The gala dragged on, but the atmosphere had permanently shifted.
The air in the ballroom felt thick, suffocating. The whispers followed Dean and Kelly everywhere they went, a relentless, buzzing swarm of social execution.
Corrie felt the heat of the room pressing against her skin. The smell of expensive perfumes and roasted meats was making her throat itch.
She set her half-empty glass of sparkling water on a silver tray. Without a word to anyone, she turned and walked toward the grand staircase, seeking the cold, empty air of the second-floor gallery.
She climbed the stairs, her hand trailing lightly against the polished mahogany banister.
Down below, Kelly was standing near the restrooms. Her face was stained with ruined mascara. Two of her closest friends had just made a pathetic excuse to leave her side, treating her like a leper.
Kelly looked up and saw Corrie's back disappearing onto the second-floor landing.
A violent, blinding surge of hatred exploded in Kelly's chest. Her blood pounded in her ears, drowning out the classical music. She lost every ounce of rational thought.
She grabbed the heavy skirts of her ruined Chanel dress and sprinted up the stairs, her heels digging viciously into the carpet.
Corrie was standing near the edge of the second-floor balcony, looking down at the crowd. The area was dimly lit, far away from the chandeliers.
"You bitch!"
The venomous hiss came from right behind her.
Corrie didn't jump. She slowly turned around.
Kelly was standing three feet away. Her chest was heaving, her face contorted into an ugly, unrecognizable mask of pure rage. Spittle flew from her lips as she breathed.
"You did that on purpose," Kelly snarled, her voice a ragged whisper. She took a step closer, invading Corrie's personal space. "I stood behind the heavy velvet curtain of the second-floor window and watched you step out of that car on your first day," Kelly hissed, her eyes wild with manic hatred. "I saw the cheap dirt on your boots. I knew immediately you were a parasite!" "You humiliated my mother. You ruined my life in front of everyone!"
Corrie looked at her. She didn't see a threat. She saw a pathetic, rabid dog barking at a wall.
Corrie took a sip of her water. The ice clinked softly against the glass.
"You bought the trash, Kelly," Corrie said, her voice a dead, emotionless flatline. "I just wore it. If the truth ruins your life, maybe you shouldn't be such a cheap, malicious little brat."
The words hit Kelly like a physical slap to the face.
Kelly's eyes darted wildly. She looked over the balcony railing. Down below, directly in their line of sight, a group of wealthy investors and their wives were looking up, their attention drawn by Kelly's aggressive posture.
A dark, psychotic light flashed in Kelly's eyes.
If she couldn't win the social war, she would destroy Corrie's life.
Kelly lunged forward. She threw her hands out and clamped her fingers around Corrie's left wrist. Her acrylic nails dug brutally into Corrie's skin, drawing tiny beads of blood.
Corrie's combat instincts flared instantly. Her muscles coiled. Her right hand twitched, ready to deliver a palm strike to Kelly's throat that would crush her windpipe.
But Corrie's hyper-vigilant brain processed the angle, the audience below, and the psychotic gleam in Kelly's eyes in a fraction of a second.
She aborted the strike. She froze her body completely, turning herself into a statue.
Kelly threw her head back. She opened her mouth and let out a blood-curdling, ear-piercing scream that ripped through the ballroom, shattering the polite chatter. The string quartet below abruptly stopped playing in shock, plunging the cavernous space into a sudden, deadly silence.
In that perfectly timed void, Kelly violently ripped her own hands away from Corrie's wrist and hurled her upper body backward.
"Corrie, no! Please don't push me!" Kelly shrieked as she fell, her voice echoing perfectly off the vaulted ceilings for every single guest to hear.
She intentionally threw herself down the grand staircase.
Her body hit the first carpeted step with a heavy thud. She tumbled backward, her limbs flailing, her expensive dress tearing as she rolled violently down the steep incline.
She hit the marble floor at the bottom of the stairs with a sickening, bone-jarring crack.
The entire ballroom erupted into absolute chaos.
Women screamed. Glasses shattered on the floor.
"Kelly!"
Dean's voice tore through the room, a raw, animalistic shriek of terror. She shoved past a waiter, sending a tray of champagne crashing to the floor, and threw herself onto the marble next to her daughter.
Kelly lay crumpled on the floor. A thin stream of dark red blood trickled from a gash on her forehead, staining the white marble. She was crying hysterically, her body shaking.
Kelly lifted a trembling, blood-stained finger. She pointed straight up the stairs.
"She pushed me," Kelly sobbed, her voice echoing in the dead silence of the horrified crowd. "Corrie tried to kill me."
Hundreds of eyes snapped upward.
They locked onto Corrie, who was standing perfectly still at the top of the stairs, a glass of water still in her hand.
The whispers instantly turned into a roar of condemnation.
"Monster," a woman hissed.
"Call the police! She's a psychopath!" a man yelled.
George Warren pushed through the crowd. His face was purple with rage. The veins in his neck bulged against his collar. He took the stairs two at a time, his heavy footsteps shaking the wood.
He reached the landing and stopped inches from Corrie's face.
"What have you done?!" George roared, his spit hitting Corrie's cheek. His hands were shaking so violently he looked like he was having a seizure. "Are you insane?! You tried to murder your sister?!"
Brad ran to the bottom of the stairs, pointing up. "Throw her out! Lock her up! She's a freak from the slums!"
Corrie looked at George's purple face. She looked down at Dean, who was cradling Kelly, shooting Corrie a look of absolute, victorious venom.
Corrie didn't panic. Her heart rate didn't even elevate.
She took a slow, deliberate sip of her water.
"Call the police," Corrie said. Her voice was calm, cold, and projected perfectly over the screaming crowd. "And while we wait, have Davis pull the security footage from the second-floor hallway camera."
Dean's heart leaped with a dark, vicious thrill. That camera? She had personally taken a pair of wire cutters to its power supply two days ago. There was absolutely no way it caught anything.
"The camera?" Dean yelled, her voice dripping with fake tears and real venom. "The camera in that hallway has been broken for two days! You knew that! You planned this in a blind spot, you sick, twisted girl!"
The crowd gasped. The narrative was set. Premeditated attempted murder.
George raised his right hand. His palm was open, his muscles trembling as he prepared to strike his eldest daughter across the face.
Corrie didn't flinch.
She calmly reached into the pocket of her deconstructed dress with her free hand. She pulled out her matte-black smartphone.
Her thumb swiped across the screen, bypassing the lock. She tapped an icon that looked like a jagged lightning bolt.
"Broken?" Corrie asked, her lips curling into a terrifying, razor-sharp smirk. "That's funny. Because my feed looks crystal clear."
She hit a single button on her screen.
Behind George, in the center of the ballroom, hung a massive, 100-inch LED screen that had been displaying the Warren Foundation logo all night.
The screen suddenly went black.
A loud, electronic chirp echoed through the room's surround-sound speakers.
The screen flared back to life.
It wasn't showing a logo. It was showing a high-definition, night-vision enhanced security feed. The timestamp in the corner read exactly two minutes ago.
The entire ballroom froze. George slowly turned his head to look at the screen.
The video played in absolute silence.
It showed Corrie standing perfectly still, holding her glass. It showed Kelly sprinting up the stairs, her face twisted in rage.
The crowd watched in breathless horror as the high-definition camera captured Kelly lunging forward. They saw Kelly's hands clamp onto Corrie's wrist. They saw Corrie freeze like a statue.
And then, they saw Kelly scream, let go of Corrie, and violently throw herself backward down the stairs.
Corrie hadn't moved a single muscle.
The video ended, and immediately looped back to the beginning, playing the damning evidence over and over again.
The silence in the ballroom was absolute. It was the silence of a vacuum.
Kelly, lying on the floor, stopped crying. The blood drained from her face so fast she looked like a corpse.
Dean stared at the massive screen. Her mouth hung open. A cold, paralyzing dread seized her heart, squeezing it until she couldn't breathe.
She had personally cut the wires to that camera two days ago. It was physically impossible for it to be recording.
Unless the girl standing at the top of the stairs wasn't just a rust-belt dropout.
Corrie looked down at Dean's terrified, pale face. Corrie's eyes were black voids.
The trap hadn't been set by Kelly. The trap had been set by Corrie. And they had walked right into it.
