My Boyfriend and Brother Left Me in the Escape Room novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Every Lantern

The first lantern came on at the back. The second came on at table nine.

Then they were everywhere.

Sixty tables, six hundred gold chairs, and a warm white light rising across the dark.

I could see the room again. I could see the faces turned up to the stage.

I could see my mother at table one, standing, with a lantern held high in both hands.

The aides' grip loosened.

I tore my arms free and stepped back.

"Don't touch me," I said, and my voice rang across the ballroom.

"Ma'am, you need to-"

"Those are not nurses," said a man's voice from the stage steps.

Orin came up out of the lantern light with his phone in his hand and the night manager behind him.

"Their ambulance has no clinic name. They have a clinician's letter with no doctor's signature on it, and a wellness hold nobody has ordered." He held up his screen. "Mr. Strathern told the police all about it this afternoon."

"Sir, we're licensed," the taller aide said.

"Then show the room your license."

She looked out over six hundred upturned faces and six hundred phones.

The two women stepped back from me, then another step. One of them took her lanyard off.

"We were told she was a danger to herself," the shorter one muttered. "We have to go."

"Security, please escort them out the dock door," the night manager said, very loud.

They walked out through the wings with their heads down. Nobody clapped.

Lyla stood at center stage in the lantern light, her microphone still up.

For the first time that night her smile was not working.

"This is a stunt," she told the room. "A cruel, planned stunt. I came here to forgive her."

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