard," Carrie said flatly. "Do it."

Jerimiah swallowed hard and forged a second application.

At noon, the family gathered around the dining table.

Carrie smiled brightly. She pulled two crisp, printed acceptance letters from her apron pocket and slapped them onto the table.

"Great news!" Carrie announced. "Tomorrow, Ava and Cody are going to school!"

Cody stopped chewing his broccoli. A rare look of genuine horror flashed across his pale face.

He set his fork down. "I refuse. Group socialization is a statistically proven waste of biological energy."

Carrie's smile didn't waver. She picked up her serrated steak knife. She slowly dragged the tip of the blade across her porcelain plate.

Screeeech.

The sound was deafening, vibrating right into their teeth.

"Darling," Carrie said softly. "It wasn't a request."

Cody felt the suffocating pressure of her killing intent. He closed his mouth, picked up his fork, and silently ate his broccoli. He had surrendered.

Ava looked down at the letter. The gold foil crest of Erie International Academy gleamed under the lights.

All the blood drained from Ava's face. Her stomach churned violently. That was the school. The Savage family's territory. Her nightmare was starting all over again.

The next morning, a brutal Illinois blizzard buried the suburban streets in a thick layer of white.

In the entryway, Carrie aggressively shoved Ava's arms into a massive, neon-yellow puffer coat.

"Mom, I can't breathe," Ava wheezed. The coat was so thick she couldn't even bend her elbows. She looked like a giant marshmallow.

"It's freezing out there," Carrie insisted, zipping the coat all the way up to Ava's chin.

Cody stood by the door. He wore a thin, tailored black trench coat. He stared at Ava with cold calculation.

Mobility reduced by forty percent, Cody thought. In the event of an ambush, she is a static target. She will die immediately.

Jerimiah spun the van keys on his finger. He wore his usual ratty jacket. "Let's go, kids. Clock's ticking."

He pushed the front door open. A blast of freezing wind and snow whipped into the house.

The concrete steps of the porch were coated in a thin, invisible layer of black ice.

Ava waddled forward, her heavy boots clumsy on the slick surface.

Jerimiah walked right behind her. He watched her struggle. A flicker of something unreadable crossed his face before he reached out an arm, as if to steady her, but hesitated, not wanting to hover like an overbearing parent.

As Ava took a step down, her heavy boot found no traction. She stepped directly onto a treacherous, invisible patch of black ice that had formed overnight. Her foot shot forward, completely destroying her center of gravity in a terrifying instant.

Ava let out a sharp gasp. Her feet flew out from under her. She pitched forward, falling face-first toward the solid, jagged ice covering the concrete steps.

Time seemed to slow down.

Cody's pupils dilated. His brain screamed at him to stay out of it. But his body moved on pure, violent instinct.

He launched himself off the top step. He moved so fast he was nothing but a black blur against the snow.

Just inches before Ava's face smashed into the ice, a hard, unyielding arm wrapped around her chest.

The momentum sent Cody sliding across the icy porch. His boots scraped against the concrete, but his core remained perfectly stable. He absorbed the entire shock of the fall, holding Ava safely against his side.

Ava gasped for air, her heart threatening to burst out of her chest. She looked up.

Cody's face was inches from hers. His black eyes were completely devoid of warmth, but his grip on her was iron-clad.

He didn't ask if she was okay. He simply lifted her by the back of her coat, setting her upright on the flat driveway.

Then, Cody slowly turned his head. He locked eyes with Jerimiah, who was still standing on the steps.

Cody's eyes darkened into a terrifying, abyssal black. Raw, unfiltered killing intent radiated from his small frame. He looked at his father not as a parent, but as a hostile threat that needed to be eliminated.

Jerimiah's breath hitched. He hadn't expected the sociopathic kid to react so aggressively to protect the girl.

Jerimiah held up his hands, forcing a nervous laugh. "Whoops! Slippery steps, huh?"

Cody held the stare for three more seconds before turning away. He opened the sliding door of the van and climbed in.

Ava stood frozen in the snow. She looked at Cody's back.

Her chest tightened, but this time, not from fear. The cold, calculating freak of a brother had just risked himself to save her. In this strange, terrifying world, she suddenly felt an anchor of absolute safety.