Chapter 23: We’re Struggling. We’re Poor

I waited for the sigh of relief. I waited for them to embrace me.

Instead, the air in the small room turned ice-cold.

Bradford and Valerie didn’t look overjoyed. They looked horrified.

"A lottery?" Bradford repeated, his voice dropping into a terrified whisper. "Brianna... nothing is free in the Grey Moon Pack. People here don’t just give away money to random street kids out of the kindness of their hearts! It’s a scam. Or worse—they’re tracking you!"

"Tracking me?" I blinked.

"Yes!" Valerie gasped, rushing forward and grabbing my hands, her palms clammy with sweat. "What if it’s a trap by traffickers or loan sharks? They give a naive girl money, wait for her to spend it, and then kidnap her when she can’t pay back the astronomical interest! No, no, no. We can’t have this. We have to return everything! Take the clothes back, get the credits, and find the shop!"

Are you serious? I stared at them, internally reeling. In my past life, if someone gave you resources, you used them to buy weapons and secure your perimeter. You didn’t construct a conspiracy theory about magical tracking cards!

"Okay, okay!" I shifted tactics, realizing the lottery story was too absurd for their chronic paranoia. "In all honesty... someone found out I was attending the Tournament of Power. They... they decided to sponsor me. They invested in me!"

Bradford let out a sad, hollow scoff, shaking his head. "Brianna. Listen to yourself. Someone in Grey Moon Pack saw you—an unawakened, wolfless Omega—and just wanted to invest in you out of nowhere? Child, that is impossible. You are definitely being scammed."

"We can’t let anything happen to you," Valerie pleaded, placing her trembling hands on my shoulders. "The world isn’t as simple as it looks, Brianna. It is dangerous. They trick naive girls like you into taking their money so they can come back and take your life later. Please, listen to us!"

"Brianna," Bradford added, his voice painfully calm. "They know you are going to the Tournament of Power. And they know you are an Omega. It is clear to anyone that you won’t survive the first round. So why would anyone invest in you?"

Silence stretched across the dim kitchen.

I stood there, surrounded by fresh meat, new clothes, and forty thousand dollars worth of life-changing resources, completely stonewalled by their overwhelming caution. Nothing I said was going to go through their thick, terrified skulls.

Maybe I shouldn’t have bought the clothes, I thought, a spike of frustration prickling my brain. Maybe I should have just hoarded the credits until the loan sharks came knocking and slapped it on their faces.

I tried to do something good for them and this is how they react?

Their minds didn’t operate on direct logic. They were paralyzed by fear, beaten down by years of poverty and oppression. Direct explanation wouldn’t work, nothing logical would.

So... it was time to switch to Master Actress mode.

I lowered my head. Slowly, deliberately, I let my shoulders begin to tremble and sniffed.

"Brianna...?" Valerie asked, her tone shifting from panic to immediate concern. "What’s wrong? Why are you crying?"

"I’m... I’m sorry," I choked out, forcing my voice to break into a quiet, raspy sob. I turned my head away, wiping an imaginary tear from my cheek.

"Brianna, sweetie, it’s okay—"

"No, it’s not!" I turned back to them, my eyes wide, glistening, and filled with manufactured, heart-wrenching anguish. "I just... I just wanted to help Mother and Father! I saw an opportunity, any opportunity, to pull us out of this nightmare! Even... even if it meant walking into my own doom!"

Bradford froze. Valerie gasped, pressing a hand to her mouth.

"We’re struggling! We’re poor!" I cried out, letting the emotion spill over like a tidal wave. "Mother, Father, it’s not hard to accept that I’m desperate! I know the Tournament of Power is dangerous! I know I’m a wolfless Omega! But even at the expense of my own safety, I would do anything for this family! So please... just take the money! Take the clothes! Please!"

"Brianna, it is not up to you to fix this family’s problems—" Bradford started, his voice cracking.

"It is my fault!" I interrupted, my voice trembling with theatrical grief. "Because of me, the family is drowning! Going to Ravenhollow Academy costs so much money! I just wanted to help in some way! Please, just take it... If you don’t take it, if you make me return it and we stay like this... I don’t think I can ever forgive myself!"

I buried my face in my hands, letting out a soft, shuddering sob.

The silence that followed was absolute. Bradford looked at Valerie, his eyes glossy with overwhelming guilt, while Valerie looked at me as if her heart had just been torn out of her chest.

Hook, line, and sinker.

Valerie’s chest heaved as she stared at my trembling shoulders, the wall of her stubborn worry finally crumbling. She stepped forward, pulling me into a tight, warm hug that smelled faintly of cheap soap and old flour.

"Oh, Brianna..." she whispered, her voice choked with tears. "My sweet girl... okay. Okay. We hear you. We’ll keep it."

Bradford let out a long, ragged exhale, running a hand over his tired face.

"Your mother is right. If... if you went through so much for us, we won’t throw it back in your face." He looked toward the bags on the floor, his eyes softening as he picked up the brand-new janitor’s uniform. "Thank you, daughter."

Master Actress mode: absolute success.

Within twenty minutes, the heavy dark clouds hanging over the small living room completely vanished. Valerie unlocked the ancient food pantry, while Bradford helped haul the massive canvas bags onto the wooden counter.

For a family that had been surviving on thin vegetable broth and stale bread crusts for months, unpacking real, nutrient-dense food felt like a fever dream.

Valerie’s hands flew across the kitchen—trimming fresh meat, chopping crisp vegetables, and boiling thick grains. The intoxicating scent of a rich, savory stew began to fill every corner of the house.

"I can’t remember the last time we had a full fridge," Valerie murmured, wiping a stray tear of genuine happiness from her cheek as she stocked the shelves. "We don’t even need to scrape by tonight. We can actually eat until we’re full."