Chapter Two — The Orphan's Oath
1319 Words
The cold morning sunlight streamed through the cracked kitchen window, catching on the steam rising from a chipped mug of burnt coffee. Kara sat cross-legged on the floor, back pressed to the peeling wall, her knee bouncing with restless energy. She could feel the minutes slipping away — each one pushing her closer to the marble gates of the Finn Mansion.
Bella balanced on the counter, humming off-key as she stirred the last of their eggs in a battered pan. The smell of overcooked yolk turned Kara’s stomach, but she forced herself to inhale it. They’d shared worse meals.
“Aria!” Bella barked, voice sharp but laced with warmth. “Quit fussing and get your ass out here. Kara’s gonna be late if you don’t deliver that saintly pep talk you’ve been practicing in the mirror.”
“I don’t practice pep talks,” Aria called from their tiny bathroom — then she appeared in the doorway, her damp hair curling around her shoulders, glasses slipping down her nose. She held up Kara’s only decent blouse like it was spun gold. “And it’s not a pep talk. It’s a reminder that you can do this — and that you’re not allowed to mouth off.”
Kara rolled her eyes, smirking. “No promises.”
Aria flicked her forehead — a light, familiar reprimand that pulled Kara straight back to their teenage nights in the crumbling orphanage on the edge of Naples. Kara winced, then barked out a laugh. It felt good — raw and real, cutting through the tightness in her chest.
She let her eyes wander around the room — the sagging couch draped in thrifted blankets, the flickering single bulb above, the milk crates stacked with mismatched mugs and dented pans. Cracks snaked up the plaster like old scars. But under this roof, they’d built something real. Family.
Aria crouched in front of her, gently smoothing the blouse across Kara’s shoulders. “You’re brave. And you’re the best cook in Berlin, I swear. They’d be idiots not to hire you.”
Bella scraped rubbery eggs onto three chipped plates, muttering, “If they don’t, she’ll burn the mansion down before breakfast.”
Kara snorted. “Tempting.”
She dug her fork into the eggs, chewing with grim resolve. The cold toast scraped her throat, the coffee was bitter sludge — but the warmth in this room was worth more than the gold leaf she’d seen on the cathedral domes of Naples. She touched the little silver moon charm that hung at her throat — the one Bella had found in that dusty secondhand shop right after they landed in Berlin. They’d sworn it was their lucky piece, their promise that they’d never be alone again.
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Her mind drifted, unbidden, to that frozen night five years ago — back when they were eighteen, huddled on the concrete steps behind the orphanage. Rain had dripped through a hole in the roof, soaking their beds. The stale bread they’d stolen from the convent’s bins was their dinner. Kara had tried to ignore the gnawing in her stomach — until Aria pressed half a soggy sandwich into her palm.
“Family isn’t blood,” Aria had whispered then, thunder cracking over the dark sea. “It’s who stays when everyone else leaves.”
They’d tried to stay — tried to build something from scraps and half-promises in the back alleys of Naples. Kara had scrubbed floors in dingy hostels while Bella bussed tables in a bar that reeked of cheap wine and old men’s hands. Aria folded laundry for the nuns who turned away when they saw the bruises on her arms.
One night, Bella had crashed through their apartment door, hair dripping rainwater onto the cracked linoleum. Her blue eyes had been wild with something that looked like hope.
“We’ll rot here,” she’d hissed. “We’ll die here. I met a truck driver — says Germany’s better. More work. Decent pay. If we stay, we’re just bodies waiting to be buried.”
Aria had cried. Kara hadn’t. She’d looked at the mold creeping up the walls, the rats that left droppings in their shoes, and she’d seen their future — buried alive by poverty no one would ever bother to grieve.
So they’d run. No plan, no real money. Just the coins Aria had hidden under a loose floorboard and the ragged backpack Bella kept stuffed with their most precious thing: each other.
A bus to Milan. A cargo truck to Berlin, wedged between crates of cabbage that stank of soil and diesel. Nights shivering under threadbare coats, whispering dreams into the frozen darkness — dreams of hot meals and locked doors that kept monsters out.
When they’d stumbled off that truck, Kara had made a promise to the moon hanging pale above the Berlin rooftops: No one would ever own them again. They’d never beg. They’d never starve.
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“Kara?” Aria’s soft voice tugged her back to the crumbling kitchen. Kara blinked, the memory fading like smoke.
“You spaced out,” Aria said, smoothing a wrinkle on the blouse again. “Thinking about Naples?”
“Thinking about why I can’t fail,” Kara said, her throat tight. She forced herself to stand, rolling her shoulders back. “This job — it has to be the thing that keeps us off those steps again.”
Bella jumped down from the counter and slammed her mug onto the crate they used as a table. “And if that cold bastard turns you away, you punch him in his smug face.”
“Bella!” Aria squeaked. “She’ll do it!”
Kara grinned — her sharp, crooked grin that had made more than one drunk creep back down in a dark alley. “If he tries to treat me like trash, maybe I will.”
She grabbed her battered backpack from the hook by the door, stuffing the blouse inside with care. She could feel the weight of the silver moon charm pressing warm against her skin. It felt heavier today — like an oath she couldn’t afford to break.
“You’ve got that look again,” Bella teased, pulling her in by the elbow. She pressed their foreheads together, her breath warm, eyes blazing. “You look like the girl who jumped a fence with bare feet and stole dinner from a priest.”
Kara snorted, hugging her tight. “Different fence. Bigger prize.”
Aria wrapped her arms around both of them, her voice muffled by Kara’s hair. “Come back with good news. Or at least don’t get arrested.”
They pulled back, three mismatched girls standing shoulder to shoulder in a crumbling Berlin flat — no blood ties, but family all the same.
Kara set her jaw as she stepped into the dingy hallway. The landlord’s threats still echoed in the stained carpet and creaking pipes. She could feel the ghosts of their old life clawing at her heels — Naples, hunger, cold steps in the rain.
Not this time.
She squared her shoulders, boots thudding down the stairs like a promise. At the front door, she paused, glancing at the grey sky outside. The Finn Mansion loomed in her mind — that fortress on the hill, its secrets locked behind iron gates and whispered rumors.
They said it was haunted. They said the man inside could see right through you — could break you with a word.
Kara Armani didn’t care.
She’d faced worse monsters than Wilhelm Finn. And if his mansion tried to swallow her whole, she’d tear down every gilded wall until she had what she came for.
For Aria. For Bella. For every night they’d starved so they could keep each other alive.
She stepped out into the cold, chin lifted high.
This time, Kara vowed to the dawn, I’m not coming back empty-handed.
- Writer
