SUGAR BABY

Chapter:1 The eviction

The afternoon heat hung thick in the air, but Glory walked with a light step. For the first time in six months—since the devastating car crash that took her parents—she felt a flicker of hope. She had aced her final high school exams, and her mind was already spinning with plans. She would secure a part-time job at the local diner, save every penny, and finally buy the specialized medical equipment her younger sister, Hope, needed.

As she rounded the corner onto her street, her cheerful thoughts evaporated.

A battered black van was parked crookedly across her front lawn. Heavy plastic bags and scattered cardboard boxes littered the patchy grass. Glory’s heart plummeted into her throat. She recognized the faded blue suitcase cracked open near the porch—it was her mother’s.

"Let go of me! Please!"

The terrified scream shattered the quiet neighbourhood. Glory dropped her backpack and sprinted toward the house, her lungs burning.

"Hope!"

On the porch, two burly men in leather jackets were dragging eighteen-year-old. Hope down the wooden steps. Hope’s thin frame trembled wildly, her school uniform torn at the shoulder. Her face was slick with sweat, her lips turning a faint, alarming shade of blue—a clear sign that her chronic heart condition was flaring up under the stress. A third man stood by the front door, casually snapping a heavy padlock onto the latch.

"Get your hands off her!" Glory screamed, hurling herself onto the porch. She grabbed the wrist of the man holding Hope’s arm, digging her nails into his skin.

The man barely grunted. With a dismissive flick of his arm, he shoved Glory backwards. Her heels caught on the top step, and she tumbled down, landing hard on the gravel driveway. Pain shot up her elbows, but she ignored it, scrambling right back to her feet to throw her body protectively over Hope.

"Touch her again, and I’ll kill you," Glory hissed, her chest heaving as she held her shivering sister tight. Hope collapsed into Glory's lap, clutching her chest and gasping for air. "This is private property! Get off our land!"

"Was private property, little girl," the man at the door said, stepping down the stairs. He was older, with a jagged scar running along his jawline. He reached into his coat, pulled out a folded sheaf of papers, and tossed them onto Glory’s lap. "Your dead beat parents signed this six months ago. Fifty thousand dollars, secured against the deed of this house, to pay for your sister's emergency heart surgery."

Glory stared at the papers, her eyes racing over the legal jargon until they hit the bottom line. There, in faded ink, were her mother’s shaky cursive and her father’s firm signature.

"No..." Glory whispered, her voice cracking. "No, they never told me..."

"Why would they?" The scarred man sneered. "They took money from people you don't mess with. No payments have been made since the accident. The interest accrued, the deadline passed, and now the boss owns this dirt. You have five minutes to take her medication and clear off."

"Please," Glory begged, tears finally spilling over her lashes as she looked at Hope, who was hyperventilating. "She's sick! She can't be out in the cold. Give us a week. A few days! I'll find the money—"

"You've got four minutes," the man interrupted coldly, turning back to the van. "Leave, or we haul you both to the precinct for trespassing."

Ten minutes later, the iron gates were locked, and the van drove off, leaving a cloud of exhaust behind.

Glory sat on the dusty sidewalk, surrounded by three garbage bags filled with their clothes. Night fell fast, bringing a biting chill that seeped through her thin jacket. Beside her, Hope was curled into a ball, clutching her empty pill bottle.

"Glory..." Hope whimpered, her voice barely a breath. "It hurts. My chest..."

Glory checked her bank app on her cracked phone screen.

Available Balance: $42.15.

Hope’s heart medication refill costs two hundred dollars. They had no home, no relatives, no food, and no money. Desperation, sharp and dark, clawed at Glory’s throat. She pulled Hope to her feet, slinging her sister’s arm over her shoulder, and grabbed the heaviest plastic bag.

"Come on, Hope," Glory whispered, fighting back a sob. "We have to keep moving."

Blinded by tears and suffocated by the crushing weight of her reality, Glory stepped off the curb into the pitch-black street, her mind completely numb—failing to notice the pair of blinding high-beams rounding the corner at lethal speed.