Chapter 5: Get Her Out

"Security," Vaughn said into the microphone.

His voice was flat, and the whole room heard it.

I kept walking.

Two men in dark suits came down the side aisles toward me.

I reached the foot of the stage before either of them reached me.

"Vaughn Alden," I said, loud enough for the back tables. "Five minutes. That's all I'm asking."

"You have no right to be here."

"I know."

"Get her out."

"Your son is dying."

The room made a sound.

It was not a gasp.

It was a hundred people deciding at once that they had misheard.

Vaughn did not move.

His hand was still wrapped around Kendra's, and his knuckles had gone white.

"What did you say?"

"You have a son," I said. "He's five."

"He's in a hospital bed tonight, and the doctors say you are his best chance."

Kendra let go of his hand.

She stepped to the edge of the stage with her palm out, calming a child.

"Geneva," she said, gently. "Sweetheart. You're not well."

"I'm well enough to say what I came to say."

"We all know how hard it's been for you."

"Please don't do this here, tonight, with my sister's name on the wall."

A woman near the front hissed.

"That's her," someone said. "That's the woman from the letter."

Phones came up all over the room.

I felt them on my face.

"Ansley's mother taught the board to fire me," I said. "You all know that story. I'm done defending it."

"Take her out," said Ansley's mother from the front table, standing again, her voice breaking.

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