The holding cell smells like bleach and old sweat. I sit on the concrete bench with my back against the wall, my right arm cradled against my chest. The shoulder is swollen now. Tight and hot. Every small movement sends lightning down to my fingertips.
A woman across from me is asleep on the floor, curled around her shoes like they might get stolen. Another one paces near the bars, muttering to herself. The fluorescent lights never turn off. I don't know what time it is. I don't know how long I've been here.
The woman on the bench next to me shifts closer. She's older, maybe fifty, with tired eyes and a scar across her jaw. She looks at my arm.
"What happened?" she asks.
I swallow. My throat is dry. "I fell."
She studies me for a long moment. Then she nods and looks away. She doesn't believe me. But she doesn't push.
I press my thumb into my left wrist and count. One. Two. Three. The shoulder throbs with my heartbeat. I can feel the bone sitting wrong, pressing into places it shouldn't be. I try to breathe shallow so it won't move.
Sometime later—hours, maybe—a guard comes and takes me to a medical station. It's just a desk with a blood pressure cuff and a scale. A man in scrubs who looks half asleep tells me to sit. He touches my shoulder and I bite down on my lip so hard I taste copper.
"How long's it been like this?" he asks.
"Since yesterday."
He writes something on a clipboard. "You need an orthopedic consult. Probable nerve damage. I'm flagging this for follow-up."
He doesn't say when the follow-up will be. He doesn't give me anything for the pain. He just sends me back to the cell.
I sit on the bench and watch the lights hum. I think about Drew's hand on my arm. The sound my shoulder made. The way he looked at me after, like I deserved it.
I close my eyes. I don't sleep.
Morning comes with a guard calling my name. Someone posted bail. I stand up too fast and the room tilts. My shoulder screams. I follow the guard down a hallway that smells like industrial cleaner and out into a processing area where I sign papers I don't read.
Joshua Bell is waiting in the lobby.
He's standing near the window with his hands in his pockets, and when he sees me he doesn't smile or rush forward. He just walks over, steady and unhurried, and says, "Let's go."
I follow him to his car. It's clean inside. Quiet. He doesn't ask what happened. He doesn't ask if I'm okay. He starts the engine and pulls into traffic, and after a long silence he says, "Where do you need to go?"
My voice comes out rough. "The cemetery. I need to see my father."
He nods. He doesn't ask why. He just drives.
The ride is long. I watch the city pass outside the window—buildings, billboards, people going to work like the world is still normal. My shoulder pulses with every bump in the road. I cradle it with my left hand and press my thumb into my wrist. One. Two. Three.
Joshua doesn't fill the silence. He just drives, calm and deliberate, like there's nowhere else he needs to be.
When we pull into the cemetery, I see them immediately.
Workers. Three of them, with shovels and crowbars, tearing apart my father's grave. The headstone is tipped on its side. Memorial flowers are scattered across churned mud. One man is prying up the stone border. Another is digging.
I'm out of the car before it fully stops.
My legs are shaking. My shoulder is on fire. I stumble across the grass toward the grave, and that's when I see her.
Giselle.
She's standing near the edge of the plot, arms crossed, watching the workers like she's supervising a home renovation. She's dressed in a soft cream coat, hair perfect, face calm. She looks up when I approach, and for a moment something flickers across her expression—surprise, maybe, or annoyance that I'm here.
One of the workers straightens up, wiping his forehead. "This the right plot?" he asks Giselle.
"Yes," she says. Her voice is light. Casual. "Just make sure you get all of it. The family wants it cleared."
The worker grunts and goes back to digging. Another one laughs—low and ugly. "Old man probably didn't even see it coming," he says. "Driver said he barely had to swerve."
Giselle's mouth curves. "He nearly botched it," she says. "The whole point was to make it look clean. Not some sloppy accident."
The words land like a fist to my chest.
I stop walking. The ground tilts under me. My father's grave is being torn apart in front of me, and Giselle just confessed—casually, carelessly—that his death was never an accident at all.
She hired the driver. She killed him.
I don't think. I just move.
I lunge at her, my good arm reaching, my voice ripping out of my throat in something that isn't words. I don't know what I'm trying to do. Hit her. Hurt her. Make her feel a fraction of what she's taken from me.
I don't reach her.
Hands catch me from behind—strong, familiar. Drew.
He yanks me backward, his arm across my chest, and I scream. My shoulder tears apart all over again. The pain is total. Blinding.
"Let her go," Joshua's voice cuts through, sharp and close.
But Drew doesn't let go. He's holding me like I'm the threat. Like I'm the one who needs to be restrained.
One of the workers spits into the dirt near my feet. "Crazy bitch," he mutters.
Drew's grip tightens. Then his hand moves—fast, brutal—and he strikes me across the face.
The world goes white.
I'm on the ground. Mud under my knees. Blood in my mouth. My father's overturned headstone two feet from my face.
I hear Joshua shouting. I hear Drew's voice, cold and distant. I hear Giselle laughing softly.
I press my forehead into the dirt and close my eyes.
I'm done.
