My Family Abandoned Me in the Woods novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Microphone

The spotlight was hot on my face, and five thousand people turned in their seats.

I heard my own name pass through the dark in a rolling whisper.

Nolan's hand closed around mine.

"You don't have to," he said, quietly. "We have another way."

"I know."

"Say the word."

"I'm going to say a lot of words," I said, and stood up.

An usher in a black shirt hurried down the aisle with a microphone in his hand.

He was young and nervous, and he looked back toward the stage as he came.

I understood that he had been told to give it to me.

I understood why.

A microphone Brooke's team controlled could be switched off at any time.

I took it anyway.

"Hi, Brooke," I said.

My voice went out over the whole room, calm and clear.

On the stage she smiled, her best smile, with her head tilted.

"Callie. Thank you for coming. Everyone, this is my sister."

"I'm going to tell you what happened in November of 2013."

"Of course. We all want to hear it."

"I was sixteen. Brooke was fourteen." I looked at the woman on the second chair. "There were three of them in the car, and me in the back seat."

Someone in the audience whispered, "Wait."

"Brooke held the camera. She called it Day One of the Brooke Show. A seventeen-year-old boy drove."

"That's a lie," Brooke said, quick and bright.

"I told them to stop the car. The doors had child locks."

"You weren't..."

"I couldn't open them." My voice did not break. "We left a fifteen-year-old boy at the creek in November with no gloves, and I went home and I lay in bed. The next day my mother sat me down at the kitchen table and told me what to say to the sheriff."

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