I had six days to save my future, almost no money to do it, and a family that wanted me to fail.

By Thursday morning—thirty-six hours before the Friday evening showcase—the dress was eighty percent complete.

It was terrifying.

Suspended from Leo’s heavy engine hoist, the gown looked alive. The wine-red satin didn't drape; it curved with predatory precision. The leather from my mother’s old jacket had been sliced into razor-thin strips, braided with brass wire, and woven into an asymmetrical spine that wrapped from the right shoulder down through the left hip, creating a shimmering, metallic exoskeleton that cinched the waist to eighteen inches while providing rigid, structural support.

The skirt, held wide by the stiffened industrial hemp, looked like a blooming nightshade flower frozen in bronze.

“You need a model,” Leo said, setting a carton of lukewarm takeout rice between us on the worktable. “You can’t walk this yourself. You’re five-foot-four and your hands look like you’ve been bare-knuckle boxing in a railyard. The competition requires a model with at least a thirty-four-inch inseam to showcase that hemline sweep.”

My stomach tightened. “I hired Maya Campbell from the community college theater department. I paid her thirty dollars down, and she gets the rest after the walk.”

“Maya Campbell?” Leo’s eyes narrowed. “The girl whose mother does Vanessa’s bookkeeping?”

My spoon stopped halfway to my mouth. “What?”

“Maya’s mother, Brenda Campbell. She works for the real estate firm Vanessa’s family owns. You didn't check?”

Before I could answer, my cracked phone—which I had plugged into an outlet by the tool bench—began to vibrate furiously. A text message from Maya popped up on the screen:

*“Nia, I’m so sorry. I can’t do Friday. Mr. Thorne’s office called my mom this morning and offered me an exclusive spot walking for Brianna Carter’s presentation. They said it would guarantee me agency representation. I can’t turn this down. Please don't be mad.”*

I stared at the illuminated text until the screen went black.

“They took her,” I whispered.

“Of course they took her,” Leo said without looking up from his rice. “Vanessa isn't stupid. She’s been tracking who you talk to. She knows this competition is your only exit ticket. She doesn't just want to beat you, Nia. She wants to ensure you don't even step into the building. A disqualified entrant can’t file an intellectual property contest against another contestant.”

That was the trap.

If I didn't have a model registered by 5:00 PM today, my registration was voided. Brianna would walk unchallenged, the sapphire gown would win the Parsons scholarship, and my formal complaint would be thrown out as the bitter slander of a no-show.

“I’ll wear it,” I said, standing up.

“You’re too short,” Leo said flatly. “The proportions will be compressed. The judges will call it costume, not couture. You need height, you need stride, and you need someone who isn't afraid of four pounds of industrial wire pressing against their ribcage.”

“Then who?” I shouted, my voice bouncing off the metal walls of the garage. “I don't have money to hire an agency girl! I have six dollars left! Look at me, Leo! Who the hell is going to walk for me?”

The side door of the garage creaked open.

Standing in the frame, silhouetted against the blinding afternoon sun, was a girl with an angular, striking jawline, skin the color of dark roast coffee, and legs that seemed to go on for miles. She wore a stained mechanic’s jumpsuit with the sleeves rolled up, her short-cropped natural hair dusted with dry-wall powder.

It was Simone.

Simone Vance, Leo’s younger sister, who had vanished from the local scene three years ago after being blacklisted from the regional circuit for calling out a prominent southern judge who had made inappropriate advances toward teenage runway entrants.

She was six-foot-one in her bare feet.

Simone looked at me, then her gaze drifted up to the engine hoist where the wine-red gown hung like a hung executioner’s blade.

Her eyes lit up with something cold, ancient, and feral.

“That thing,” Simone said, her voice a deep, resonant cello note, “is the ugliest, most violent piece of art I have ever seen in this county.”

She kicked her work boots off, stepped onto the concrete, and looked down at me.