The doctor did not ask Samuel to sit.
He stepped into the corridor as if he had already been there for hours, mask loosened, eyes dulled by repetition. His coat bore faint creases at the elbows, the kind that came from leaning against counters while delivering news that never landed softly.
"Your mother is in liver failure," he said.
Samuel stared at his mouth, waiting for the sentence to continue. For a condition to follow. A solution. Something actionable.
"She needs a transplant urgently."
The word *urgently* hung there, unfinished. Samuel nodded, not because he understood, but because silence felt like an accusation.
The doctor kept speaking. He talked about damage, about alcohol, about how far gone it was. He mentioned monitoring, machines, stabilization. Then the numbers came, stripped of sympathy.
Roughly three thousand ballands a day.
Just to keep her alive.
Samuel thanked him. He did not remember deciding to.
---
He left the hospital before the sun had fully climbed. The automatic doors parted and released him into a morning that looked ordinary enough to be insulting. Traffic crawled. Vendors arranged their tables. Somewhere nearby, a radio played a song he recognized without knowing the words.
His body moved while his mind lagged behind.
He walked until the streets shifted from clean to familiar. Only when he saw Tomas did he realize where his feet had taken him.
Tomas was leaning against the wall where deals were usually discussed in half-sentences. He was laughing at something someone said, but the sound died as soon as he saw Samuel's face.
"Sam?" Tomas said. "What's wrong?"
Samuel opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He tried again and felt his throat close around his mother's name.
Tomas stepped closer. He didn't touch him. Just waited.
"She's dying," Samuel said finally. "They said her liver's finished."
Tomas did not interrupt. He let the words spill out in fragments. Hospital. Machines. Money.
"How much?" Tomas asked.
"Three thousand a day."
Tomas exhaled slowly, as if trying not to frighten him. "That's—"
"I know."
Samuel looked past him, at the street, at the people moving with purpose. None of them knew what had just been said. None of them needed to.
"I need work," Samuel said.
Tomas frowned. "You just got back."
"I need more than before."
---
That evening, Samuel returned to the hospital smelling faintly of the street despite scrubbing his hands raw in the sink outside the ward. He sat beside his mother and talked because silence felt dangerous.
He told her he was handling things. That he had people. That she just needed to hold on.
Her eyes stayed closed.
The machines did the breathing for her.
---
By the second day, he was asking questions that made Tomas uncomfortable.
What paid fastest. What paid better. What involved fewer people.
"You don't want those jobs," Tomas said.
"I don't get to want," Samuel replied.
Tomas studied him carefully. "Those jobs come with attention."
"So does death," Samuel said, and that ended the conversation.
---
Doctors came and went. Some explained things gently. Others spoke as if Samuel were furniture.
He asked about donating.
They asked his age.
Seventeen.
They asked about blood type.
Incompatible.
They asked if there were other family members.
There weren't.
That door closed quietly, but Samuel kept staring at it anyway. He asked about private options. About people who didn't wait for paperwork.
The doctors stopped meeting his eyes.
---
By midweek, Samuel stopped going home.
He slept where he fell, woke when Tomas shook him, moved through deals like he had been doing this forever. The money came faster now, dirtier. His hands learned new routines.
He went to the hospital every night. Sat beside his mother. Watched the numbers on the screens rise and fall with a logic that felt cruel.
Three thousand a day swallowed everything.
The bills arrived folded neatly, as if politeness mattered.
---
On the fourth day, she woke.
Her eyes fluttered open and fixed on him like she was seeing him through water. Her lips moved.
Samuel leaned in.
"I'm here," he said. "I've got it. You just rest."
She did not answer. Her gaze slipped away again.
That night, Tomas offered him something bigger.
Samuel accepted before hearing the details.
---
The work got heavier.
Samuel stopped asking questions. He stopped hesitating. He started showing up early, pushing for more, volunteering for things Tomas avoided describing.
"You're burning yourself," Tomas told him once.
"I'll rest later," Samuel said.
"When?"
"When she's breathing without machines."
---
By the sixth day, Samuel was talking about buying a liver.
Tomas stared at him. "You can't just—"
"I can find someone," Samuel said. "There has to be a way."
"That's not how this works."
Samuel laughed, short and sharp. "Nothing about this is how it's supposed to work."
---
He skipped the hospital that night.
Not because he didn't care — because the job couldn't wait. Because three thousand ballands didn't pause for grief.
They were on the street when his phone rang.
The hospital number.
Samuel answered immediately.
"Yes," he said.
There was a pause on the line. A breath.
"I'm sorry," the woman said carefully. "Your mother passed away a few minutes ago."
Samuel did not respond.
The phone slid from his fingers and struck the pavement with a sharp crack.
Tomas turned. "Sam—what happened?"
Samuel stared at the broken screen. His mouth opened once, twice, before sound finally escaped him.
"She's gone."
His knees gave way. He folded forward, hands braced uselessly against the concrete as the sound tore out of him — rough, uncontrolled, nothing held back.
Tomas caught him, swearing under his breath, pulling him upright as Samuel shook violently.
"She's gone," Samuel said again, the words breaking apart in his mouth.
The street kept moving.
And Samuel did not.