Family Line // B. Wayne

six

With one hand carrying Kallie's duffle bag, Lily extracted the one hundred dollar bill from her pocket and held it out over the counter. Mr. Ahmad narrowed his eyes at the paper in her hand and Lily rolled her eyes with a grin.

"C'mon, it's legit," she said. "Have I ever lied to you?"

"No," the older man groused. "But you never know around here."

Lily scoffed. "I've been coming here for the past five years and haven't changed my order once. If that ain't the sign of a loyal customer, then I don't know what is."

Mr. Ahmad grinned and took it from her. He quickly cashed out the seventy five dollars worth of change and laid it in her palm. Lily folded the stack in half and tucked it neatly into the tip jar on the counter with a pleased grin. His eyes widened and he gaped at her.

"Absolutely not. Take this back. I can't accept this," he stammered out. He yanked the change out of the jar and held it out to her with shaking hands but Lily merely shook her head and folded his fingers over the bills.

"You deserve it. I know you've been saving up for your daughter's wedding. Consider it a gift."

"Thank you, Lily." Mr. Ahmad brushed a stray tear away and waved her out. "Shoo. You girls need to go home and eat. You're getting too skinny. And rest. That's an order."

Lily knew the old curmudgeon was really a teddy bear underneath. When she appeared in front of his store at nineteen, newly moved in across the street and practically skin and bones, he instantly decided to care for her. She winked at him before she grabbed the bag full of take out containers and joined Kallie at the door.

"See you later, Mr. Ahmad," Lily called as they left. They crossed the street and Lily tugged her keys out of her pocket after lifting the duffle bag onto her shoulder. She pushed open the door to the stairs for Kallie and followed her in, letting the door fall shut to lock automatically behind them. Lily's apartment was on the sixth floor and the elevator only worked on good days so they had a trek ahead of them.

When they finally reached Lily's apartment, she led Kallie in and directed her to her bedroom. "I'll take the couch."

Kallie looked like she wanted to argue, but the pointed look Lily shot her way was enough to get her to agree. The russet skinned woman headed down the hall with her bags as Lily set up their food on the teetering coffee table. It was really just a thick piece of cardboard on top of two boxes, but they still considered it to be a coffee table.

"Chicken shawarma lunch special, hummus, falafel, an extra side of lentil soup, and the ol' softy added two pieces of baklava," she said aloud. "I swear he adds extra servings too. He thinks I'm withering away."

"Probably looked it too," Kallie replied as she came back into the living room. She had changed out of her work clothes and into sweats and a t-shirt. Her dark braids were pulled away from her face, half in a top knot and half trailing down her back. Lily waved her hand at the food to indicate that she could dive in while she went to change out of her own dress.

Kallie knew about Lily's past. She had been over to her apartment many times and didn't blink at the sight of a cockroach scurrying across the aged wooden floors. She did, however, flinch when Lily appeared from the kitchen with a newspaper and promptly sent the insect to a swift death with one mighty smack.

"Sorry," Lily grunted as she swept it up and deposited it in the trash. She washed her hands and joined her on the couch. She pulled her knees up to her chest and balanced her plate on them. "So, you're late on a report. That's what Gloria said."

Kallie sighed and turned so she was facing her friend. She set her plate on the couch and shoved rice onto her pita absentmindedly. Lily raised an eyebrow at her reaction and Kallie avoided her gaze by staring out the dirty window behind the couch.

"You never turn in anything late. In fact, I vividly recall you telling me that once you turned in a science project late in fifth grade and you cried yourself to sleep."

"Something's wrong with the numbers," Kallie admitted. "I keep trying to figure out what's not working, but I don't know. There's a gaping hole in some of the financial records."

Lily scooped up some hummus on her pita and popped it in her mouth. She chewed as her brows furrowed and her eyes narrowed, a good indication that she was deep in thought.

"How gaping?"

"What was the applied sciences budget last year?"

"Thirty million, give or take. I'd have to pull the reports up again for the exact figure."

"Well, the annual budget says you were allotted three hundred million."

Lily choked on the water she was currently sipping and spluttered out a cough as she set the glass back on the windowsill and wiped her mouth with her sweatshirt sleeve. Kallie waved her fork as though she was placing a magic spell over her and then nodded along to Lily's frantic hand waves.

"Holy fucking shit, yeah that's a big difference! Have you told anyone yet?"

"No! I don't know what to do. If I don't report it, I'm complicit in embezzling funds. If I report it, well...this is Gotham."

The locked eyes and Lily grimaced. Kallie was right. This was Gotham. If she reported it to the wrong person, then her body would most likely end up in some East End alley or thrown into Gotham Harbor.

Lily curled her hand around her friend's wrist and squeezed gently. "I'll talk to Mr. Fox. I trust him. We'll figure something out. I won't let anything happen to you, okay?"

"You can't promise that."

The raven haired girl grimaced and glanced at the city outside. "Kallie, you know me. I kept Nadia and I alive on the streets of the deadliest city in America. I made hard choices, did things I'm not proud of, but I survived."

Her dark eyes met Kallie's once more. "I won't let anything happen to you. That's a promise."

The mood in the apartment lightened when Miles and Geena returned, overflowing with anecdotes about their students. Exhaustion took hold of them quickly, however, and after watching a few episodes of some shitty sitcom, they all trickled to their respective bedrooms.

"Did you take your hormones?" Lily asked as Kallie got up.

"Yes, mom," she drawled. "You're worse than my actual mother. I haven't missed a dose since I started, thank you very much."

"You're telling me fourteen year old Kallie never forgot her meds? Jeez, you really were high strung from day one."

"It helped that I never had to worry about a period. One less thing for me to have to worry about."

"As if that would have stopped you from keeping a color coded calendar above your desk. You used stickers, didn't you? Sparkly shit. Scratch n' sniff. The works."

She swatted Lily's leg, but her laughter betrayed her. "Thank you for checking, though. Mac would just throw the bottle at my head as a reminder."

"The offer to key his car is still on the table."

Kallie rolled her eyes and disappeared down the hall to Lily's room. The dark haired woman stretched out onto the threadbare couch and pulled a thin blanket off of the back and over herself. She stared up blankly at the ceiling that was illuminated by the lights of the city and mentally ran over the list of facts in her head.

Earle wants the company to go private. The financial reports don't line up. Where did the extra 270 million go? They moved Fox to applied sciences three years ago. They've been planning this. Is Wayne connected with this? Does he know? Is he in on it?

And then the whole damn city seemed to erupt.