One, two. One, two. One, two. Left jab, right hook. Left jab, right hook. Distract, stagger, bust out the knife. Many idiots wanting to get into fist fights against someone smaller than them, but not even the psychos want to punch against a knife, even against someone half their size.

One, two. One, two. One,

Riley snapped to the side halfway through her punch, noticing some motion in the corner of her eye, reaching over to her switchblade at the-

Nothing. There was nothing there. Again.

She punched the bag with all her strength in anger, the half frozen pleather flaking just a bit more in return, the whole thing barely even bulging, before sitting down against the wall of the concrete alcove, looking out at the orphanage's courtyard, a layer of fresh snow accumulating on the muddy dirt.

Of course, this prestigious institution wasn't "an orphanage", as the administration constantly reminded both the kids living in there and the prospective parents. It was, of course, the "Oakwood Child Care Center", or something to that effect.

Even trying to recall it made Riley gag at the pretense of it all.

"Child fucking Care center my ass..." She muttered to herself as she watched the pearly snow slowly accumulate, hidden in the small alcove. The name was even more bitterly ironic in that it didn't just not care about its occupants, cracked walls and broken armature being proof of that plenty.

It was, more than anything, a house for children that *nobody* cared about, in all meanings of the word.

Not even themselves.

A loud noise interrupted her brooding as a wolf boy was thrown onto the snow from a doorway opposite to her, yielping in pain, followed up by the teen hunk of a human walking out, looking mighty pissed at him.

"Come on fur rug, where's my fucking money~" He harassed, stomping on the boy's back, pushing his head even deeper into the snow.

Riley stood up and approached the two, readying the switchblade in her pocket as she neared the bully.

"Fuck off Bruce." She barked at the human, interrupting his punishment and making him laugh.

"Or *what*, chickpea? You're gonna tickle me to-" He taunted, his expression quickly washing from his mug as Riley showed off her knife, going from cruelly joyful to frustrated.

"Don't make me repeat myself." Riley responded grimly, knife ready to stab, and stab to injure.

"I'm gotta get him one day either way, gonna skin his furry ass and splay it in front of this place, and then do the same to you if you keep getting in my way." He threatened as he backed off, walking backwards, keeping his eyes on Riley's knife.

"You're too dumb to make out an ass from a face anyway, judging by the shit you keep spewing. Out of my sight." Bruce obliged, running off into the depths of the concrete jungle of the orphanage.

Riley sighed and reached down to help the pained wolf boy up, swiping the snow from his fur and clothes as he looked up at her in disbelief, the girl looking away from him all the while, expression still locked in a snarl.

"What are you waiting here for?" She sent him off, not particularly fond of the anthro folk herself, just not too willing to become a silent accomplice to what would well have become a murder knowing that oaf.

There's enough misery around already, adding cops would've only made it worse.

She shuddered off the snow as she walked back inside, some of the cold managing to bite through her worn jacket. Great, now she had to try to find a spot on the heaters, else there was no way in hell this rag would dry on its own.

As she made her way over to the cafeteria for lunch, her steps making the tiled wood creak pitifully, she heard a gruff voice coming from its direction, sounding mighty annoyed. Probably something broke again and the fatass was trying to blame it on everyone within earshot, wouldn't be the first time.

Though, the call that she did hear clearly after she walked over closer did catch much more of her attention, Riley breaking into a sprint at the sound-

"Riley Wi-"

"PRESENT!" She called out, turning the corner into the cafeteria to see one of the admin clerks calling for her, groaning once he finally saw her.

"You are required in the headmaster's office as of half an hour ago, young lady."

Fuck.

Riley nodded and turned over in the direction of the main staircase of the building, not liking this all one thing. Administration taking interest in her, or anyone else in specific for that matter was never a good sign. Were they gonna blame something for her, finally kick her out, futilely try to ground her, maybe even threaten her with being sent to kiddy prison for the umpteenth time?

So many wonderful possibilities to choose.

Her heartbeat sped up as she scaled the well worn stairs, walking into the secretary room and knocking on the big guy's office, leering at the secretaries who crinkled their noses in her presence as she waited for a response.

I'm not the one skimping on hot water, assholes.

Few moments later the door opened before her, headmaster only managing to ask "Riley W-" before being cut off with a frustrated "Yes.". He let her in and told her to sit down, the meager padding on the chair already elevating it in quality over most of the furniture given to pupils.

"What is it?" Riley snapped out, hating having to spend any time around these self important bastards, feeling mostly mutual. Not like they could scold her for bad behaviour any more than they already have.

The headmaster huffed at her terrible manners before shaking it off, looking down at the papers on his desk.

"Riley, one of the families that had interviewed you has decided to go ahead with the adoption process."

She sat in silence for what felt like an hour, the words refusing to make sense once combined.

Adopted... her?

"We've ran the necessary background checks, we have not a single reason to believe that the family is involved in any sort of human trafficking activity, if that's what you're concerned about."

"Who are they?" Riley asked in return, trying to futilely recall all the families that had interviewed her since she's been here. After a couple failed ones she stopped paying attention to them, vast majority some upper middle class couple trying to show the world their good deed in graciously taking in one of the poor, dirty orphans. That or obvious fronts for child trafficking. Fortunately for her, neither were particularly interested in her- she always made it clear enough that she was armed and distrustful. Neither an easy prey or a sweet little angel to show off on your Facebook timeline, too young to have been left traumatized by the whole process of ending up here in the first place.

Unadoptable.

"The Asher family, they've interviewed you three months ago if I'm not mistaken. There's their photo in your case file if you need a reminder."

Riley looked over with an uneasy expression and reached over for the photo, taking a glance at-

Oh no.

She almost dropped the photo, suddenly remembering *exactly* who the Asher family were. She remembered her own surprised grimace once the couple walked into the room, black fur, white hair, and long, striped tails. Human families were shitty enough, the couple times anthro ones showed up she acted almost as shitty as she could. She remembered her hateful leer, answering their questions as curtly as she could, mostly just praying they'd sod off already.

Why them?

Why her?

"A-are you sure it's them?" Riley asked, unusually uncertain. It *couldn't* have been them. Not with the way she'd treated them.

The headmaster took one more look at the papers and nodded, as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

"I know that this is probably hard to take in Riley, especially since you've been here for over three years now, but it's true. You must have made a good impression on them!" The enthusiasm in his voice was about as real as the leather on various pieces of furniture in his office, both of them knowing that she couldn't make a good impression on anyone even if she tried.

Riiiight.

"Isn't there another interview when a family expresses interest?" Riley asked, the technical procedures mostly faded from her memory after she had accepted her fate.

"Indeed, which is what I wanted to inform you of as well. Does tomorrow at 12PM sound okay?" He asked rhetorically as he neatly collected the assorted papers- not like she had anywhere else to be at that time of the day after all.

"Sure..." She paid half mind to the actual hour, the mere fact that she'd have to face them again made her stomach churn. How could she face them again? How could *they* face her again? The thought made her feel unwell as she left the office, guilt of her actions feeling like it would tear her stomach apart.

She skipped lunch, going back into her room as she struggled to process the whole situation. None of it made sense, her past actions weighing on her thoughts, suffocating her from the inside. She went through whatever she still remembered from the original interview, running the footage over and over through her mind's eye, searching for... something. Some action, gesture, be it from them or her, that would make it all make a scrap of a sense.

Nothing, nothing did. She tossed in her bed for the rest of the afternoon, almost skipping dinner, desperately struggling to make out the one piece that would make it all... logical. Even somewhat coherent. After having some canned soup she went back onto the courtyard to take in some fresh air, sparring some more with the boxing bag decorating its corner. Snow had thankfully left her alone in the dark for once, the small plaza only dimly illuminated by the faint light coming from the windows above. She kept punching and punching, giving it her all, faster and faster, trying to distract her mind from the constant torrent of her own ruminations, lest devour her whole.

Her meditative session was stopped abruptly once she felt a sudden pain in her side after a particularly strong punch had narrowly missed the bag, straining something in her side. Guess that was as good as a sign to get some rest as any other.

With one more jab hitting the center of the bag for good measure, she headed back into the slightly warmer building and to her room, grabbing some clothes to change into before she made her way towards the showers, steeling herself in anticipation of the wonders of barely lukewarm water and shower gel that was indistinguishable from repackaged hand soap.

At least the individual stalls had doors with locks on them.

The cold water slowed her racing mind as it cleansed her body, offering some very welcome reprieve. Riley tried to go over the whole thing one more time, hoping that maybe this time she'd see... well, whatever the family saw in her in order to make their decision. Guess her gender did her some favors, not many people who haven't had a direct experience with places like this one would believe that girls could be just as vicious as boys, if not more so. At fifteen, almost sixteen she was way past the prime adoption age, but at least she didn't need to be taught everything from the ground up?

Aside from that... nothing. If anything, she hoped that tomorrow's interview would elucidate it somewhat. But that was tomorrow. And right now, it was time to rinse off and stop hogging the stall, someone was knocking on the door in annoyance.

A few minutes later, she was on her way back to her bunk, dripping hair leaving a wet trail behind her. There really wasn't much of a point in staying up any longer, not while so damp anyway. Tomorrow would be an important day, least she could do is stop torturing herself with what-ifs, quickly sliding into her sleeping bag and dozing off, facing the wall.

She'd preferred not staying awake in this place for any longer than she had to.

***

Riley's dreams were... unclear at best. Hazy blobs of color dancing without any rhyme or reason, occasionally spliced with the most random, pointless stimuli. Cartoon characters she saw once almost a decade ago? All the time. A jingle overheard on the radio? Way, way too often. Any people or concepts relevant to anything that was happening in the waking world? Forget about it.

The closest her brain came that night to a coherent image were black and white circles spinning around the camera, laughing at her.

Thanks, brain.

***

She awoke with a start, reaching for her knife before she could even comprehend what was going on. She looked around in panic for the threat, only seeing other girls in their beds, most similarly startled. A few moments later her brain had finally caught up with her body, turning off the mental alarm with *"Someone just broke a window two floors down, go back to sleep you idiot, it's still very dark outside"*.

After looking around for few more moments to really make sure she was safe, she laid her head back on the pillow, sliding her switchblade back underneath it. Any further attempts to get some more shuteye were refused by her brain, which immediately navigated over to the doubts about tomorrow's- well, now today's interview, redoubling them the second she felt safe-ish again. It was like trying to swat away a cloud of mosquitos with just your hands, buggers just kept coming, any thought she'd managed to push out of her conscious would only be replaced by one just as anxiety inducing.

An exhausting half an hour later she'd given up, groaning into her pillow before she begrudgingly got up, putting on her jacket and sneakers, looking out the barely lit window, thankfully not spotting any fresh snowfall.

She quietly ran downstairs, knocking on the doorkeeper's booth to be let out. Technically pupils weren't allowed outside on their own without supervision... but in practice as long you looked like you could take care of yourself the doorkeeper would let you out, after all some more prospective kids wanted to earn some on the side so they wouldn't be completely fucked once their time came.

With a groan he opened the front door, Riley responding with a nod as she pulled the hood over her head and lifted the collar to cover her mouth. The mid-December greeted her with a freezing embrace, biting cold air coupled with barely any light of very early morning making for a desolate, unwelcoming atmosphere.

Ironically enough, this is where Riley preferred to be. Desolation also meant nobody else would be around to disturb or harass her, after all.

After briefly taking in the scenery, she turned left and headed down the narrow sidewalk, thankfully spotting nobody in sight. After a couple minutes, she took a sharp turn into the surrounding woods, the dirt path clear enough to follow despite the snow. In not too long she had arrived at her destination, a small clearing with a half-built playground in its center, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

From what she'd gathered, the county was predicting a population boom in the area in the nineties, and wanted to cash in on gen X-ers trying to settle down away from a large city. Needless to say, nothing like that happened, millions in investment lost due to a mayor's greedy leap onto an economist's hunch. On the opposite side to where she came from there were still some unfinished concrete ruins of a daycare center, meant to be connected to the main street with a small paved road, most of it swallowed by overgrowth since then.

The playground was one of the few mostly completed parts of the whole undertaking before the deal fell through however, and its seclusion did wonders for Riley's psyche every time her own brain was threatening to beat her unconscious with anxiety.

She swiped the dry snow from the swing and sat down, quickly gaining height as the morning air filled her body with resolve.

She could do it, no matter what weirdness the interview would throw at her, she COULD do it. She WOULD strut in and start asking questions and demanding answers. She WOULD be in control. She WOULD-

She would fly through the air after not noticing a thin layer of ice on the swing seat, making her slip off mid swing.

A foot or so of snow had thankfully softened the impact enough to not significantly harm her, but the pain still made her gasp. After a few seconds of grunting and trying to catch her breath, she slowly got back up, her leg hurting something fierce. Must've landed on it, fuck. The sheer cold had numbed some of the pain, and much to her chagrin, quite a bit of her good leg as well.

She wiped the snow from her face and jacket, slowly limping back to the orphanage, thinking on how she'd handle this, and whether she could at least take care of the pain in the rest of her body. The last thing she wanted is to look weak and beaten up on her interview.

The short path felt impossibly long when every other step resulted in a painful wince. She had to slow down even further as she felt a layer of ice under the snow with her good leg, forcing her to walk along the path but not on it. And then it started snowing again.

Wonderful.

Half an hour later she'd finally managed to stagger her way back to the orphanage, the doorkeeper shooting her a concerned look once she walked inside. "I'll be fine." She shrugged it off as she walked on towards the cafeteria, bruised and hungry.

She'd just managed to come in time for the last serving of breakfast, a bowl of warm, barely sweetened porridge. She sat down in the corner, making sure nobody still around was looking too closely at her as she ate. Fortunately, most of the kids still around were more concerned with reading some books, leaving her effectively alone.

The best that she could say about the soggy mess is that it was edible without too much trouble, as opposed to some of the cheaper dinners they liked to dish out. Or worse yet, meats. As she ate, she peered up at the clock hung above the food disposal counter, reading a few past eight. She cleaned the bowl and handed it back, the questionable breakfast restoring some of her strength even if her tongue was left disappointed. Most of her roommates were away in class, giving her some needed privacy as she scrambled back into her room to inspect the extent of her injuries.

A hand sized bruise on her thigh worried her a bit, but other than that she seemed to be otherwise fine if sore. Thank goodness.

With some time left until the interview she laid down on her bed, pulling on some more clothes to try to warm her extremities up, ending up wearing her entire wardrobe just to warm up, heh. Heh...

With an exasperated sigh she pulled up the cheap puzzle booklet from under her mattress. Worn down and mostly solved as it was, the stuff that was still left was enough to provide some enjoyment at least, and if not that, then at least a distraction.

The warmth and comfort, combined with the exhaustion have made her drowsy, knocking her out before she could reign herself in...

***

"Riley, Riley!"

She gasped awake on hearing her name, one of her roommates standing a few feet away from her, calling her over.

"What's going-"

"The admin has been looking for you!"

Fuck.

"What time is it?" She spat out as she quickly put on her sneakers, sliding into her half dried jacket and heading outside.

"Ten past twelve!"

FUCK.

She ran upstairs, much to her leg's dismay as the once dulled pain was brought back to life. She could take care of that after the fact however, sprinting up the last flight of stairs and bursting into the interview room, out of breath.

"Riley Williams! What do you think you're doing, spitting at the face of a prospective parent like that!?"

*"One more word and I'm gonna spit at your face, pencil dick..."* She thought as she regained her breath and posture, looking around the room, quickly noticing Mr. Asher calmly sitting in the corner, looking up mildly surprised at the fuming vice-headmaster berating her.

"Don't even try to defend yourself young lady. You've wasted enough of Mr. Asher's time, at least try to pay some respect to him!" He spat out as he closed the room behind himself, Riley following him out with a middle finger as she sat down, the skunk reacting with a muted chuckle.

---