Bought By The Coldhearted Media Mogul

The numbers on the screen were red. Not just a dull, rusty red, but a vibrant, screaming crimson that seemed to pulse against the cracked glass of Cinthia's phone. Negative four hundred and twelve dollars.

She sat on the edge of her mattress, the springs groaning in protest, and stared at the banking app. Outside the thin walls of the Brooklyn apartment, a siren wailed, growing louder and then fading, a Doppler effect of someone else's tragedy passing her by. Her tragedy was right here, stationary and suffocating.

Her chest felt tight, like someone had wrapped a belt around her ribs and pulled it one notch too far. She closed the app, only to open it again three seconds later, hoping for a glitch. The negative sign remained.

Then the phone vibrated.

The name "Carter" flashed on the screen.

Cinthia's stomach twisted into a hard knot. She didn't want to answer. Every time Carter called after 10 PM, it wasn't to ask how her day was. It was to ask for money she didn't have, or to tell her about a problem she couldn't fix. Her thumb hovered over the decline button.

The phone stopped buzzing. Silence returned to the room, heavy and thick.

Two seconds later, it started again.

She pressed answer.

"Cinthia!"

The scream pierced her eardrum. It wasn't a word; it was a raw sound of terror.

"Carter? What-"

"You have to come! Now! The Onyx! They're going to kill me, Cinthia! Or call the cops! If the cops come, I'm done. Aunt Linda will kill me if I go back inside!"

Background noise flooded the line. Glass shattering. A woman's high-pitched, hysterical shrieking. A deep voice shouting something about security.

"Carter, slow down. The Onyx? That's a private club in Manhattan. How did you even-"

"Just come! Bring the credit card! The emergency one!"

The line went dead.

Cinthia stared at the phone. The emergency card had a limit of five hundred dollars. It was for medical emergencies for their younger brother, Casey. Not for whatever hell Carter had unleashed in a club where a glass of water cost more than her shoes.

She stood up. Her legs felt heavy, like she was wading through wet cement. She grabbed her trench coat from the hook-the beige one with the missing button she had been meaning to sew back on for three months.

She ran out the door, her sneakers squeaking on the linoleum. In the hallway, she nearly tripped over a bag of trash a neighbor had left out. The smell of rotting banana peels and stale beer hit her, grounding her in the reality of her life.

She couldn't let Carter go to jail. Not because he didn't deserve it-God knew he did-but because if he went to jail, the debt collectors would turn their full attention to her and Aunt Linda. And Aunt Linda didn't handle stress well. She handled it with screaming matches and thrown plates.

Cinthia hailed a cab on the corner.