The Femme Fatale's Transit Love Game

Luna

I was sitting on the windowsill that morning.

The air outside smelled the way it always did — iron and slag, that heavy mineral stench that clung to everything in Greycliff. But the smoke was different that day.

A column of black rose from the direction of the Black Ridge Mountains. Too black, too thick, like something had burned straight through from the inside and was forcing its way out.

I stared at it for a while. Didn't think much of it.

Then Ivy came pounding on the door.

She was five, two years younger than me, snot and tears smeared all over her face, her voice already wrecked from crying, her whole body thrown against our front door. "Luna — my dad didn't come home, my mom said the mine collapsed —"

I jumped down from the windowsill, stood in the doorway, and called back into the house: "Mom. The mine collapsed."

My voice was flat. Because I didn't know yet what "collapsed" meant.

The town went to pieces fast.

The miners' families gathered on their own outside the iron gate of the Vane family's mine site. More and more people kept showing up — crying, shouting, asking questions — all of it tangled together into one giant mess that no one could pull apart.

The mine's safety supervisor came out. He stood on the front steps, held up a megaphone, and read a few lines: "Rescue efforts are fully underway." "Please remain calm." "Families will be notified as soon as there are updates." Then he turned around and went back inside, and the iron gate locked again behind him.

Just like that.

Mom didn't say anything.

She stood at the back of the crowd, one hand gripping my wrist, the other pressed flat against her stomach, like she was holding something down, keeping it from getting out.

I felt her hand shaking.

That was the first time I understood that adults could be scared too.

Three days later, an official notice went up on the township bulletin board—— eleven miners had died in the incident, classified as "an accidental collapse caused by natural geological shifts."

The Vane family would provide one-time compensation to the families in accordance with regulations.

Eleven people. Eleven families.

That night, some of the houses in town didn't turn their lights on.

The day the compensation figure was announced, I followed Mom to the mine's administrative building.

I didn't understand what the number meant.

But I watched my dad's closest friend — the uncle who lived next door to us — hold that piece of paper with shaking hands until it crinkled, his lips moving several times without making a sound.

He just stared at those figures with an expression I had never seen on anyone's face before. For a long time. A very long time.

Mom brought me inside and found the man in charge of the mine site. His name was Crane — middle-aged, shoes polished to a hard shine, holding a teacup, sitting back in his chair. He didn't look up.

"What do you want."

"Sir." Mom's voice was quiet, but steady. "My husband, Silas Asher, was one of the men in the accident. I wanted to ask how the compensation amount was calculated, and whether there's any possibility of —"

"Standard rate." Crane cut her off, set down his teacup, and turned a page on his desk. "Implemented in accordance with Article 17 of the Federal Labor Code. Completely legal."

"But this amount isn't even enough to cover the funeral —"

"Ma'am." He finally looked up and glanced at my mother.

I remember that look clearly. Like she was something in his way.

His voice was ice.

"This is not a problem you're going to solve by coming here. If you have any objections, pursue legal channels."

"Legal channels?"

Mom's voice started to shake.

"I work in a textile mill. Where am I supposed to find a lawyer? He died in your mine — you call it an accident and that's it, you don't even owe us an explanation?"

Crane looked back down at his papers and waved one hand toward the side of the room.

Two men in uniforms stepped away from the door and took Mom by the arms, one on each side, and started dragging her out.

Mom fought back, her heels scraping against the floor, twisting around, still trying to speak — then one of the men lost patience and shoved her hard.

She slammed into the iron railing in the hallway. A dull, heavy sound.

Her whole body folded forward, and she grabbed the railing with both hands and held on so she wouldn't go down.

I ran at them.

"You're horrible people! Don't you touch my mom!"

I sank my teeth into that man's forearm and bit down as hard as I could.

A slap came fast and hard across my face.

I hit the floor. My cheek pressed against the cold terrazzo tile.

There was a ringing inside my ears, like someone was speaking from very far away, or like something had shattered — broken so completely it could never be put back together.

I didn't cry.

I lay there for one second, then pushed my hands against the floor and slowly sat up.

The man who had hit me had already turned back toward Crane. "Director, they're cleared out."

Nobody looked at me.

This left no trace anywhere.

News of the mine disaster appeared briefly in a few outlets beyond Greyridge, then vanished within two days.

The only thing left in the search results was the Vane family's official statement: "Actively responding, handled in full accordance with the law."

Mom's bruised ribs — cracked from being slammed into that railing — were never documented by any office, any agency, anyone.

Someone in town talked about organizing a petition. The letter got written. Nobody was willing to be the first to sign.

And that was the end of it. Clean and complete, like dropping a stone into still water and watching the surface go smooth again.

That evening, Mom came home from the textile mill with heavy steps and something in her eyes I couldn't name back then.

I ran over and grabbed the hem of her shirt, tilting my head up to look at her. "Mom, when is Dad coming home?"

She was quiet for so long I thought she hadn't heard me.

Then she crouched down and smiled at me — I've thought about that smile for many years since, and I still don't understand how a person can look that tired and still smile that gently.

"Luna," she said. "Dad went somewhere very far away. As long as you eat all your food, he'll come back."

I believed her.

I really believed her.

After that I stopped being picky about food.

I cleaned my bowl every single meal. And then I'd drag half a small stool out to sit by the front door and wait for him.

Waiting and waiting and waiting.

Every time I heard something moving outside, I'd look up — a neighbor, the wind, Ivy running over to play. Never him.

I didn't know what "dead" meant. Nobody told me.

It was only much later that I finally understood.

Dad was never coming back.